Ambia Khatun grabbed her two children and dashed out of her burning house on the early morning of November 23 last year. A teary-eyed Khatun said her husband could not make out of the house as the army started firing.
Thirty-seven-year-old Khatun is from Kearipara village in western Myanmar's Maungdaw town. She says she fled along with other Rohingya families, leaving behind her husband's body, as rows of houses were set on fire by the army.
Along with 2,500 Rohingya families, she has taken refuge at a makeshift camp in Leda at eastern Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar near the border with Myanmar.
"I grabbed my children and ran towards the forest and waited there with several hundred people," she told Al Jazeera at her camp in Leda village.
World Food Programme and other local NGOs have come forward to provide food and emergency medical aid, as Bangladesh has refused to register Rohingya Muslims as refugees.
Nearly 65,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled to neighbouring Bangladesh since October when the army launched a crackdown against the Muslim minority after a deadly attack on a military post. (Courtesy of aljazeera.com)
February 2, 2017
US will continue pressuring Myanmar to resolve Rohingya crisis: Ambassador
Visiting the Rohingya camps in Cox’s Bazar, she on Tuesday said, “The issue can only be resolved in Myanmar, can only be resolved through understanding that the community has a home and has an origin, has a reason to be in Myanmar.”
She said they had been pressuring the Myanmar government at the most senior levels. “And we will continue to put the pressure on.”
Her comment came at a time when the members of Myanmar government-constituted committee investigating violence in Rakhine State are visiting Bangladesh.
Chair of the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission U Win Mra, former Lebanese culture minister and UN Special Adviser to Secretary-General, Ghassan Salame, and Core Member and Founder of Religious for Peace in Myanmar U Aye Lwin arrived in Dhaka on Saturday.
The delegation visited the camps in Cox's Bazaar on Sunday and on Tuesday met Foreign Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal and took part at a closed-door discussion at the Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS) in Dhaka. (Courtesy of bdnews24.com)
She said they had been pressuring the Myanmar government at the most senior levels. “And we will continue to put the pressure on.”
Her comment came at a time when the members of Myanmar government-constituted committee investigating violence in Rakhine State are visiting Bangladesh.
Chair of the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission U Win Mra, former Lebanese culture minister and UN Special Adviser to Secretary-General, Ghassan Salame, and Core Member and Founder of Religious for Peace in Myanmar U Aye Lwin arrived in Dhaka on Saturday.
The delegation visited the camps in Cox's Bazaar on Sunday and on Tuesday met Foreign Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal and took part at a closed-door discussion at the Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS) in Dhaka. (Courtesy of bdnews24.com)
All levels of government administration are under authority of the military chief
As the National League for Democracy (NLD) prepares to take over from the army-backed government of President Thein Sein it faces the challenge of getting a handle on government institutions and possibly reforming them.
One such institution is the General Administration Department (GAD), which functions as the backbone of local administration throughout the country. The GAD falls under the Home Affairs Ministry, which is controlled by an army general in accordance with the Constitution. It pervades Myanmar’s civil service from the state and region level, down to the district, township, village and ward levels.
Created in 1972, the GAD grants Myanmar’s army chief direct, centralised control over government administration down to the lowest level. This mechanism raises questions over whether the NLD can wield effective control over government machinery. The GAD will also have to be reformed and civil service control decentralised to states and regions if ethnic minorities’ demands for a federal union are to be met.
Ko Ni, a Supreme Court lawyer who is a legal advisor to the NLD, spoke to Myanmar Now reporter Phyo Thiha Cho about the importance of bringing the GAD under civilian control and decentralising its powers. (Courtesy of myanmar-now.org)
One such institution is the General Administration Department (GAD), which functions as the backbone of local administration throughout the country. The GAD falls under the Home Affairs Ministry, which is controlled by an army general in accordance with the Constitution. It pervades Myanmar’s civil service from the state and region level, down to the district, township, village and ward levels.
Created in 1972, the GAD grants Myanmar’s army chief direct, centralised control over government administration down to the lowest level. This mechanism raises questions over whether the NLD can wield effective control over government machinery. The GAD will also have to be reformed and civil service control decentralised to states and regions if ethnic minorities’ demands for a federal union are to be met.
Ko Ni, a Supreme Court lawyer who is a legal advisor to the NLD, spoke to Myanmar Now reporter Phyo Thiha Cho about the importance of bringing the GAD under civilian control and decentralising its powers. (Courtesy of myanmar-now.org)
Citizenship to Rohingyas can help solve crisis
The visiting Rakhine commission yesterday stressed the need for granting citizenship to Rakhine Muslims and ensuring their dignity to find a lasting solution to the current crisis.
“Yes, this is the key to have a better situation there,” said commission delegation leader Ghassan Salame.
He was talking to reporters after attending a discussion meeting in the capital's Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS).
Salame, a former Lebanese minister for cultural affairs and also a former special adviser to the UN secretary-general, said he does not think that only religious elements compelled Rohingyas to flee their motherland.
“This is not a war of religion. There are other issues,” he added. (Courtesy of thedailystar.net)
“Yes, this is the key to have a better situation there,” said commission delegation leader Ghassan Salame.
He was talking to reporters after attending a discussion meeting in the capital's Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS).
Salame, a former Lebanese minister for cultural affairs and also a former special adviser to the UN secretary-general, said he does not think that only religious elements compelled Rohingyas to flee their motherland.
“This is not a war of religion. There are other issues,” he added. (Courtesy of thedailystar.net)
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