Last month, at least 21 people died after a boat transporting passengers from an IDP camp to Sittwe capsized off the coast of Rakhine State. At least seven of the dead were aged eight or under; at least two were infants.
Most of the passengers were residents of the Sin Tet Maw camp in Pauktaw Township, established in the wake of the 2012 communal strife that claimed hundreds of lives and displaced almost 140,000 people. In an environment of endemic malnutrition and extreme restrictions on freedom of movement, the passengers had been granted permission for a day trip to the Rakhine capital to buy essential supplies.
It was a tragedy regardless of the identity of those who perished. But to use these deaths as a political weapon is an obscenity. As such, last month's protest outside the United States Embassy represented a total abandonment of human decency, a new depth in poor taste — even by the standards of a nationalist movement that has cravenly sought to pander to the basest prejudices of its audience. (Courtesy of Frontier Myanmar)
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