21 Rohingya Drown As Boat Capsizes; World Silent

At least 21 people, belonging to the persecuted Rohingya minority in Myanmar, drowned after their boat capsized near Sittwe Township on Tuesday. 

“There are conflicting reports of the precise number of people on board but local reports say that at least 15 are still missing,” said Chris Lewa of the Arakan Project which monitors Rohingya migrants. 

"This accident serves as a tragic reminder of the vulnerability that many communities and families face in this area of Rakhine," said Janet Jackson, the UN's resident and humanitarian co-ordinator in Myanmar. "Their only option is to use this mode of travel in order to access livelihoods, and other basic services that are essential for a dignified life,” Jackson added referring to the travel ban imposed on the minority community. In addition to their movement, access to services, including healthcare, is severely restricted by authorities. 

Tuesday’s incident barely made headlines, as the Rohingya are rarely accorded space in the narrative on global refugees. Last year, for a brief period, the Rohingya claimed international attention as several boats carrying members of the group who were fleeing their home country were stranded at sea, being denied entry from destination countries such as Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia. (Courtesy of thecitizen.in)

Fighting in Rakhine Forces 300 Hundred Myanmar Villagers to Flee Homes

Ongoing clashes between Myanmar army soldiers and an armed ethnic group have forced about 300 villagers in Buthidaung township to flee their homes in western Myanmar’s war-ravaged Rakhine state, a local government official said.

About 30 children and senior citizens are among those who left the area during the latest army offensive against the Arakan Army (AA), said Shwe Kyaw Aung, director of Buthidaung’s development committee.

The refugees have sought shelter in the township’s Sithaung village, according to local media reports.

“Township administrators, members of parliament, and some civil society organizations are helping them find food and a place to stay,” he told RFA’s Myanmar Service. “We have placed them at the village’s middle school.” (Courtesy of RFA)

Bangladesh Deports Hundreds of Rohingya Muslims to Myanmar

Bangladesh’s border guard this month deported at least 340 Muslim Myanmar nationals – more commonly known as Rohingyas – without any resistance from Myanmar border police, the head of the agency said Thursday.

“Over the last 20 days, we caught illegal Myanmar nationals, photographed them and sent 340 of them back to their homeland,” Lt. Col. Imran Ullah Sarker, chief executive of the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), told BenarNews.

The latest batch of 20 Rohingyas was turned back Wednesday with no obstruction from the BGB’s counterpart on the Myanmar side of the border, after these members of the neighboring county’s Muslim minority were caught trying to cross into Bangladesh without proper papers, Sarker said.

The process of catching and sending Rohingyas back to Myanmar has, in fact, been occurring over the past several months, leading to a slight reduction in the number entering Bangladesh, he added.

“This is very unusual that the Myanmar border police have allowed the Rohingyas in,” former Bangladeshi ambassador Ashfaqur Rahman told BenarNews. (Courtesy of benarnews.org)

Student activist returns home to fight malaria

On a blistering hot October day last year, the air thick with impending rain, Myaing Myaing Nyunt and I lurch in a wooden oxcart toward Sa-ka-pin, a small village in the rich agricultural lowlands about 20 kilometers northeast of Mandalay, Myanmar. We grip the splintery sides of the cart as the animals plunge chest deep in the muck; when they swish their tails, mud splatters everywhere. It’s 1 month before Myanmar’s historic election, and with us in the back is a young doctor with “NLD,” the initials of Aung San Suu Kyi’s opposition party, the National League for Democracy, shaved into his close-cropped hair. A second cart carrying township medical officers follows close behind. We stop at a wide, shallow river, where a man in a dugout canoe ferries us across. Two more carts are waiting for us.

Nyunt, a malariologist at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMD) in Baltimore, is visiting Sa-ka-pin to assess the extent of one of the biggest problems facing an ambitious campaign to wipe out malaria from the Mekong region (see feature story on How drug resistance triggers war to wipe out malaria in the Mekong region): the number of people infected with malaria who have no symptoms. It’s part of a unique collaboration led by Nyunt and her husband, molecular epidemiologist and malariologist Chris Plowe, who heads the Institute for Global Health at UMD. They are working with government scientists in Myanmar to forge the scientific and political links needed to drive malaria from her native country. The project has brought Nyunt back to Myanmar after more than a quarter-century of living abroad, much of it in exile. (Courtesy of sciencemag.org)

Indo-Myanmar media dialogue discusses issues of both countries

An Indo-Myanmar media dialogue with participation from journalists and academicians has discussed a wide range of issues concerning both the countries.

The two-day event jointly, organised by Heinrich Boell Foundation, Institute of Social Sciences, Burma Centre, Delhi and Asian Confluence here saw participation of a six-member delegation from Myanmar.

Myanmar's Member of Parliament from Kachin and Shan states and Pulitzer prize winning journalist Ester Htu San said there is a need for Indian media's presence in Myanmar.

She said there is huge presence of Chinese media in Myanmar and exchange of dialogue between China and Myanmar often takes place. (Courtesy of Business Standard News)

New luxury river cruise gives fine taste of Myanmar’s culture

When the snow in the highest Himalayas melts, the Irra-waddy river swells almost to bursting each August. Yet by January, the water lapping at the banks of Myanmar’s life-giving river had receded so far that our ship occasionally had to alter its course.

Jutting out from the coffee-coloured waters were ridges and mounds of sand that the captain was no doubt keen to avoid. After all, the Strand Cruise, the floating offshoot of Yangon’s famed colonial-era hotel, had only been in service a few short months. An upside was found to those pesky sandbanks, however, in a manner typical of this trip: they provided the setting for imbibing glasses of champagne as twilight fell on the penultimate evening of the journey.

The Irrawaddy flows from those northern snow-capped peaks through the heart of Myanmar before emptying into the Andaman Sea, making it the country’s longest river. It is navigable for about 1,500km from its mouth, but for those who wish to soak up Myanmar’s key cultural sites, the stretch between Bagan and Mandalay holds the greatest allure. (Courtesy of sea-globe.com)

Denial of healthcare” used by Burmese regimes as a Genocide weapon against Rohingya

European Rohingya Council has participated in two expert panel discussions, organized by ISCI and Waging peace on the Genocide happening in Sudan and in Burma against Rohingya minority. The first panel discussion was held in Parliament at the House of Lords on Thursday 14th April and second one was on Monday 18th April 2016 at the Queen Marry University of London.

The idea of these panels is to focus on the failures of the international community in Sudan and Myanmar, and the lessons that could potentially be learned to go forward. ISCI researchers recently travelled to Myanmar, and produced a report which agrees that the Rohingya are now facing the final stages of a genocidal process. And as the situation in Darfur again deteriorates, many are concerned that genocide is still in its 13th year. Therefore the question of the international response to both situations needs to be brought into more serious attention. (Courtesy of theerc.net)