by admin | May 25, 2021 | Muslim World
Geneva : The refugee crisis engulfing Myanmar and neighboring Bangladesh is far larger than previously believed, according to the latest data released by UN agencies on Friday in Geneva.
An estimated 270,000 million Rohingya Muslims have fled the deadly violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine state and have arrived in neighboring Bangladesh over the past two weeks, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said.
The number jumped more than 100,000 above the previous estimate because many arrivals are camping along roads and fields, and aid groups only got a clearer picture of the situation over the past few days, UNHCR spokeswoman Duniya Aslam Khan told a press conference.
IOM spokesman Leonard Doyle added that there was a sharp increase in arrivals on Wednesday, as at least 300 boats arrived in the Bangladeshi fishing port of Cox’s Bazar.
Members of the persecuted Rohingya minority have been fleeing since violence erupted in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state nearly two weeks ago.
Myanmar’s army has launched what it calls a “clearance operation” after Rohingya insurgents attacked police posts and military bases in Rakhine, home to more than 1 million Muslims in Buddhist-majority Myanmar.
Those who arrived in Bangladesh claim that security forces have killed civilians, burned their homes and driven them away from Rakhine.
Most of the refugees are trekking through the jungle and mountains for days to reach Bangladesh, but there are thousands of others who take the dangerous sea route across the Bay of Bengal.
“Most of the people now crossing the border are women, children and the elderly, many of whom are vulnerable and lack the ability to take care of themselves,” Doyle said.
UNHCR demanded that the root causes of the recent violence be addressed urgently.
—AG/IINA
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Opinions
By Amulya Ganguli,
The Union Minister of State for Home, Kiren Rijiju, is looking for a round of applause for not driving the Rohingya refugees in India into the sea or shooting them; all that he wants is their deportation.
It is, however, doubtful whether the process of exiling them will be uncomplicated since it is bound to raise humanitarian concerns in India and elsewhere.
It is not easy to harshly deny shelter to a group which has had to leave their own country, viz, Myanmar, in dire circumstances.
Rijiju probably believes that branding them as potential terrorists since they are Muslims will be persuasive enough. But it is not an argument which will be readily accepted.
Moreover, the issue of deportation has been complicated by, first, Myanmar’s reluctance to accept them and, secondly, by the unwillingness of the emigrants themselves to return to a “home” which they no longer consider safe in view of the recent army actions against them.
Even if the Myanmar army was targeting the insurgents among the Rohingyas, the fact remains that the victims were innocent men, women and children as is usually the case. Because of the conflict between the army and the rebels, the ordinary civilians had no option but to flee.
A contributory cause for their flight is the fact that their legitimacy as citizens of Myanmar has for long been under a cloud. Described as the most friendless people in the world, the Rohingyas are virtually strangers in their own country because the law in Myanmar does not recognise them as one of the country’s ethnic communities.
The reason is that the Rohingyas migrated over the centuries from what is now Bangladesh to Rakhine, previously Arakan, and continue to speak a patois of the Bengali language.
However, notwithstanding their presence in Rakhine from way back in the 15th century and earlier, they are still regarded as aliens by the Myanmar government and have faced repeated army crackdowns.
Even the ascent to power of the Nobel Laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, who herself faced persecution from the military regime, has made little difference to the condition of the Rohingyas.
She has blamed the terrorists for the “huge iceberg of misinformation” about the community which has begun to attract the attention of the world, and has promised to protect everyone, whether they are citizens or not.
But the trek to Bangladesh of an estimated 164,000 Rohingyas and Malayasia’s assurance that it is ready to provide shelter to those travelling by boat to the country show that the world is waking up to the unfolding horror in Myanmar.
For all practical purposes, Myanmar can be said to have dumped its problem on its reluctant neighbours. But how long the latter can play host to this unassimilated group is open to question. There are already stirrings of unease in Bangladesh, which is bearing the brunt of the exodus from Myanmar.
That the Rohingyas will head for Bangladesh is understandable as it is their ancient homeland. But Dhaka is now trying to seek international assistance to settle some of the refugees on an uninhabited island in the Bay of Bengal since Bangladesh itself is overcrowded and some of its citizens are known to infiltrate into India.
Since the problem is bound to persist for some time, India cannot afford to appear unsympathetic about the tragedy.
It may not join Israel in assisting the army in Myanmar unlike the European Union which has an arms embargo in place lest the weaponry is used for “internal repression”. But for India to be in favour of the summary expulsion of the refugees amounts to being cold and uncaring.
The lack of compassion can seem all the more strange since India has traditionally opened its doors to persecuted minorities, starting from the Parsis in the 8th century to the Tibetans, the “East Pakistanis” in 1971, the Sri Lankan Tamils and others.
In contrast to this benevolence, the gruff rejection of the calls for temporary accommodation of the Rohingyas is patently unfeeling and brings little credit to the country.
The argument about the presence of terrorists is unconvincing since such elements cannot but constitute a tiny fraction of the total number of refugees. It is unfair and illogical to brand an entire community as terrorist.
What is apparently more to the point is the Hindutva lobby’s mistrust of the Muslims in general. But even if the government comprises people who subscribe to the Hindutva worldview, it should endeavour to raise itself above such ideological considerations in view of the oath of allegiance to a non-partisan constitution and look at an issue without any sectarian bias.
Such an absence of prejudice may be difficult for the Hindutva hardliners who still regard the Muslims in India as children of the 12th century invaders. But the government has to be far more open-minded.
(Amulya Ganguli is a political analyst. The views expressed are personal. He can be reached at amulyaganguli@gmail.com)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Muslim World
Dhaka : The UN’s International Organisation for Migration said on Wednesday that around 18,000 Rohingyas have fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar in the last few days due to an outbreak of violence that has left over 100 people dead.
“So far 18,000 people entered Bangladesh since last Friday (…) This 18,000 is an estimated number,” head of the IOM office in Bangladesh district of Cox’s Bazar Sanjukta Sahany was quoted by Efe news as saying. “So far we have been able to absorb these people with life-saving support.”
The influx of refugees comes despite Dhaka’s reluctance to accept them and attempts by its security forces, deployed along the bank of the Naf River, which acts as a natural border between Bangladesh and Myanmar, to try to stop the members of the Muslim minority from entering.
Many Rohingyas have also died while trying to reach Bangladesh. “We recovered four bodies today (Wednesday) from the Naf River near Shah Parir Dwip,” an official of the Border Guard Bangladesh said.
The fresh wave of violence affecting the Rohingyas has already claimed the lives of 110 people since August 25.
Fighting flared up again when the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army carried out a series of attacks against police posts and military bases in Rakhine in western Myanmar and the armed forces were ordered to respond.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has asked Bangladesh to keep its borders open for Rohingyas, to whom it has given refuge for decades. More than a million Rohingyas live in Rakhine, where they face growing discrimination due to sectarian conflict.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Muslim World
Tehran : Iran’s Foreign Ministry has voiced concerns over Myanmar’s continued crackdown against Rohingya muslims, the media reported on Tuesday.
“The government of the Islamic republic of Iran is extremely worried by the continued violation of the rights of Muslims in Myanmar, which has led to their deaths and forced immigration,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qasemi was cited as saying by Fars news agency, Xinhua reported.
Qasemi urged the government in Myanmar “to halt the continued violation of human rights of Muslims and end ongoing inhuman and violent situation in the country”.
He also asked Myanmar to adopt a realistic approach to a peaceful co-existence with the Rohingya.
The Rohingyas, one of the world’s largest stateless communities, are fleeing in droves toward Bangladesh, trying to escape the latest surge in violence in Rakhine state between a shadowy militant group and Myanmar’s military.
The UN refugee agency said on Monday that more than 3,000 Rohingya muslims had reached Bangladesh in the past three days, as people told of how they fled for their lives from Myanmar’s army.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Muslim World
Yangon : At least 71 people have been killed in the latest fighting between Rohingya Muslims and Myanmar security forces in the country’s Rakhine state, the office of de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi said Friday.
In an updated toll, the State Counsellor’s office said 12 security officials had been killed and that “59 dead bodies of extremist Bengali terrorists” had been found — the phrase Myanmar authorities use to describe Rohingya militants. The fighting — still going on in some areas — marked a major escalation in a simmering conflict in the northwestern state since last October, when similar attacks prompted a big military sweep beset by allegations of serious human rights abuses, Reuters reported.
The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), a group previously known as Harakah Al-Yaqin, or “Faith Movement,” which instigated the October attacks, claimed responsibility for the early morning offensive, and warned of more attacks. The treatment of approximately 1.1 million Muslim Rohingya has emerged as majority Buddhist Myanmar’s most contentious human rights issue as it makes a transition from decades of harsh military rule. It now appears to have spawned a potent insurgency, which has grown in size and morphed from an militant group into something more akin to a widespread movement, observers say.
The situation in the state deteriorated early this month when security forces began a new “clearance operation” in a remote mountain area. The army earlier said that one soldier, 10 police and 21 insurgents had been killed in the attacks. Two military sources contacted by Reuters said there may be more deaths. “In the early morning at 1 a.m., the extremist Bengali insurgents started their attack on the police post … with the man-made bombs and small weapons,” said the army, referring to the Rohingya with the derogatory term implying they are interlopers from Bangladesh.
It added the militants also used sticks and swords and destroyed bridges with explosives. Further attacks came at around 3 a.m. and 4 a.m., it said. The Rohingya are denied citizenship and are seen by many in Myanmar as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, despite claiming roots in the region that go back centuries, with communities marginalized and occasionally subjected to communal violence. The military counter-offensive in October resulted in some 87,000 Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh, where they joined many others who have fled from Myanmar over the past two decades or more.
The United Nations said Myanmar’s security forces likely committed crimes against humanity in the offensive that began in October. The military said about 150 Rohingya attacked an army base in Taung Bazar village in Buthidaung township, prompting the army to fight back. “They were planning to attack because we have found their camps, the caves and the bombs and masks inside the caves,” said Myanmar police spokesman Col. Myo Thu Soe.
The morning attack took place hours after a panel led by the former UN chief Kofi Annan advised the government on long-term solutions for the violence-riven state. Annan condemned the violence on Friday, saying that the “alleged scale and gravity of these attacks mark a worrying escalation of violence. No cause can justify such brutality and senseless killing.”
Military sources in Rakhine told Reuters they estimated the number of insurgents in the offensive stood at about 1,000 and that it encompassed both Maungdaw and Buthidaung townships — a much wider area compared with October. The leader of ARSA, Ata Ullah, has said hundreds of young Rohingya have joined the group, which claims to be waging a legitimate defense against the army and for human rights. “We have been taking our defensive actions against the Burmese marauding forces in more than 25 different places across the region. More soon!” the group said on a Twitter account believed to be linked to it.
Over the last several months the government has accused the insurgents of instigating a campaign of terror against village chiefs and killing government informers, disrupting government information networks. “The insurgents were able to organize such a huge attack because they were successful in organizing the information blackout,” said one of the military sources. “It’s an extremely serious situation which could lead to a major crisis. It’s not easy to know what has happened, but it’s clearly very worrying,” said Yangon-based analyst and former UN diplomat in Myanmar Richard Horsey. Bangladesh pushed back around 146 Rohingya trying to flee following the violence, S.M. Ariful Islam, a Border Guard Bangladesh officer, told Reuters.
Amid rising tensions over the past few weeks, more than 1,000 new refugees have fled to Bangladesh. “My cousin in our village back in northern Maungdaw told me about rising tensions there. Military is everywhere. People are crying, mourning the dead,” said Mohammed Shafi, who lives in a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh near the Myanmar border. “This morning we had a prayer meeting in the Kutupalong refugee camp for the victims and for the wellbeing of our homeland. Things are turning real bad. It’s scary.”
—HA/IINA
