By AFP

December 25, 2017

The UN General Assembly on Sunday urged Myanmar to end a military campaign against Muslim Rohingya and called for the appointment of a UN special envoy, despite opposition from China, Russia and some regional countries.

A resolution put forward by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) was adopted by a vote of 122 to 10 with 24 abstentions.

China, Russia, Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines and Vietnam joined Myanmar in voting against the measure as did Belarus, Syria and Zimbabwe.

The resolution calls on the government to allow access for aid workers, ensure the return of all refugees and grant full citizenship rights to the Rohingya.

It requests that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appoint a special envoy to Myanmar.

The measure was adopted by the assembly after its budget committee gave the green light to funds for the new position of UN special envoy to Myanmar.

More than 650,000 Muslim Rohingya have fled the mainly Buddhist country since the military operation was launched in Rakhine state in late August.

Myanmar authorities insist the campaign is aimed at rooting out Rohingya militants who attacked police posts on August 25 but the United Nations has said the violence amounts to ethnic cleansing.

Last week, the UN special rapporteur for Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, said she had been banned from the country and that the government had cut off all cooperation with her.

By AFP

December 19, 2017

TEKNAF, BANGLADESH -- For decades the Rohingya have been denied recognition in Myanmar but the persecuted minority is close to securing a crucial symbol of their identity - their own unique digital alphabet.

The language of the stateless Muslim people has been included in the planned upgrade to the Unicode Standard, the global coding system that turns written script into digital characters and numbers.

It would allow the Rohingya to write e-mails, send texts and post on social media in their own language - a major step for a people who had no written script until the 1980s.

Victims of violent oppression in Myanmar that has been likened to ethnic cleansing, many Rohingya face far more pressing concerns than searching Google or sending a tweet, and most lack not just the technology but the literacy to do so.

But experts say imparting the Rohingya a digital script of their own is hugely symbolic for the recognition and survival of the marginalised people, even if it is not adopted quickly.

"If a people do not have a written language of their own, it is easier to say that as an ethnic group you don't exist," said Mohammad Hanif, who developed the writing system for the Rohingya language in the 1980s.

"It is easier to repress them," the Rohingya madrassa teacher living in Bangladesh told AFP.

This is especially the case with the Rohingya, with Myanmar even refusing to use their name.

Myanmar refers to them as "Bengalis" instead, painting them as interlopers from Bangladesh even though many of them have lived in the country for generations.

Experts say language is part of the issue, with Rohingya speaking a dialect of Bengali understood in Bangladesh's south-eastern Chittagong region, but foreign to the Buddhist majority in Myanmar.

The minority group has been driven out of Myanmar's westernmost Rakhine state in waves of systematic violence, most recently in an army campaign that Doctors Without Borders say killed at least 6,700 Rohingya Muslims in its first month.

Nearly 650,000 Rohingya have arrived in Bangladesh since the military crackdown began in August, escaping arson, rape and murder in their homeland.

'IT IS REVOLUTIONARY'

The Rohingya had no written script until Hanif - an Islamic scholar who fled Rakhine in an earlier surge of violence - began studying the nuances of the language.

Hanif said around 50 books have now been written using the script which is also taught in some faith schools catering to the Rohingya in Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Canada.

Other attempts at developing a writing system had used Arabic, Urdu and English scripts, the latter known as "Rohingya-lish".

But "Hanifi Rohingya" may be the one to be encoded by the Unicode Consortium - a nonprofit that oversees the global standardisation of digital characters and numbers.

A representative for the US-based consortium told AFP by e-mail that Hanifi Rohingya was one of the scripts being considered in the next version, but a final decision would be made in February.

If approved, it would allow the global Rohingya diaspora - including, eventually, the more than 800,000 refugees in Bangladesh - to also send messages through chat services like WhatsApp using their digital alphabet.

"(This) legitimises the struggle of the Rohingya language and its much persecuted people," said Muhammad Noor, a software engineer who built a computer typeface for "Hanifi Rohingya" compatible with word processing, but not online usage.

Translators Without Borders, a nonprofit providing translation services for charities in crisis zones, said the importance of taking the Rohingya language into the digital realm could not be overstated.

"It is revolutionary," the charity's Rebecca Petras told AFP in Cox's Bazar, where the Rohingya camps are located.

"In order for the language to survive, a script is necessary. This would strengthen the language and go a long way to preserve it."

FADING OUT

But the denial of education to most Rohingya in Myanmar means many cannot read or write the script, posing enormous hurdles for its survival in cyber space.

The minority of Rohingya afforded an education in Rakhine were instructed in Burmese, and even religious schools were not permitted to teach the written Rohingya script.

Those seeking to save it from obsolescence are looking to the next generation in makeshift schools across Bangladesh's teeming refugee camps.

More than half the new arrivals since August are children, and experts say unless they learn the written Rohingya script, it will wither away.

Rohingya groups are pushing for its inclusion in schools, but many children are quickly adopting Bengali instead, finding the local language more useful than their mother tongue.

Schools have also focused on Burmese and English, throwing up another roadblock for those fighting for the language's survival.

"The UN schools are our only hope to introduce the written script to half a million children in the camps. But there is no attempt to teach Rohingya language, which is unfair," said Rohingya activist Rafique bin Habib.

By AFP

December 15, 2017

COX'S BAZAR, Bangladesh -- Disease, hunger and misery stalk the Rohingya living in Bangladesh's refugee camps but despite the grinding hardship, few are willing to consider the alternative - returning home under a deal struck with Myanmar.

The arrangement signed by Myanmar and Bangladesh in November to start repatriating refugees within two months is viewed with deep suspicion and dread by Rohingya still traumatised by the violent expulsion from their homeland.

"They make deals, but they won't follow them," said Rohingya refugee Mohammad Syed, who estimated his age at 33.

"When we go back, they will torture and kill us again."

Their fear is not misplaced.

Doctors Without Borders said on Thursday (Dec 14) that at least 6,700 Rohingya were killed in the first month of a Myanmar army crackdown on rebels in Rakhine state that began in August.

The worst bouts of violence have subsided but Rohingya continue to flee, the UN says.

Nearly 650,000 of the Muslim minority have fled across the border into Cox's Bazar district in south-eastern Bangladesh since the army campaign began.

The UN rights chief said in December the catalogue of abuses - including indiscriminate killings, mass rape and the razing of hundreds of Rohingya villages - contained "elements of genocide".

Myanmar has consistently denied committing atrocities in Rakhine, saying the crackdown was a proportionate response to the Rohingya militants who attacked police posts on Aug 25, killing around a dozen officials.

But rights groups say the conditions are not in place to ensure safe, voluntary and dignified returns, and the Rohingya sense danger lurking behind Myanmar's assurances.

"It's a trap. They have given such assurances before, and still made our lives hell," said Rohingya woman Dolu, who goes by one name, in a refugee camp in Cox's Bazar.

"I would rather live here. We get food and shelter here, and we can pray freely. We are allowed to live." .

FEAR OF RETURN

The Rohingya have reason to be wary.

The persecuted minority has been the target of past pogroms in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, which does not recognise the group as a genuine ethnicity and has stripped them of citizenship.

Many have no homes left after their villages were torched.

Those still living in Rakhine, Myanmar's poorest state, face heavy restrictions on work, travel and access to basic services.

More than 100,000 Rohingya displaced by a 2012 outbreak of violence have been trapped in squalid camps in central Rakhine ever since.

Aid groups have warned Myanmar they would boycott any new camps for Rohingya returnees, saying refugees must be allowed to settle in their own homes and not forced into ghetto-like conditions.

"They have to recognise us as citizens of the country. They have to give us proper Rohingya identity cards. Only then we will go back," said 25-year-old Rohingya man Aziz Khan at Kutupalong, a gigantic camp in Cox's Bazar. "Otherwise we would rather die here in Bangladesh."

Bangladesh has been praised for opening its borders as waves of Rohingya civilians fled army reprisals and Buddhist mobs.

But the government has always maintained that the refugees would one day return, tussling for months with Myanmar over the terms of repatriation deal.

Before the latest surge, Bangladesh was already hosting hundreds of thousands of Rohingya who fled previous waves of persecution.

This crisis has put enormous pressure on ordinary Bangladeshis living in Cox's Bazar, where the refugee population has grown fourfold since August.

"It is good news, goodbye to them. It is time they go back to where they belong," said Ehsaan Hossain, a shopkeeper at Cox's Bazar where prices for basic goods has skyrocketed.

Others complained about the headache of frequent identity checks and roadside patrols since the Rohingya influx began.

But rickshaw driver Mohammad Ali worried his income - which had doubled since the flood of refugees - would slump if the Rohingya suddenly left en masse.

"In a way, I will miss them if they leave," the 30-year-old told AFP.

By AFP

December 14, 2017

At least 6,700 Rohingya Muslims were killed in the first month of a Myanmar army crackdown on rebels in Rakhine state that began in late August, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Thursday.

The figure is the highest estimated death toll yet of violence that erupted on August 25 and triggered a massive refugee crisis, with more than 620,000 Rohingya fleeing Myanmar for Bangladesh over a three-month period.

The UN and US have described the military operation as "ethnic cleansing" of the Muslim minority, but have not released specific death tolls.

"At least 6,700 Rohingya, in the most conservative estimations, are estimated to have been killed, including at least 730 children below the age of five," MSF said Thursday.

The group's findings come from six surveys of more than 11,426 people in Rohingya refugee camps and cover the first month after the crisis erupted.

"We met and spoke with survivors of violence in Myanmar, who are now sheltering in overcrowded and unsanitary camps in Bangladesh," said the group's medical director Sidney Wong. 

"What we uncovered was staggering, both in terms of the numbers of people who reported a family member died as a result of violence, and the horrific ways in which they said they were killed or severely injured."

Rohingya refugees have told consistent stories of security forces and ethnic Rakhine Buddhist mobs driving them out of their homes with bullets, rape and arson that reduced hundreds of villages to ash.

Earlier this month the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said the military-led crackdown appeared to include "elements of genocide".

The MSF survey puts a number to the horrors.

Gunshot wounds were the cause of death in 69 percent of the cases, according to the survey.

Another nine percent were reported burned alive inside houses, while five percent died from fatal beatings.

For children under five, nearly 60 percent died after being shot, the survey found.

- 'Rohingya targeted' -

MSF said the peak in deaths coincided with the launch of "clearance operations" by the army and local militias in late August, and showed "that Rohingya have been targeted".

Myanmar's government did not respond to a request for comment. 

But it has consistently denied abuses in Rakhine and puts the official death toll at 400 people -- including 376 Rohingya "terrorists", according to the army.

Authorities have also blocked a UN fact-finding mission from accessing the conflict zone in northern Rakhine state.

The investigators visited refugee camps in Bangladesh in late October and said -- based on interviews -- that the total number of deaths was not known but "may turn out to be extremely high."

The Rohingya are not recognised as an ethnic group in mainly Buddhist Myanmar and have been subject to systematic persecution for decades.

Bangladesh and Myanmar signed a repatriation agreement in late November saying that Rohingya refugees could start to return home in two months, but international aid groups have threatened to boycott working with the government if new camps are set up in northern Rakhine State.

More than 120,000 Rohingya already live in closed-off settlements in the central part of the state since intercommunal violence erupted in 2012.

By AFP

December 3, 2017

YANGON -- Pope Francis's embrace of the Rohingya during a trip to Bangladesh has sparked some angry comment on social media in Myanmar, where just days earlier he chose not to publicly air their plight.

On Friday (Dec 1), the head of the Catholic church met a group of refugees from Myanmar's stateless Muslim minority in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka.

He referred to them as "Rohingya" - a term unacceptable to many in Myanmar where they are reviled as alleged "Bengali" illegal immigrants rather than as a distinct ethnic group.

During his public addresses on the previous leg of his trip in mainly Buddhist Myanmar, Francis did not refer to the group by name or directly allude to the crisis in Rakhine state, from where over 620,000 Rohingya have fled since August.

His caution initially won applause from Myanmar's tiny Catholic minority - who feared a nationalist blowback - as well as from Buddhist hardliners, who are on the defensive after a global outcry about the treatment of the group.

A deadly attack by Rohingya militants on police posts in late August sparked a ferocious crackdown in Rakhine by the Myanmar military, which the US and UN describe as ethnic cleansing.

As he arrived back at the Vatican, the pontiff said he had taken up the Rohingya cause in private in Myanmar, also describing how he wept after meeting the group of refugees.

"I wept: I tried to do it in a way that it couldn't be seen," he told reporters. "They wept too." The comments sparked a flurry of online anger in Myanmar, a country locked off from modern communications for five decades but which now has an active social media.

"He is like a lizard whose colour has changed because of weather," said Facebook user Aung Soe Lin of the pope's strikingly different stances on the crisis.

"He should be a salesman or broker for using different words even though he is a religious leader," said another Facebook user called Soe Soe.

Myanmar's Catholic church had advised Francis not to stray into the incendiary issue of the status of the Rohingya in Myanmar, in case he worsened tensions and endangered Christians.

In his public addresses he treaded softly on the topic, urging unity, compassion and respect for all ethnic groups - but not naming the Rohingya.

"The Pope is a holy person...but he said something here (in Myanmar) and he said different in other country," another Facebook user Ye Linn Maung posted.

"He should say the same things if he loves the truth." Others were more sanguine about Francis' choice of language once he had left Myanmar soil.

Maung Thway Chun, chairman of an unofficial party of nationalists called the 135 Patriots Party, applauded the pope's decision not to name them in Myanmar despite pressure from rights groups.

"It means he respects Myanmar people," he said. "He even did not use the word many times in Bangladesh...I think he said it once, just to comfort human rights organisations."

By AFP

November 14, 2017

MANILA: Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi faced rising global pressure Tuesday (Nov 14) to solve the crisis for her nation's displaced Rohingya Muslim minority, meeting the UN chief and America's top diplomat in the Philippines.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres told the Nobel laureate that hundreds of thousands of displaced Muslims who had fled to Bangladesh should be allowed to return to their homes in Myanmar.

"The Secretary-General highlighted that strengthened efforts to ensure humanitarian access, safe, dignified, voluntary and sustained returns, as well as true reconciliation between communities, would be essential," a UN statement said, summarising comments to Mr Suu Kyi.

Mr Guterres' comments came hours before Ms Suu Kyi sat down with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit in Manila.

Washington has been cautious in its statements on the situation in Rakhine, and has avoided outright criticism of the Myanmar leader.

Supporters say she must navigate a path between outrage abroad and popular feeling in a majority Buddhist country where most people believe the Rohingya are interlopers.

At a photo opportunity at the top of her meeting with Mr Tillerson, Ms Suu Kyi ignored a journalist who asked if the Rohingya were citizens of Myanmar.

At a later appearance after the meeting, Mr Tillerson - who is headed to Myanmar on Wednesday - was asked by reporters if he "had a message for Burmese leaders".

He apparently ignored the question, replying only: "Thank you", according to a pool report of the encounter.

ETHNIC CLEANSING

More than 600,000 Rohingya have flooded into Bangladesh since late August, and now live in the squalor of the world's biggest refugee camp.

The crisis erupted after Rohingya rebels attacked police posts in Myanmar's Rakhine state, triggering a military crackdown that saw hundreds of villages reduced to ashes and sparked a massive exodus.

The UN says the Myanmar military is engaged in a "coordinated and systematic" attempt to purge the region of Rohingya in what amounts to a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing".

The stream of desperate refugees who escape across the riverine border bring with them stories of rape, murder and the torching of villages by soldiers and Buddhist mobs.

The Myanmar government insists military action in Rakhine is a proportionate response to violence by militants.

Following its first official investigation into the crisis, the army published a report this week in which it cleared itself of any abuses.

However, it heavily restricts access to the region by independent journalists and aid groups, and verification of events on the ground is virtually impossible.

Ms Suu Kyi, a former democracy activist, has been lambasted by rights groups for failing to speak up for the Rohingya or condemn festering anti-Muslim sentiment in the country.

Musician and campaigner Bob Geldof on Monday slammed Ms Suu Kyi as a "murderer" and a "handmaiden to genocide", becoming the latest in a growing line of global figures to disavow the one-time darling of the human rights community.

Supporters say she does not have the power to stop the powerful military, which ruled the country for decades until her party came to power following 2015 elections.

In a summit on Monday night with leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, of which Myanmar is a member, Mr Guterres also voiced concern about the Rohingya.

He said the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya was a "worrying escalation in a protracted tragedy," according to the UN statement.

The UN chief described the situation as a potential source of instability in the region, as well as radicalisation.

By AFP

November 14, 2017

Torched villages and unharvested paddy fields stretch to the horizon in Myanmar's violence-gutted Rakhine state, where a dwindling number of Muslim Rohingya remain trapped in limbo after an army crackdown coursed through the region.

A rare military-organised trip for foreign media by helicopter to Maungdaw district -- the epicentre of a crisis that exploded in late August -- showed a landscape devoid of people, with the emerald paddy fields scarred by the blackened patches of destroyed Rohingya villages.

More than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled the area over the past two and a half months, running from a scorched-earth military campaign against militants that the UN has described as a "textbook example" of ethnic cleansing.

Myanmar, a mainly Buddhist country, has denied committing atrocities but has heavily restricted access to the conflict zone with the exception of brief government-organised visits.

Under the watchful eye of an army brigadier and border police, journalists on Sunday were able to speak to some of the several hundred Rohingya camped at the beach near Ale Than Kyaw village, hoping to flee across treacherous waters to neighbouring Bangladesh.

While the worst violence appears to have subsided, those left behind say they are trapped -- unable to afford the $50 boat fee, but without the means to eke out a living in the region.

"We used to work in farming and fishing, but now the owners don't want labour," said 25-year-old Osoma, explaining that most Rohingya businesses and landowners have joined the exodus.

The young mother of three, carrying a month-old baby in her arms, said her family was not certain if life in Bangladesh's sprawling refugee camps would be better.

"But we want to stay with the others who are there already," she told AFP.

- Desperate escape -

Rakhine's northernmost Maungdaw district was once home to around three quarters of Myanmar's 1.1 million-strong Rohingya population, according to government figures.

Aid workers estimate that only some 150,000 remain there, with other communities living further south.

With no one left to work Maungdaw's fields, huge swathes of verdant farmland are at risk of rotting -- a cruel irony given the severe food shortages in aid-dependent Rakhine and the squalid refugee camps across the border.

Myanmar says it has trucked in workers from other parts of the state to harvest 70,000 acres of abandoned rice paddies.

But some stretches of untouched fields have already started to turn brown in the mountain-studded region.

The media trip to Rakhine comes amid mounting global pressure on Myanmar over its handling of the crisis, with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson set to visit the capital on Wednesday.

The top American diplomat is expected to take a firm tone with the country's powerful military leaders, whom he has deemed "responsible" for the crisis.

Meanwhile, on the shores of Rakhine, some desperate Rohingya are taking matters into their own hands.

Ro Shi Armad, 18, has teamed up with several other families to build a flimsy-looking raft using plastic containers and bamboo.

Scores of refugees have drowned in recent months while attempting the perilous journey to Bangladesh.

"We're not worried if we die on the way over," the teenager told AFP.

"What else can we do now?"

By AFP

November 6, 2017

United Nations -- The UN Security Council today dropped plans to adopt a resolution demanding an end to the violence in Myanmar in the face of strong opposition from China and instead opted for a statement, diplomats said.

The statement calls for an end to the violence, full access for humanitarian aid workers to Myanmar's Rakhine state and for the return of hundreds of thousands of Muslim Rohingya who have fled to Bangladesh.

It does not threaten sanctions against Myanmar's military.

Britain and France circulated a draft resolution last month, but diplomats said veto power China, a supporter of Myanmar's former ruling junta, had argued that a resolution was not the appropriate response to the crisis.

Following negotiations, China agreed to the formal statement to be adopted later today, which includes almost all of the demands of the proposed resolution but does not carry the same weight.

"The important thing is the content," British Deputy UN Ambassador Jonathan Allen told reporters. "Gaining a very strong, unanimous statement I think was the real prize here."

Since late August, more than 600,000 Rohingya have been driven from their homes by an army campaign in Rakhine state that the United Nations has denounced as ethnic cleansing.

Myanmar authorities say the military operation is aimed at rooting out Rohingya militants who staged attacks on police posts.

The council statement was agreed as UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is to travel to Manila this week to join leaders of the Southeast Asian (ASEAN) bloc for a summit.

The Rohingya refugee crisis is expected to be a top issue of discussion at the summit, to be attended by US President Donald Trump, who will dispatch US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to Myanmar later this month.

The Rohingya have faced decades of discrimination in Buddhist-majority Myanmar and have been denied citizenship since 1982, which has effectively rendered them stateless.

More than two months after the crisis erupted, rights groups have accused the Security Council of dragging its feet and are calling for tougher measures, such as an arms embargo and targeted sanctions against those responsible for the attacks against the Rohingya.

On Friday, Human Rights Watch urged the council to ask the International Criminal Court to open war crimes investigations in Myanmar, describing the torching of villages, killing, rape and looting as crimes against humanity.

By AFP

November 5, 2017

The US wants a diplomatic solution to the Rohingya crisis but is not ruling out sanctions to pressure Myanmar if needed, a senior State Department official said Sunday in Bangladesh.

Thomas Shannon, under secretary of state for political affairs, said solving the humanitarian crisis through dialogue with Myanmar was top priority but the door remained open for tougher measures should engagement fail.

"We have a variety of sanctions available to us should we decide to use them. This will be a part of larger efforts of pressure," Shannon told reporters after meeting officials in Dhaka.

"But right now, as I noted earlier, our purpose is to solve the problem, not to punish."

His comments come just days after US lawmakers proposed sanctions against Myanmar's military in some of the strongest efforts yet by Washington to pressure Myanmar to end abusive treatment of its Rohingya Muslim minority.

More than 600,000 mainly Rohingya refugees have fled a military-led campaign of violence in Buddhist-majority Myanmar likened by the United Nations to ethnic cleansing.

Refugees are still streaming across the border from Myanmar's Rakhine state into neighbouring Bangladesh, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Rohingya have settled in squalid camps since late August.

Shannon noted some "positive movements", including Myanmar signalling it was open to hosting members of the international community in Rakhine and holding talks with Bangladesh about the crisis.

The US wanted to "capture" that progress and drive it towards a resolution without having to resort to other means, he added.

"We are going to pursue a diplomatic solution to this problem until we can no longer pursue it," he said.

For decades the Rohingya have faced persecution in Myanmar, where they are denied citizenship and denigrated as illegal "Bengali" immigrants.

Myanmar says the military crackdown was in response to deadly attacks by insurgents claiming to be fighting for the Rohingya minority.

By AFP

November 3, 2017

GENEVA -- Life-threatening levels of malnutrition have risen dramatically among Rohingya refugee children who have fled Myanmar for Bangladesh, the United Nations warned Friday (Nov 3).

The UN children's agency said preliminary data indicated a full 7.5 per cent of the children crammed into one of the camps in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar district were at risk of dying from severe acute malnutrition.

More than 600,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar's Rakhine state since late August during military operations that the United Nations has described as ethnic cleansing and the world's most acute refugee crisis.

Around half of them are children.

"It's very worrying to see the condition of children who keep arriving," Unicef spokesman Christophe Boulierac told reporters in Geneva after a recent trip to the camps.

The agency and its partners are already treating more than 2,000 acutely malnourished children at 15 treatment centres, and are in the process of setting up six additional centres.

AFP correspondents on the ground also witnessed scores of obviously malnourished children near treatment centres in several refugee camps in Cox's Bazar.

"He cannot eat enough food as he suffers from pneumonia, fever and diarrhoea," Rohingya woman Fahima Bibi told AFP as she emerged from one centre with her two-year-old grandson Mohammad Jabed, who is suffering from severe acute malnutrition.

Unicef said its preliminary findings were based on a nutrition assessment conducted last week of children under the age of five in 405 households in the Kutupalong refugee camp in Cox's Bazar.

'Catastrophe'

"The Rohingya children in the camp, who have survived horrors in Myanmar's northern Rakhine State and a dangerous journey here, are already caught up in a catastrophe," Unicef Bangladesh Representative Edouard Beigbeder said in a statement.

"Those with severe malnutrition are now at risk of dying from an entirely preventable and treatable cause," he warned.

Malnutrition rates among children in northern Rakhine were already above emergency thresholds before the latest crisis erupted.

"The condition of these children has further deteriorated due to the long journey across the border and the conditions in the camps," the Unicef statement said.

The journey by boat is particularly treacherous, with the International Organisation for Migration on Friday putting the number of drownings since August at around 250.

Some 26,000 people now live in the Kutupalong camp, where they are faced with an acute shortage of food and water, unsanitary conditions and high rates of diarrhoea and respiratory infections, the agency said.

Unicef said it was planning two additional assessments in other sites in Cox's Bazar this month to help determine if the numbers found in Kutupalong might apply to the entire area.

Boulierac however told AFP the agency was concerned by the preliminary findings, since the Kutupalong camp has existed for a long time and the services there are believed to be better than in the many new, makeshift camps.

The overall rate of life-threatening malnutrition could therefore turn out to be even higher than what was found in Kutupalong, he said.

The influx of refugees is continuing, with the UN refugee agency estimating that some 3,000 people crossed through a single border crossing at Anjuman Para between Wednesday and Thursday alone.

"We need far more attention to the crisis, and far more resources for the response," Beigbeder said, stressing that "these children need help right now."

By AFP

October 26, 2017

NEW YORK -- The UN Security Council is weighing a draft resolution that would pressure Myanmar to address the violence that has driven hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims to flee, according to the text obtained by AFP on Wednesday (Oct 25).

The proposed resolution, drafted by Britain and France, would call on Myanmar authorities to "immediately cease military operations" and allow refugees now living in makeshift camps in Bangladesh to return.

The six-page text does not threaten sanctions, but lays out a series of concrete demands.

But diplomats said the draft resolution, which would be the first formal response from the top UN body, faces strong opposition from China and they expect tough negotiations ahead to reach agreement.

"The Chinese are not on board," said a Security Council diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity. "They want us to say nothing and do nothing on this issue." China, a supporter of Myanmar's former ruling junta, maintains that it is using private channels to pass on the message that the violence must end and the refugee crisis must be addressed, according to diplomats.

Since late August, more than 600,000 Rohingya have fled an army campaign in Myanmar's Rakhine state that the United Nations has denounced as ethnic cleansing.

Myanmar authorities say the military operation is aimed at rooting out Rohingya militants who staged attacks on police posts two months ago.

The draft resolution condemns the violence in Rakhine state and attacks by Rohingya militants, while expressing "grave concern that the Myanmar security forces and vigilantes have been responsible for human rights violations and abuses." It calls on Myanmar to allow humanitarian aid workers safe access to Rakhine state, where Rohingya who managed to escape the army campaign are now fleeing amid dire food shortages.

The draft resolution also demands that UN rights investigators be allowed access to Rakhine to report on allegations of atrocities, and calls for the appointment of a UN special advisor on Myanmar.

And it urges Myanmar to implement the recommendations of a commission led by former UN chief Kofi Annan that said the Rohingya should be granted citizenship rights.

The 1.1 million Rohingya have faced decades of discrimination in Buddhist-majority Myanmar and have been denied citizenship since 1982, which has effectively rendered them stateless.

Rights groups have accused the Security Council of dragging its feet on Myanmar and are calling for tougher measures, such as an arms embargo and targeted sanctions against those responsible for the attacks against the Rohingya.

Addressing the General Assembly's committee on human rights, UN special rapporteur Yanghee Lee of South Korea said the council should adopt a "strong resolution" to tackle a potential threat to the region.

"The crisis in Rakhine state has not only been decades in the making, but has been spilling over and continues to spill over beyond Myanmar's borders," said Lee.

"For a very long time now, this issue has not been simply a domestic affair." A recent report by the UN human rights office accused Myanmar of seeking to permanently expel the Rohingya by planting land mines at the border with Bangladesh where the refugees are sheltering.

UN rights officials spoke to refugees who gave accounts of soldiers surrounding homes and firing indiscriminately as residents ran for their lives, and of uniformed men gang-raping women and girls.

By AFP

October 22, 2017

TEKNAF, BANGLADESH -- Authorities in Bangladesh were bracing Sunday (Oct 22) for another possible surge in Rohingya refugee arrivals, with thousands from the Muslim minority believed stranded along the border with Myanmar waiting to cross.

Border guards are also concerned that the relaxing later Sunday of a temporary ban on fishing in the Bay of Bengal could see a surge in people-smuggling along the coast as unscrupulous captains return to the seas.

Rohingya refugees already in Bangladesh have received videos from families across the border showing thousands of displaced Muslims massing near crossing points, waiting for an opportunity to cross.

"We have seen some videos sent by people across the border. There are many gathered there. The number could be big," Border Guard Bangladesh commander Lieutenant Colonel S.M. Ariful Islam told AFP, without giving an estimate.

Almost 600,000 Rohingya refugees have fled Myanmar for Bangladesh since late August, when militant attacks on Myanmar's security forces in Rakhine state sparked a major army crackdown on the community likened by the UN and others to ethnic cleansing.

Around 10,000 were left stranded in no man's land near Anjumanpara village for three days last week after being prevented from crossing into Bangladesh. They were finally permitted by authorities to enter Thursday (Oct 19).

The influx has slowed since then, with charities and officials reporting about 200 people crossing the Naf River dividing the two countries.

"(But) those that came told us thousands were still stranded on the other side of Naf," Jashim Uddin, a volunteer for the International Organisation for Migration, told AFP.

Another border guard told AFP an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 refugees were heading to Anjumanpara but had been pushed back.

"We heard from their relatives that the Myanmar army has stopped them from heading to the border," said a Border Guard spokesman, Iqbal Ahmed.

Refugees arriving Sunday described violence in their villages in Rakhine and food shortages that had forced countless numbers to flee.

"We hardly had any food for the last 10 to 15 days. They torched our home. We did not have any choice but to leave," Yasmin, who goes by one name, told AFP at the coastal village of Shah Porir Dwip.

Authorities meanwhile are on high alert for fishermen seeking to ferry refugees to Bangladesh via the open sea as the temporary fishing ban expires later Sunday.

"It is risky, but you can make a lot of money ferrying Rohingya to Bangladesh," said local fisherman Shawkat Hossain.

By AFP

October 19, 2017

COX'S BAZAR, BANGLADESH -- Thousands of Rohingya Muslims stranded near Bangladesh's border this week after fleeing violence in Myanmar have finally been permitted to enter refugee camps after "strict screening", officials said Thursday (Oct 19).

The UN had expressed deep concern about the new wave of around 10,000 refugees, including children and elderly people who, dehydrated and hungry from the long journey, had been stopped from crossing the border into Bangladesh and left to squat in paddy fields.

It was not immediately clear why the new arrivals were being held in an area of no man's land, but the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) had said it was calling on the Bangladesh authorities "to urgently admit" the group.

Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) spokesman Major Iqbal Ahmed told AFP on Thursday that the newcomers, who were blocked at Anjumanpara near the border town of Ukhiya, had been screened "very carefully" to stop "unwanted visitors".

"After strict checking, they are being taken to the extended Kutupalong camp where they will receive some basic goods and later will be shifted to another camp," said Ahmed.

Excluding the latest wave, the UN says some 582,000 Rohingya refugees had fled Myanmar for Bangladesh since late August, when militant attacks on Myanmar's security forces in Rakhine state sparked a major army crackdown.

But Bangladesh, which has been overwhelmed by the influx of people fleeing the violence, is wary of radical Islamists getting into its refugee camps where there are now more than 800,000 Rohingya in all.

Many of the new arrivals were from Rakhine's Buthidaung district, which lies relatively far from the border with Bangladesh.

Some told an AFP correspondent they had trekked for days to reach the border as their villages remain under military surveillance and they had nothing to eat.

"We ran out of food," said Shamser Alam, 21, from Yin Ma Kyaung Taung village near Buthidaung town.

"There is no village market. There are too many restrictions. We don't have freedom. Not more than five people can pray together." Sufia Khatun, a mother of four, said one of her sons was killed in a stampede after Buddhist militants attacked her village.

"We ran for our lives and I lost Jalal. Later I found he was killed in the stampede," she told AFP.

Sanjida Khatun, from Phone Nyo Lake village who tried to escape with her husband Mohammad Amin, three sons and a 15-day-old baby, said she was attacked by armed men while going to the border.

"They indiscriminately hacked my husband to death. I narrowly escaped with my sons," she said.

Myanmar has subjected the 1.1 million Rohingya community to decades of hostility and refused them citizenship even though many have lived there for generations.

Bangladesh has announced plans to build a refugee camp that could accommodate around 800,000 Rohingya in Kutupalong.

The camp would be the largest in the world and has raised concerns about the risks of heavily concentrating such a large number of vulnerable people, such as the spread of disease.

By AFP

October 14, 2017

NEW YORK: Former UN chief Kofi Annan urged the Security Council on Friday to push for the return to Myanmar of hundreds of thousands of Muslim Rohyingas who have been driven out in an army campaign.

Annan, who led an advisory commission to the Myanmar government, said world powers must work with the country's military and civilian leaders to end the refugee crisis.

The Security Council is weighing action, possibly a resolution laying out demands, but diplomats have said China, a supporter of Myanmar's former ruling junta, and Russia are opposed to such a measure.

"I hope the resolution that comes out urges the government to really press ahead and create conditions that would allow the refugees to return with dignity and with a sense of security," Annan told reporters after a closed-door meeting with the council.

"They should not be returned to camps. They should help rebuild," he said.

More than 500,000 people, mostly Rohingyas, have since late August crossed into Bangladesh, fleeing military operations in Myanmar's Rakhine state that the United Nations has denounced as ethnic cleansing.

Myanmar authorities say they are rooting out Rohingya militants following attacks on police posts in late August.

The issue of the return of the Rohingyas is shaping up as a major hurdle.

A recent report by the UN human rights office accused Myanmar of seeking to permanently expel the Rohingya, by planting land mines at the border with Bangladesh.

"The international community is now beginning to put pressure on the military," Annan said, adding that "military-to-military talks" were aimed at pressing Myanmar to rein in its operations.

He called on the council to agree with Myanmar on a "roadmap" and warned that without action "we are going to have a long-term festering problem" in the region that "can be very serious, down the line."

In late August, Annan presented the final report of the advisory commission on Rakhine state that he chaired at the request of Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The report called for granting citizenship and other rights to the Rohingyas, who are stateless and have long faced discrimination in the Buddhist-majority nation.

The UN's top political affairs chief, Jeffrey Feltman, travelled to Myanmar on Friday for talks.

By AFP

October 3, 2017

International aid groups fear tens of thousands of Rohingya who remain in northern parts of Rakhine are in urgent need of food, medicine and shelter after over a month of military operations

The scale of the suffering inside Myanmar’s Rakhine state is “unimaginable”, the United Nations said Monday, after three of its members joined a belated government-steered visit for aid agencies and diplomats to the conflict-battered region.

Myanmar has tightly controlled access to the state since last month when attacks by Rohingya militants prompted an army kickback that sent 507,000 of the Muslim minority fleeing to Bangladesh.

Scores of Rohingya villages have been torched.

A Myanmar official tally says hundreds of people died as violence consumed remote communities, including Rohingya.

Hindus and ethnic Rakhine were also among the dead – allegedly killed by Rohingya militants.

Rights groups say the real death toll is likely to be much higher, especially among the Rohingya, while the UN has labelled army operations as “ethnic cleansing” against the Muslim group.

Many inside Myanmar have accused the UN of having a pro-Rohingya bias, as hostility towards INGOs sky rockets, further limiting access.

Monday’s visit marks a thaw in the relationship, with the UN welcoming the trip as a “positive step” while reiterating “the need for greater humanitarian access”.

“The scale of the human suffering is unimaginable and the UN sends its deepest condolences to all those affected,” it said, calling for an end to the “cycle of violence”.

It also urged a “safe, voluntary, dignified and sustainable return of refugees to their area of origin”.

Diplomats and other INGOs accompanied them on the trip, which was delayed from last week. But the limitations of the one-day visit were not immediately clear.

The EU delegation to Myanmar also joined the whistle-stop trip, which took in Maungdaw and Rathedaung areas, explaining in a statement “this was not an investigation mission and could not be in the circumstances”.

“We saw villages that had been burned to the ground and emptied of inhabitants. The violence must stop,” it said, calling for unimpeded humanitarian and media access.

International aid groups fear tens of thousands of Rohingya who remain in northern parts of Rakhine are in urgent need of food, medicine and shelter after over a month of military operations.

In a sign of ongoing tensions and mistrust, a few thousand Rohingya have massed on a beach awaiting boats to Bangladesh after receiving death threats.

Myanmar had around 1.1 million Rohingya before August 25 attacks by militants from the minority group sparked a massive security crackdown.

The number has halved since then.

Rakhine has long been a cauldron of ethnic and religious tensions, but the last five years has seen communal relations plunge to their worst yet.

By AFP

September 26, 2017

Colombo -- Radical Buddhist monks stormed a United Nations safe house for Rohingya refugees near Sri Lanka's capital Tuesday and forced authorities to relocate the group, officials said.

Saffron-robed Buddhist monks led a mob that broke down gates and entered the walled multi-storied compound at the Mount Lavinia suburb of Colombo as frightened refugees huddled together in upstairs rooms, a police official said.

Two police were wounded in the incident, which also saw the mob pelt stones at the safe house and trash the ground floor furnishings upon entry.

There were no reports of casualties among the group of refugees, which included 16 children.

"We have pushed back the mob and the refugees have been relocated in a safer place," the official told AFP, asking not to be named as he was not authorised to speak to the media.

Police said they were going through local media video footage as well as Facebook in the hopes of arresting those who took part in the violence, and the monks who incited them.

One of the monks who stormed the building posted a video on the social networking site filmed by his radical group Sinhale Jathika Balamuluwa (Sinhalese National Force) as he urged others to join him and smash the premises.

"These are Rohingya terrorists who killed Buddhist monks in Myanmar," the monk said in his live commentary, pointing to Rohingya mothers with small children in their arms.

The 31 Rohingya refugees were rescued by the Sri Lankan navy about five months ago after they were found drifting in a boat off the island's northern waters. They were thought to be victims of a people smuggler.

They were eventually to be resettled in a third country, the official said, adding that they were authorised to remain in Sri Lanka pending the processing of their papers.

Sri Lanka's extremist Buddhist monks have close links with their ultra-nationalist counterparts in Myanmar. Both have been accused of orchestrating violence against minority Muslims in the two countries.

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims have fled Myanmar in the face of the current wave of violence there.

The Rohingya Muslims have been the target of decades of state-backed persecution and discrimination in mainly Buddhist Myanmar.

Many view them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, despite their long-established roots in the country.

By AFP

September 26, 2017

ISTANBUL: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused the security forces in Myanmar of waging a “Buddhist terror” against the Rohingya Muslim minority in the country, hundreds of thousands of whom have fled to Bangladesh.

Erdogan, who has repeatedly highlighted the plight of the Rohingya, again accused the Yangon government of carrying out a “genocide” against the people in Rakhine state.

In a speech in Istanbul, Erdogan lamented the failure of the international community to lay sanctions against the Myanmar government over its campaign.

“There is a very clear genocide over there,” Erdogan said.

Erdogan, who has held talks by phone with Myanmar’s key leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung Sang Suu Kyi, added: “Buddhists always get represented as envoys of goodwill. At the moment, there is a clear Buddhist terror in Myanmar... I don’t know how you can gloss over this with yoga, schmoga. This is a fact here. And all humanity needs to know this.”

Erdogan takes a sharp interest in the fate of Muslim communities across the world and notably sees himself as a champion of the Palestinian cause.

Returning for a key personal theme, he lambasted the international community for being quick to denounce “Islamic terror” but not “Christian terror,” “Jewish terror” or “Buddhist terror.”

Erdogan’s remarks came as UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said Bangladesh must not force Rohingya Muslims who have fled Myanmar to move to camps on a desolate island.

Authorities have stepped up moves to house the Rohingya on the island in the Bay of Bengal since a new surge which now totals 436,000 refugees started arriving on Aug. 25.

Grandi said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had mentioned the relocation plan when they met in July. There were already 300,000 Rohingya in camps near the border at Cox’s Bazar before the latest influx started.

But he insisted that any move from the camps to Bhashan Char island — also known as Thengar Char — “has to be voluntary on the part of the refugees.”

“We cannot force people to go to the place. So the option for the medium term, let’s say — I don’t want to talk about long-term — has to be also something that is acceptable to the people that go there,” he said.

“Otherwise it won’t work. Otherwise people won’t go.”

The UN has praised Bangladesh for taking in the Rohingya, who fled a military crackdown in Myanmar. It has appealed for international help for the authorities.

“It is good to think ahead. These people (Rohingya) may not be able to go back very quickly and especially now the population has now doubled,” Grandi told a Dhaka press briefing.

The UNHCR chief said his agency was ready to help the island plan with a “technical study of the options.

“That’s all that we are ready to give. We are not giving it yet because I have not seen any concrete options on any paper.”

The small island in the estuary of the Meghna river is a one-hour boat ride from Sandwip, the nearest inhabited island, and two hours from Hatiya, one of Bangladesh’s largest islands.

The government has tasked the navy with making it ready for the Rohingya. Two helipads and a small road have been built.

The authorities first proposed settling the Rohingya there in 2015, as the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar became overstretched.

But the plan was apparently shelved last year amid reports that the silty island, which only emerged from the sea in 2006, was often unhabitable due to regular tidal flooding.

In recent weeks, Bangladesh has appealed for international support to move the Rohingya to the island as the impoverished nation struggles to cope with the influx

More than 436,000 refugees have crossed the border from Myanmar’s Rakhine state since August 25 when a military crackdown was launched following attacks by Rohingya militants.

There is not enough food, water or medicine to go around. Roads around the camps are littered with human excrement, fueling UN fears that serious disease could quickly break out.