Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh face relocation to island

A government directive said they would be transferred to Thengar Char before being repatriated to Myanmar.

Rights groups have raised strong objections to the plan, saying it amounts to a forced relocation.

Thengar Char is engulfed by several feet of water at high tide, and has no roads or flood defences.

It was formed about a decade ago by sediment from the River Meghna, and does not appear on most maps. The low-lying land is around 30km (18 miles) east of Hatiya island, which has a population of 600,000 - and nine hours' journey from the camps where the Rohingya have taken shelter. (Courtesy of bbc.com)

Myanmar's Rohingya: Truth, lies and Aung San Suu Kyi

A government-appointed investigation is due to publish its final report on whether atrocities have been committed against the Rohingya minority in Myanmar, also known as Burma.

With journalists banned from northern Rakhine state, the Burmese government has been trying to counter allegations that its soldiers have been raping and killing civilians.

Readers have told us they would like to know more about Rakhine and what is happening to civilians there.

We asked our correspondent Jonah Fisher, in Myanmar, to tell us more. (Courtesy of bbc.com)

Myanmar Shrugs Off International Pressure Over Rohingya Crackdown

Myanmar has been under growing international pressure over its months-long, brutal security operations in Rohingya Muslim communities in Rakhine State, and last week saw another barrage of criticism from Malaysia and a United Nations human rights rapporteur.

But the democratic government of de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi has resisted the pressure and defended the military against allegations of massive rights abuses — to the frustration of the international community, where many have launched harsh criticisms of the democracy idol.

The situation has exposed the complexities of the Rakhine crisis and prompted calls for a change in the approach of foreign governments to dealing with Myanmar’s National League for Democracy (NLD) government and the army. (Courtesy of voanews.com)

The harrowing stories of Rohingya women who were raped by Myanmar military

More than 65,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar since October last year, after the Burmese army launched a crackdown in Rakhine State. This was in response to what they say was an attack by Rohingya insurgents in which nine police officers were killed. Waves of Rohingya civilians have since fled across the border, most living in makeshift camps and refugee centres. Many tell harrowing stories of the Burmese army committing human-rights abuses, such as gang rape, arson and extrajudicial killing.

American photojournalist Allison Joyce spent some time at refugee camps in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. IBTimes UK shares her sensitive portraits of Rohingya women, along with their harrowing stories of being raped by the Burmese military, to help bring the plight of these oppressed people to a wider audience.

Nojiba came to Bangladesh two months ago from Delpara village in Myanmar. She describes a happy life living in Myanmar until three months ago when the military suddenly started coming to her village, beating, killing and harassing people. "I felt scared, I prayed and read the Koran, hoping to feel better. I lived in a constant state of fear." Nojiba says. "The day before I fled to Bangladesh the military came again to our village. They found the place in the bush where I was hiding with other women and girls. They took the young girls into nearby houses and beat and raped them. I could hear their screams. One soldier put a gun to my head and said 'Let's go'. I started screaming and fighting back and three men dragged me to a room in a nearby house. They held a gun to my head and two soldiers took turns raping me for an hour." (Courtesy of ibtimes.co.uk)

Rohingya Children Give Eyewitness Accounts of Atrocities in Myanmar

Rohingya boys and girls as young as 11 and 12 spoke of atrocities they had witnessed that forced them to flee Myanmar’s Rakhine state in recent weeks, with some telling BenarNews they saw Burmese security personnel burn their siblings alive.

A correspondent for BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service, interviewed at least 19 children during visits to refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, a district in southeastern Bangladesh where some 65,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled from Rakhine state since early October, according to U.N. estimates.

“The military whisked away my brother and killed him, set fire to our house, and tortured the women,” said Tasmin Khatun, 11, using a term that refers to the rape of women. (Courtesy of rfa.org)

Myanmar rebuffs Malaysia for organizing OIC meeting on Rohingya

Myanmar rebuffed Malaysia on Saturday for organizing a meeting of Muslim governments to put pressure on Myanamar over the plight of Rohingya Muslims following a military crackdown that sent at least 66,000 people fleeing to Bangladesh.

Hosting a meeting of representatives from the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation on Thursday, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak called on Myanmar to stop attacking, and discriminating against the Rohingya minority.

Najib urged the OIC, which groups 57 Muslim nations, to act to end the unfolding "humanitarian tragedy".

In response, Myanmar, a mostly Buddhist country, said it was "regrettable" that Malaysia had called the meeting, and accused Kuala Lumpur of exploiting the crisis "to promote a certain political agenda" and disregard for the government's efforts to address it. (Courtesy of reuters.com)

U.N. rights expert criticizes Myanmar over Rohingya crackdown

A United Nations human rights investigator on Friday criticized Myanmar's crackdown on the Rohingya Muslim minority and urged the military to respect the law and human rights.

Authorities say the military launched a security sweep in response to what they say was an attack in October by Rohingya insurgents on border posts near Myanmar's border with Bangladesh in which nine police officers were killed.

Since then, at least 86 people have been killed and the United Nations says at least 65,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh.

Residents and refugees accuse the military of killing, raping and detaining civilians while burning villages in northwestern Rakhine State. (Courtesy of reuters.com)

Interviews: One in Three Rohingya Women Refugees Say They Were Raped

One in three women interviewed by BenarNews this week in Bangladesh’s refugee camps for Rohingya Muslims who fled violence in Myanmar claimed they were raped by security forces before their escape.

A BenarNews correspondent, who spent four days visiting the camps in southeastern Cox’s Bazar district, reported that 17 of the 54 Rohingya women she interviewed said they were raped while Myanmar’s military launched a brutal crackdown in northern Rakhine state, after nine police officers were attacked and killed by an armed Rohingya insurgent group in October.

Numerous reports of rape and other atrocities had emerged since the post-attack crackdown, which led to some 65,000 Rohingya entering Bangladesh, but this is the first time that numbers were cited based on random surveys of the extent of sexual assaults on women. (Courtesy of benarnews.org)

Myanmar civil bodies want ‘truly independent’ probe in Rakhine state attack

More than 40 Myanmar-based civil society organisations today called for a “truly independent” international investigation into the situation in Rakhine State, where state-sponsored attacks against Rohingya Muslim civilians have escalated in recent months.

Muslim and Buddhist communities in Rakhine State have faced human rights violations with impunity for decades, according to a news release issued by the Fortify Rights, a regional human rights body based in Thailand.

The joint statement by the 41 organisations recommends the establishment of a “commission of inquiry to fully assess the totality of the situation in Rakhine State and provide clear recommendations for the current government to effectively address and prevent further problems.” (Courtesy of thedailystar.net)

Rohingya FC vs. Myanmar: a peacebuilding plan

After years of neglect in the field of politics, a group of Rohingya refugees in Kuala Lumpur has moved to the football pitch to begin building a better future for its community. For two years, the Rohingya Football Club has won friends and supporters around Malaysia for the Rohingya cause, and now, team the hopes to one day do the same in its homeland.

“The main objective of the Rohingya FC is to be a national team that represents the Rohingya people,” team chairman and co-founder Muhammad Noor told Coconuts Yangon. “We want to tell Rohingya youngsters that they can be whatever they want in the world. We want to promote the social development of our people.”

Inspired by the Olympic Refugee Team, Rohingya FC was founded in January 2015 by bringing together Rohingya football enthusiasts from around Malaysia to represent their community on a single team. (Courtesy of yangon.coconuts.co)

OIC envoy calls for U.N. intervention to avoid genocide of Rohingya Muslims

The United Nations should intervene in Myanmar's Rakhine State to stop further escalation of violence against Rohingya Muslims and avoid another genocide like in Cambodia and Rwanda, said the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation's special envoy to Myanmar.

The conflict which has left at least 86 dead and an estimated 66,000 people fleeing into Bangladesh since it started on Oct. 9, 2016, is no longer an internal issue but of international concern, said Syed Hamid Albar, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Special Envoy to Myanmar.

Syed Hamid said the OIC should seek U.N. intervention. His comments come ahead of a special OIC meeting called by Malaysia on Thursday to discuss measures to deal with the conflict affecting the Rohingya minority, who are predominantly Muslim. (Courtesy of uk.reuters.com)

How to make a terrorist

The continuing military operations in western Myanmar have triggered a major humanitarian crisis. More than 65,000 refugees have fled an army and paramilitary police crackdown aimed specifically at Rohingya people and villages. Myanmar's de facto leader and foreign minister, Aung San Suu Kyi, sent a special envoy to Bangladesh last week to discuss the border crisis. But a parallel danger has emerged in the form of a Bengali terrorist group seeking to cause more problems.

It is clear now that the Myanmar military's "clearing operations" in Rakhine State neighbouring Bangladesh are sheer retaliation against the innocent. The cause of the violence against the Rohingya was a coordinated attack last Oct 9 on several Myanmar police posts. An estimated 200 armed men attacked the posts in Maungdaw district of Rakhine. This western Myanmar region area has a number of Rohingya villages nad the Myanmar armed forces and paramilitary police immediately set about those villages on Oct 10 and have not ceased since.

The armed October attack on the police posts were led by a Bangladesh-based terrorist group. It is called Aqa Mul Mujahidin or Faith Movement of Arakan -- "Arakan" being the term used recently to describe what is now called Rakhine state. Looking at the larger militant picture in Bangladesh, Aqa Mul Mujahidin is considered a small jihadist group, posing no threat to the central powers either in in Bangladesh or Myanmar. (Courtesy of bangkokpost.com)

Syed Hamid: OIC looks to restore Rohingya’s status in Myanmar

The emergency meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation Foreign Ministers this Thursday in Kuala Lumpur will discuss restoring the status of the Rohingya in Myanmar.

OIC Special Envoy for Myanmar Tan Sri Syed Hamid Albar said the main objective was to create protection for the ethnic minority, whose rights as citizens have been denied.

“Malaysia proposed the meeting because of the urgency of the matter, and not because we want to interfere in Myanmar’s internal affairs. Neither do we want to confront the Myanmar government.

“This is not a communal issue as claimed by the government but rather a religious issue because they (the Myanmarese) are targeting Muslims in their conflict with the Rohingya,” he told Bernama here today. (Courtesy of themalaymailonline.com)

The Lady and the Rohingya

Just days before the November 2015 general election, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was asked how she would remedy the long-running repression of the Rohingya, a Muslim minority, if her party came to power. She replied: “There’s a Burmese saying: You have to make big problems small and small problems disappear.”

Less than a year after the National League for Democracy’s sweeping victory, the big Rohingya problem had only gotten bigger. Violence broke out in the western state of Rakhine, where most Rohingya live, and Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, who was already being lambasted for seeming indifferent to their hardships, is now accused of silently standing by outright abuses.

Some of the criticism is deserved, but some of it is not, and the N.L.D. government understandably is chafing. But it has been slinging as much mud at activists and independent media as they are hurling accusations at it, and all this is only obscuring the vexing complexities of the situation in Rakhine. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi has inherited an intractable-seeming problem after decades of military rule, and its specifics need to be understood if the Rohingya stand any chance of being helped effectively. (Courtesy of nytimes.com)

Plight of Rohingyas ‘Are we humans?’

Rafiq broke into tears while narrating the graphic and gory details of torture he underwent in Myanmar.

Rafiq’s narrative gives the reader a glimpse of the plight of Rohinyas who are suffering rape, arson and murder in Myanmar’s military crackdown.
“Army men locked up my sons, wife and parents in a room and set it on fire. I lost them all in fire,” said Rafiq.

His 15-year old cousin Majeda was gang-raped by four army men and then shot dead.

He said, “They spared only 26 rich men out of 155 people in the village. The rest were beheaded.”

“Are we not human? Is it our fault to be born as a Rohingyas?” he asked. (Courtesy of en.prothom-alo.com)

Who will help Myanmar's Rohingya?

Rejected by the country they call home and unwanted by its neighbours, the Rohingya are impoverished, virtually stateless and have been fleeing Myanmar in droves and for decades.
In recent months, tens of thousands of Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh amid a military crackdown on insurgents in Myanmar's western Rakhine state.

They have told horrifying stories of rapes, killings and house burnings, which the government of Myanmar - formerly Burma - has claimed are "false" and "distorted".

Activists have condemned the lack of a firm international response. Some have described the situation as South East Asia's Srebrenica, referring to the July 1995 massacre of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims who were meant to be under UN protection - a dark stain on Europe's human rights record. (Courtesy of bbc.com)

Myanmar’s Shameful Denial

Last month, President Obama lifted sanctions against Myanmar, citing “substantial progress in improving human rights” following the historic election victory of the Nobel laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party in November 2015. Tragically, that praise is proving premature.

Hopes that Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi would bring an end to the brutal repression of the Rohingya, a Muslim minority, lie dashed by a military campaign against the Rohingya in Rakhine State that began after an attack on a police station on Oct. 9. Since then, some 34,000 people have fled over the border to Bangladesh amid allegations of murder and rape by military forces, and satellite images of burned villages. At least 86 people have been killed.

Yet, a commission appointed by Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi concluded last week that “there were no cases of genocide and religious persecution in the region.” Human rights groups rightly accuse the commission of a whitewash. In an effort to muzzle reporting, Myanmar’s government has barred independent journalists from the region, and dismissed reports of abuses as “fake news” and “fake rape.” (Courtesy of nytimes.com)

‘There Are No Homes Left’: Rohingya Tell of Rape, Fire and Death in Myanmar

When the Myanmar military closed in on the village of Pwint Phyu Chaung, everyone had a few seconds to make a choice.

Noor Ankis, 25, chose to remain in her house, where she was told to kneel to be beaten, she said, until soldiers led her to the place where women were raped. Rashida Begum, 22, chose to plunge with her three children into a deep, swift-running creek, only to watch as her baby daughter slipped from her grasp.

Sufayat Ullah, 20, also chose the creek. He stayed in the water for two days and finally emerged to find that soldiers had set his family home on fire, leaving his mother, father and two brothers to asphyxiate inside.

These accounts and others, given over the last few days by refugees who fled Myanmar and are now living in Bangladesh, shed light on the violence that has unfolded in Myanmar in recent months as security forces there carry out a brutal counterinsurgency campaign. (Courtesy of nytimes.com)

U.N. rights envoy visits Myanmar amid border violence, report of abuse

U.N. human rights envoy Yanghee Lee has arrived in Myanmar on a 12-day visit amid growing concern about reports of abuse of members of the Rohingya Muslim minority in a government security crackdown.

Attackers killed nine police officers on Oct. 9 in a coordinated assault on posts near Myanmar's border with Bangladesh. Authorities say members of the Rohingya minority carried out the attacks and launched a security sweep.

Since then, at least 86 people have been killed and the United Nations says about 34,000 civilians have fled across the border to Bangladesh.

Residents and refugees accuse the military of killing, raping and arbitrarily detaining civilians while burning villages in northwestern Rakhine State.

The government led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi denies the accusations and insists a lawful counter-insurgency operation is underway. (Courtesy of reuters.com)

Malaysia’s ‘Food Flotilla’ Plans to go Ahead Despite Burma Govt Plea

A Malaysian organization plans to proceed with its controversial Arakan State “food flotilla” later this month despite a plea from Burma’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Malaysian Embassy to block the shipment, organizers confirmed on Monday.

“There is no question about cancelation, no issue at all,” Malaysia Consultative Council of Islamic Organizations (MAPIM) spokesperson Wan Nordin told The Irrawaddy, adding that the group had communicated with the Malaysian authorities but was waiting a reply.

The food flotilla is scheduled to leave Malaysia on Jan. 31. (Courtesy of irrawaddy.com)

Buddhist hardliners stop Myanmar Muslim ceremony

Hardline Buddhist nationalists stopped a Muslim religious ceremony in Yangon on Sunday, witnesses and organisers said, as Islamophobic tensions boil over amid a bloody military campaign against Rohingya in northern Rakhine state.

Dozens of people, led by a handful of maroon-robed monks, marched to the YMCA in Myanmar's commercial capital to shut down a service marking the Prophet Mohammed's birthday.

"We have celebrated this festival for my whole life. Now this seems like an attack on freedom of religion," Kyaw Nyein, secretary of the Ulama Islam organisation, told AFP. (Courtesy of channelnewsasia.com)

Calls to strip Nobel Peace Prize winner of freedom of Newcastle

Calls have been made to strip a Nobel Peace Prize winner of the freedom of Newcastle.

Human rights campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi who was awarded Freedom of Newcastle in 2011, but has come in for strong criticism in recent weeks after violence erupted against Burma’s Rohingya Muslims.

Ms Suu Kyi, the feted pro-democracy activist who spent 15 years under house arrest before being elected as Myanmar’s State Counsellor in 2015, has failed to visit the affected region since the outbreak of violence.

In that time at least 10,000 members of the Muslim ethnic group have been driven across the Bangladeshi border by threat of violence.

Instead, she has repeatedly defended the purges, attacking foreign intervention in the region and demanding: “show me a country without human rights issues”. (Courtesy of chroniclelive.co.uk)

The twin tragedies of Syria and Myanmar

A heart-wrenching photograph of the lifeless body of a 16-month old boy, washed up on the shore of the Naf river, was recently published on CNN. The headline read, “'The Rohingya Alan Kurdi': Will the world take notice now?” The name of the boy in the picture is Mohammed Shohayet, a Rohingya refugee, who drowned along with his mother, uncle and three-year-old brother. The image of Mohammed lying face down on the seashore is a dead ringer for Alan Kurdi, the Syrian boy whose riveting photo made global headlines more than a year ago.

While Alan and Mohammed hail from different countries, the circumstances which led to their premature deaths are very similar, and sadly, all too frequent. Both the Syrian war and the Rohingya tragedy see no end in sight. The Syrians and the Rohingya who have lived in their respective homelands for generations are being forced to make a journey across dangerous terrains and seas to seek refuge. To add to their dehumanising plight and sufferings, both the Syrians and Rohingya are being demonised by the West and Myanmar respectively—the Syrians for fleeing to countries which created the crisis in the first place, and the Rohingya, who, despite having lived in Myanmar for centuries, are being told they don't belong to the place they call home.  (Courtesy of thedailystar.net)

UN rights envoy to probe Myanmar Rohingya violence

The United Nations on Friday (Jan 6) said its human rights envoy for Myanmar will probe escalating violence in the country, including a military crackdown on Rohingya Muslims, when she visits next week.

UN special rapporteur Yanghee Lee's 12-day trip, starting on Monday, will also take her to Kachin state, where thousands have been displaced by fighting between ethnic rebels and the army.

Intensifying clashes between Myanmar's military and ethnic minorities has undercut Aung San Suu Kyi's vow to bring peace to the country following her party's elevation to government last March.

The Nobel prize winner has also faced strong international criticism for failing to rein-in a months-long military crackdown on Rohingya villagers in northern Rakhine State. (Courtesy of straitstimes.com)

US official: In Myanmar crackdown, abuses appear 'normal'

buses appear "normal and allowed" in Myanmar's response to an armed uprising by Rohingya Muslims, a senior U.S. official said in an interview, casting a pall over one of President Barack Obama's legacy foreign policy achievements.

Obama and his advisers have long held up the former pariah nation's U.S.-backed shift from military rule as a breakthrough for American interests and democratic values in Southeast Asia. But the situation in strife-hit Rakhine State makes the transition no straightforward success story.

Rakhine has been largely closed off to foreigners, including aid workers, since a deadly insurgent attack against police in October. Subsequent "clearance operations," led by the military and reminiscent of its decades of junta rule, have left at least dozens dead. Tens of thousands of Rohingya have escaped to neighboring Bangladesh. (Courtesy of chicagotribune.com)

Burmese government dismisses images of 'Rohingya Alan Kurdi' as propaganda

Images have emerged of the body of a baby boy, reported to be a Rohingya Muslim child who drowned while fleeing violence in Burma’s Rakhine state.

Non-state media are banned from entering the north of Burma – making it difficult to verify the the photograph – and the government has dismissed the image as “propaganda”.

Despite documented evidence by human rights organisations, Burmese authorities on Wednesday released a report denying allegations of human rights violations against the country’s Rohingya minority and warning readers against believing “fabricated news and rumours”. (Courtesy of independent.co.uk)

Genocide or Not, Time to Act on Myanmar's Rohingya Crisis

The word genocide is a loaded term. Lawyers, human rights advocates, governments and militaries often spend too much time arguing the finer points of law over whether this crime had actually occurred in areas where there is no doubt that great atrocities took place.

In Cambodia, at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, where Pol Pot’s former henchmen are facing charges of genocide, such arguments are being hotly contested. The expulsion of ethnic Chinese at the point of a gun by the Vietnamese in the late 1970s is another example.

The debate of what constitutes genocide continues to this day in regards to the massacre of communists by Indonesian authorities in the mid-1960s or their treatment of Christians in East Timor during its occupation three decades later.
Enjoying this article? Click here to subscribe for full access. Just $5 a month. (Courtesy of thediplomat.com)

Myanmar to Send Diplomatic Team to Bangladesh to Discuss Rohingya Refugees

The Myanmar government said it hopes to send a special diplomatic team led by the deputy foreign minister to Bangladesh later this month amid increasing tension with the neighboring country over the tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims who have fled Myanmar following violence that began in northern Rakhine state in early October.

“It is possible that a Myanmar special diplomatic team will travel to Bangladesh this month when the Bangladesh prime minister and foreign affairs minister are available to meet them,” said Kyaw Zayya, director general of Myanmar’s foreign affairs ministry, on Thursday.

“We will arrange it through discussions with their government,” he said. “The deputy foreign affairs minister will possibly lead the team. The team will have only three or four members, but it is difficult to say the exact date of the travel.” (Courtesy of rfa.org)

Rohingya Muslim crisis in Myanmar: The warning signs of a possible ‘genocide’

Myanmar has been under severe attack from the international community in recent times for what is being considered as ‘genocide’ against the Rohingya Muslims. Considered by the United Nations as the “most persecuted minority group in the world”, the Rohingyas are a stateless group of people concentrated in western Myanmar, and facing brutal assaults from the Burmese state and military. Since October, frequent reports have come in of the Burmese army burning down Rohingya villages, rapes and murders of the nature of ‘ethnic cleansing’.

Faced with the savagery, about 10,000 Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar have rushed into Bangladesh for refuge. This is not the first time that this group has been seeking shelter from the Bangladeshi government on account of being brutally persecuted at home. Last time a mass exodus of the Rohingyas happened was in 2012 when communal clashes erupted between them and the Rakhine Buddhists who were later represented by the Burmese Army. While Bangladesh remains their favourite destination for decades now, they have been seeking out refuge in other neighbouring countries as well. According to a UN report, at present around 5,500 Rohingya refugees have been registered in India and are living in makeshift camps under precarious conditions. (Courtesy of indianexpress.com)

Govt report on Rakhine State ‘would be laughable if it weren’t so tragic’

Human rights groups have slammed an interim report released by the Maungtaw Region Investigation Commission this week that denies claims of genocide, religious persecution and rape in northern Rakhine State and puts the blame for the violence there almost exclusively on Rohingya insurgents.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) responded to the report, calling it “methodologically flawed” and “a classic example of pre-baked political conclusions”.

The commission drew criticism as soon as it was formed by the office of State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi. The commission is chaired by Myanmar Vice President Myint Swe – a former military general believed to have orchestrated the brutal crackdown on peaceful protesters in the 2007 Saffron Revolution. (Courtesy of yangon.coconuts.co)