Thousands of Rohingya Muslims attacks in Rakhine state forced back to sea

Myanmar's Rohingya forced back to sea
Rohingya Muslims fleeing violence reached Bangladesh after days at sea, only to be turned away by border guards.

Thousands of Muslims have been escaping from Myanmar after dozens were killed in religious violence.

Tentative steps towards Rohingya rehabilitation

The return of the Rohingya refugees to Burma: Voluntary repatriation or refoulement? (Issue paper / U.S. Committee for Refugees)

UN agencies and NGOs are working to address the urgent humanitarian needs of the Rohingya in Myanmar, even as the government considers changes to their status, the UN says.

Officially referred to as Muslims, the Rohingya are de jure stateless in accordance with the laws of Myanmar.

In its draft stage, the Common Humanitarian Action Plan (CHAP) will for the first time consolidate humanitarian aid efforts for all residents in Northern Rakhine State (NRS), where the Rohingya live.

"The humanitarian needs in northern Rakhine State are quite significant, so we need to work together, all the stakeholders," Bhairaja Panday, country representative for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Myanmar, the lead agency in NRS, told IRIN.

"It's a one-year plan to begin with, but if it works it could be replicated in the years to come," he said.

The move comes amid a possible shift in government policy that may see the Rohingya - an ethnic, linguistic and religious minority - given legal status, and therefore accorded more rights.

"I think the government is looking sympathetically at their legal position, and seeing how to improve it," Panday said.

A review of their legal status is under way, against a backdrop of preparations for this year’s upcoming elections.

"We are confident that the situation will improve [for them] in some measure; we don't know exactly how much," Panday said.

Urgent needs
A tale of refugees: Rohingyas in BangladeshSearch Amazon.com for Rohingya Refugee
Myanmar's Rohingya population was effectively made stateless in 1982 after the country passed a citizenship law requiring everyone to trace Burmese ancestry to 1823 to be considered a citizen.

They face severe discrimination, say human rights groups. Confined to just three townships in NRS, which restricts their economic opportunities, they need permission to travel from one village to another.

They also need official permission to marry and couples are restricted to having only two children, while common-law couples are vulnerable to prosecution.

At the same time, communal tensions exist between the Rohingya and Rakhine population.

Although hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have fled the country, most to squalid conditions in neighbouring Bangladesh, according to UN agencies, some 735,000 still live in NRS.

The region ranks below national and Rakhine State averages on most demographic and socio-economic indicators. Meanwhile, humanitarian needs are critical in agriculture and food security, education, health and nutrition, infrastructure, and water and sanitation.

"All the five sectors need urgent intervention," said Panday.

These areas have been identified by the government and will be addressed by the CHAP, which agencies aim to finalize with the approval of the government before April. No budget has been set.

Alarming indicators

In NRS, most of the population is landless and relies on daily labour, fishing or subsistence farming on leased land.

There has been chronic food insecurity for years, with an average 84 percent of household spending going on food alone, according to UN agencies.

In rural areas, access to health services is extremely limited, with public health structures open only one day a week.

In Buthidaung Township, for example, there are just two government doctors for 300,000 people, one nurse for every 18,400 people - the national average is one nurse for 3,280 - and one midwife for every 5,500 people.

An assessment of 600 children in August and September 2009 found that only about 55 percent had satisfactory nutritional status. It also found that there was a global acute malnutrition (GAM) rate of 16.3 percent among them; the World Health Organization's (WHO) emergency threshold is 15 percent.

Myanmar has been widely criticized for the treatment of the Muslim population in NRS, and Panday said there now seemed to be some political commitment to tackle the situation.

"I think the government feels they need to address the problem now, and they do not want it to linger like this for a long time," he said.

The development of the CHAP is also an indication that the government is more open to international humanitarian assistance, he said.

"There is a general positive outlook towards solutions," said Panday.
The return of the Rohingya refugees to Burma: Voluntary repatriation or refoulement? (Issue paper / U.S. Committee for Refugees)

The 800,000 strong Rohingya are believed to have descended from seventh century Arab settlers whose state along what is now the Bangladesh-Myanmar border was conquered by the Burmese in 1784.

Myanmar refugees face grim future in Bangladesh

KUTUPALONG, Bangladesh — Dildar Begum has no country, no job, no food and is fast running out of hope.

Her husband is imprisoned in a Bangladeshi jail while she lives in a slum with her five children, reduced to begging for rice from her impoverished neighbors. Her family is starving, she said.

"I can't live this way. It's better if my kids and I die suddenly," the 25-year-old woman said.

Begum is one of the hundreds of thousands of members of the Rohingya ethnic group who have fled to Bangladesh to escape persecution in neighboring Myanmar — only to find themselves languishing in filthy slums or open-air camps where food and water are scarce and medical care nonexistent.

As Muslims, they were unwanted in Buddhist Myanmar. As foreigners, they are unwanted in Muslim Bangladesh.

In recent months, Bangladesh has cracked down on the group, arresting and repatriating many and stepping up security along the porous border to prevent more from arriving. At the same time, the government discouraged aid groups from giving most of those here food, fearing it would attract a huge new influx of refugees, a government official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

International rights groups have decried their fate and Bangladesh's refusal to grant the vast majority of them refugee status, which would give them access to nearby camps where they could receive a full aid package of food, shelter and education provided by international agencies.

Without that aid, the Rohingya face widespread starvation, activists said.

"A grave humanitarian crisis is looming," Chris Lewa of the Rohingya advocacy group The Arakan Project said last month.

Bangladesh has also been accused of carrying out arbitrary arrests of the Rohingya and forcing many back into Myanmar.

In Kutupalong, 185 miles (296 kilometers) south of the capital, Dhaka, the undocumented Rohingya live in a squalid shantytown, where malnourished, barefoot children defecate outside.

With no right to work, many survive by bribing forestry officials to turn the other way as they illegally cut down trees to sell as firewood, men in the village said.

"The forest is being destroyed by them," said A.F.M. Fazle Rabbi, a government official in charge of the area. "I am sure over next few years, you will find no trees here."

The 800,000 strong Rohingya are believed to have descended from seventh century Arab settlers whose state along what is now the Bangladesh-Myanmar border was conquered by the Burmese in 1784.

The Myanmar junta refuses to recognize them as citizens, and the group faces extortion, land confiscation, forced evictions, and restricted access to medical care and food, according to Human Rights Watch.

Thousands have fled to Malaysia and Thailand, which depend on migrant labor, or braved the sea to go as far as the Middle East for work.

Last year, the Thai navy intercepted boats carrying 1,000 Rohingya, detained and beat them and then forced them back to sea in vessels with no engines and little food or water, according to reports from human rights groups.

On Friday, Malaysian authorities said they picked up 93 Rohingya who said they had been at sea for 30 days in a crowded wooden boat after apparently being chased out of Thai waters.

"They said they were sailing aimlessly in the hope of finding a country that will accept them," said Zainuddin Mohamad Suki, an officer with the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency. The passengers were likely to be sent to a detention center, he said.

Most of the refugees, however, have fled on foot and by boat over the border to the nearby Cox's Bazar area in Bangladesh, where 28,000 are registered as refugees and restricted to official camps in Kutupalong and Naya Para.

The Kutupalong refugee camp is well-equipped with medical facilities, a computer learning center, volleyball courts and generators.

However, at least 200,000 other Rohingya here have not been given refugee status by Bangladesh and live under constant threat of being arrested or sent back home. Some work as day laborers or rickshaw pullers at Cox's Bazar.

Authorities fear that if they grant full rights to everyone, it will encourage even more Rohingya to come to Bangladesh, which is already overwhelmed with its own impoverished and malnourished population.

"We are a poor country, we cannot afford this for long," said Gias Uddin Ahmed, the chief administrator of the district.

Begum and her family fled with about 2,500 others seven months ago amid unrelenting attacks by their Buddhist neighbors, who eventually took their land in Myanmar's northwestern Rakhine state. They left at night and bribed Bangladeshi border guards to let them enter and travel to the shantytown near the refugee camp in Kutupalong.

Her husband, 35-year-old Jamir Hossain, found work as a day laborer in the shantytowns that have sprung up near the Kutupalong camp, but police arrested him last month in a roundup of undocumented Rohingya.

With no money, Begum begs for rice from nearby villages to feed her four sons and a daughter.

"It's now afternoon, but I haven't been able to give any food to my kids," she said.

M. Sakhawat Hossain, the police chief in Cox's Bazar, said Bangladeshi villagers have accused the Rohingya of a wave of robberies across the coastal region and pressured the government to take action.

In the ensuing crackdown, 136 undocumented Rohingya were in custody on charges of illegally entering Bangladesh or engaging in criminal activities, he said.

"What we did is for maintaining law and order over reported crimes," he said. "Should not we do that?"

Mizzima News: NDA-K ready to surrender arms Tuesday - Solomon

Mizzima News..
On March 27, 2009 Rakhine community leaders from Sittwe (Akyab), the capital of Arakan held a meeting regarding the Rohingya issue. In the same day, such meetings were also held in Maungdaw, Buthidaung, Ratheydaung and some other townships. According to anti-Rohingya propagandas by Rakhine elites that observes on the net at these moments; it is to be suggested that there is a strong network among Rakhine community against the existence of Rohingyas in Arakan
...

On March 27, 2009 Rakhine community leaders from Sittwe (Akyab), the capital of Arakan held a meeting regarding the Rohingya issue. In the same day, such meetings were also held in Maungdaw, Buthidaung, Ratheydaung and some other townships. According to anti-Rohingya propagandas by Rakhine elites that observes on the net at these moments; it is to be suggested that there is a strong network among Rakhine coAt the meeting they showed disgrace on solving Rohingya issue by international community, specially finding solution in forthcoming Bali-Conference with SPDC which will grand Rohingyas of their legal status in Burma.

They said as they will never allow Rohingyas to be their coexistences on the soil of Arakan and will continue of reaching their goal as Arakan must be a Muslim free Buddhist state. At the final stage of meeting they took a serious decision to revise the 1942 Muslim massacre in Arakan almost immediately.

Many observers given their suggestion as a complete termination of Muslim from Arakan will be systematically planed and hope the demise will be started during upcoming Burmese traditional water festival.

After taken the decision, at least (10) households belong to Rohingyas have been still set fire and burnt into ash by Rakhine mobs around Sindi Prang villages of Buthidaung township at nighttime after attacks. No action was taken against any culprits by any government agents yet.

People in the region expressed that the movement of Nasaka security force is unhidden from supporting the Rohingya massacre and they come to barricade all the escapes by deploying more armies in everywhere such as road links, trespassing ways, junctions, mountain cross roads and borders from region to region, town to town and nation to nation.

In addition, The Nasaka imposed curfew under Nasaka zone (3) and ordered the people at zone (2) and (3) to dry out all shrimp dams then build up a wall with the measure of 30 ft wide at the bottom but 16 ft on the top and 10 ft height alongside Naf River.

Till April 05, 2009 many ships and vehicles with full equipments arrived at the mid-night then deliver arms to all Buddhist villagers. There are more than (115) Buddhist modern villages in Buthidaung and Maungdaw built by the regime among the Rohingya villages after seizing lands from Rohingyas since last two decades.

After rising questions at the international community on the flight of Rohingya, the junta got an opportunity to make blockage by branding the issue as of the human trafficking. Now Junta assured their cooperation to the ASEAN countries on finding the solution on Rohingyas. But in other way, junta is trying to formulate the same crisis with Darfur of Sudan by creating communal riots in Arakan.

Some elders in the region sent their comments as it is very horrible arrangement toward a complete termination of Muslims from Arakan at once and junta is behind the conspiracy. It is a master plan of brutal Burmese regime that showed very sincere and innocent upon handling the matter in front of international community.
mmunity against the existence of Rohingyas in Arakan
Rakhines from outside Burma, especially from Bangladesh, Malaysia, Japan and USA are also included in this conspiracy. The recent visit of Aye Chan to Bangladesh is suggested a concern to this matter and organization like ALP, ANC, Arakan National Guard (ANG) and ALD are very encourage on killing the Muslims of Arakan.

Anyway the security of the life of Rohingya is in threat and execution will be unavoidable for them in Arakan soon.

As of the consequences, the Bangladesh will have to face another exodus of mob Rohingyas from Burma. So that, the governing body of the Bangladesh should be seriously to consider the way of protection or take a preparation to stop the Burmese junta from creating regional instability by inviting US, UN, UK and other her friends and supporters.

At the moment, most of the Rohingyas in Arakan breathing hardly on the fear of mass killing to them which is invisible and unexpected but can start in anytime and anywhere.

Our prudent appeal to the government of Bangladesh is as not to attempt stopping the mob migration of Rohingyas into Bangladesh if they face unavoidable bloodshed inside Burma. Otherwise stream of blood and dead bodies will be flowed along the Naf River.

News and Information Department