CNN

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By Rebecca Wright and Ben Westcott

CNN

September 7, 2017

Bangladesh summoned the Myanmar ambassador Wednesday to urge an end to the violence that has engulfed the region and to raise concerns about reports of landmines being laid along the border between the two countries.

At least 164,000 ethnic Rohingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar since August 25, according to the Inter Sector Coordination Group (ISCG) of humanitarian agencies in Bangladesh. The United Nations expects that number to jump to 300,000 by the end of the year.

On Wednesday, a senior Bangladeshi border guard, who did not want to be named, told CNN that one of his guards reported an incident from Monday in which two Rohingyas fleeing Myanmar were injured by separate landmines. They were carried across to the Bangladesh side of the border and are now in a hospital receiving treatment.

"That happened on the Myanmar side in the north of the border area," the senior border guard said.

"Some mines were placed there, then someone stepped into it, and it exploded, and a few Rohingyas got injured," he said, adding that a woman lost her leg and a boy also suffered injuries.

"It's possible the Myanmar military has planted the mines. There is no one else who could do it," he said.

The senior guard said some of the Rohingyas had learned how to defuse the mines.

A humanitarian official in the city of Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, confirmed hearing reports of landmine injuries.

More than 400 killed in recent violence

At least 414 people have now been killed in violence in Rakhine State in recent weeks, according to a statement published by Myanmar's government.

Myanmar state media has blamed local "terrorists" for placing mines in Rakhine State -- where Rohingyas are concentrated -- although not specifically on the border.

Photos of a Rohingya man holding mines on the Myanmar side of the border were sent to CNN by activists and examined by a mine expert, who confirmed that the two objects are PMN1 antipersonnel devices.

An expert said the objects pictured being held by an activist are PMN1 antipersonnel devices.

"I can state with 100% certainty that the two objects being held up in the photograph are PMN1 antipersonnel landmines," said Chris Clark, global director of operations at UK-based Dynasafe Area Clearance Group, who said the Russian-made devices are one of the most common types of landmines around the world.

"The fact that it is in Myanmar is not at all unusual. It would be extremely usual for them to have access to that type of mine. That is most certainly not a handmade mine."

Clark also said that it is possible that some of the Rohingya could have learned how defuse mines, though he stressed that those seen in the photograph were still live.

Government puts blame on 'terrorists'

The government of Myanmar, which is also known as Burma, blames "terrorists" for starting the violence that has shaken the region. Rohingya militants killed 12 security officers in attacks on border posts almost two weeks ago, according to state media, intensifying the latest crackdown.

The Rohingya, who are denied citizenship by Myanmar, are considered some of the most persecuted people in the world. The predominantly Buddhist country says they are Bangladeshi but Bangladesh says they're Burmese.

It is the second time in less than a year that a military crackdown has led to a mass exodus.

Bangladesh summoned the ambassador of Myanmar to lodge a "strong protest" at an "unprecedented level of influx of Myanmar nationals to Bangladesh," according to a statement from the country's foreign ministry.

"This new influx is (an) unbearable additional burden on Bangladesh which has been hosting around 400,000 Myanmar nationals who had to leave Myanmar in several rounds in the past owing to communal violence and repeated military operations," the statement said. 

During the meeting, Bangladesh demanded "immediate measures" from Myanmar to de-escalate the ongoing violence in northern Rakhine State and "regretted that appropriate measures for protection of civilian population have not been ensured during the military operation."

Aung San Suu Kyi criticized

It also urged Myanmar to stop the influx by addressing the "real cause of such unprecedented exodus," along with ensuring that Myanmar takes back all nationals who have arrived in Bangladesh, the statement added.

The news came as Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi made her first public comments on the plight of her country's Rohingya minority since the latest violence began week.

'There is genocide going on'

Following conversations with both Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Suu Kyi issued statements that made it clear she was determined to deal with the "terrorist problem" in Rakhine State.

"We would like to thank India for its strong stance with regard to the terrorist threat that came to our country a couple of weeks ago," said Suu Kyi, after her meeting with Modi on Wednesday.

"We believe that together we can work to make sure that terrorism is not allowed to take root on our soil or on the soil in any neighboring countries."

Suu Kyi has been criticized in recent days for her continuing failure to speak in support of the minority Rohingya, a striking departure from her previous image as a champion of human rights.

On Tuesday, following a phone conversation with Erdogan, Suu Kyi's office released a readout of the call in which she claimed a "huge iceberg of misinformation" on the Rohingya was aiding "terrorists."

She said her government was already working to ensure the Rohingya had their rights protected.

"We know very well, more than most, what it means to be deprived of human rights and democratic protection," Suu Kyi said.

Journalist Farid Ahmed in Dhaka contributed to this article.

By Rebecca Wright

CNN

April 19, 2017

They say they ran from murder and persecution. They've ended up in mud huts on the Bay of Bengal.

And with the torrential rains of the monsoon season approaching, along with the threat of cyclones and floods, the fate of tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees living in overcrowded camps in Bangladesh looks as precarious as their makeshift shelters.

"It's becoming a silent crisis which does not have the international attention that it deserves, given the scale of the needs of the people and the uncertain future they are facing," says Ezekiel Simperingham, Asia Pacific Regional Migration Coordinator for the International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC).

New photographs of the refugees show only the fortunate have tarpaulins for a roof, the rest stretch black plastic over bamboo frames. Mats on the hard ground are beds.

"Their shelters are not strong enough to withstand these extreme weather patterns," Simperingham says.

The UN estimates that 74,000 Rohingyas have crossed the border into Bangladesh since Myanmar began a military crackdown in northern Rakhine State following attacks on border guards on October 9 last year.

Many of those fleeing have made allegations of murder and rape by Myanmar's security forces inside Rakhine State.

Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar's State Counselor and de-facto leader, denied any ethnic cleansing in an interview with the BBC.

And while Bangladesh offers refuge, there is little else available for the Rohingya.

Aid agencies have been distributing food, tarpaulins and other essentials in the camps, but they are struggling to keep up with the demand.

"We barely have enough food to survive," Mohsena, a 22-year-old Rohingya mother living in a makeshift shelter in Bangladesh, said. "If we have a meal once, we don't know when we can have the next one. Feeding my children is my main concern."

Dire needs

An estimated one million Muslim Rohingyas live in Myanmar's northern Rakhine State, where they are a persecuted, stateless ethnic minority in the Buddhist-majority country, analysts say.

Most of the new arrivals to Bangladesh are living in makeshift shelters outside two United Nations-administered refugee camps, along with hundreds of thousands of other Rohingyas who were already there after fleeing previous spates of violence.

"We are hearing reports that 180 people are sharing one latrine," says Simperingham.

The Rohingyas were in a desperate situation even before the most recent round of violence broke out.

The IFRC says 150,000 people in northern Rakhine State were receiving humanitarian support before October 9.

The aid group has now launched an urgent appeal for $3.2 million to help meet the needs of 25,000 of the most vulnerable people in the Bangladesh camps over the next nine months.

"People don't have enough food, enough water," Mirva Helenius, a photographer for the IFRC, tells CNN. "These people are living without any kind of status, and without any services."

Last week, Helenius traveled to refugee camps in and around Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, to take photographs of the living conditions and gather testimonies from some of the families living there.

CNN cannot independently verify the stories of those who have arrived in Bangladesh, as access to media in Rakhine State is heavily restricted.

'Now, we have nothing'

Mohsena says she fled Myanmar, also known as Burma, three months ago with her 4-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter after her husband was killed.

Mohsena's son is disabled, which means she struggles to earn any income.

"Because my son can't walk or sit or eat, I have to stay close to him all the time," she says. "I got some money by begging. I don't know how we will survive after that money is gone."

There are thousands of families in the camps with stories just like Mohsena's, Helenius says.

Rabeya, 25, says she arrived in the Balukhali makeshift camp four months ago, fleeing Myanmar with her husband and children after she was attacked by a group of men.

"I lost consciousness because of the pain," she says. "My neighbors found me on the ground and dragged me to the jungle. I was bleeding a lot. All my clothes were torn."

Rabeya says she later miscarried a baby she was carrying. She also heard that her mother and sister had been killed.

"We had a wealthy and happy life there before," she says. "Now, we have nothing. We have to worry about surviving. We don't even have enough money for food."

In February, the United Nations released a report that alleged widespread brutal killings and rapes taking place inside Rakhine State, and in March, the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva announced that an "urgent" fact-finding mission will be sent to Myanmar to investigate the claims of human rights abuses.

Nobel Prize Winner Aung San Suu Kyi insisted that those who fled Myanmar are "safe" to come back, adding that "we will welcome them back."

But in Bangladesh, the future for the Rohingya refugees is still looking increasingly uncertain.

"My first priority is the safety of my family," Rabeya says. "If peace returns to our home, if it is safe for us to be there, we want to go back. But if not, how can we survive here?"

Stories of horror from Myanmar's Rakhine State

The UN's Special Rapporteur to Myanmar tells CNN's Kristie Lu Stout about horrific claims of indiscriminate killings and gang rapes against the Rohingya minority

Zafor Alam inside the Leda camp, Teknaf, Bangladesh.

Rohingya men inside the Rohingya camp, Teknaf, Bangladesh.

Rohingya men inside the Rohingya camp, Teknaf, Bangladesh.

By Matthew Smith

CNN

December 6, 2016

Four years ago, I was in Myanmar's Rakhine State soon after deadly violence erupted between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and stateless Rohingya Muslims. It was a horrendous scene. And it's happening again.

Back then, Buddhist civilians and state security forces unleashed coordinated attacks against Rohingya and other Muslims. I documented pre-dawn raids and cold-blooded massacres.

In a small village in Mrauk-U Township on October 23, 2012, 70 Rohingya were killed, including 28 children -- 13 under the age of 5. Children were hacked to death. Some were thrown into fires.

Entire villages were razed; smoke billowed from homes and mosques in 13 of 17 townships statewide and bodies were disposed in mass graves, none of which have been exhumed for forensic purposes. I personally documented four separate mass gravesites.

At the time, an unpublished United Nations investigation obtained by Al Jazeera's investigative unit, found more than 100 Rohingya women and girls were raped. The authorities then corralled more than 130,000 Rohingya into more than 40 squalid interment camps, where they remain confined today.

This all happened under former President Thein Sein, a longtime military general lauded by the West as a reformer.

Now Nobel-laureate Aung San Suu Kyi is State Counselor, the de facto head of state --and the same atrocities are happening again.

The recent violence

On October 9, a group of Rohingya men and boys allegedly attacked three police outposts in Maungdaw and Rathedaung townships, killing nine police. This was highly unusual. Despite unending persecution, Rohingya militancy hasn't been seen for decades.

The Myanmar military commenced a full-on offensive that's ongoing in northern Rakhine State -- a veritable black zone sealed off from aid workers and international observers.

We've documented unlawful killings of unarmed Rohingya men, and we've steadily received allegations of mass rape of Rohingya women and girls by army soldiers. 

Helicopter gunners opened fire from the sky and entire villages have burned, evidenced by high-resolution satellite imagery obtained by Human Rights Watch.

Meantime, the civilian government and military continue to block all access to affected areas. Pre-existing aid programs, which were keeping thousands of Rohingya alive, have been suspended for eight weeks.

According to the UN, the authorities are denying at least 130,000 men, women and children access to humanitarian aid -- food, nutrition and health care. Thirty thousand are likely displaced in the blackout zone. An estimated 3,000 children suffer from severe acute malnutrition.

Without urgent aid, they will likely die.

Nearly all of the international aid workers in Maungdaw Township have left as the government has not renewed their travel authorizations. Independent monitors and media are still barred.

State-run media has claimed international journalists and human rights groups are working "hand in glove" with terrorists. It has alluded to Rohingya as a "thorn" that "has to be removed," and as "detestable human fleas."

Make no mistake: this is genocide talk. And it is happening with Aung San Suu Kyi's imprimatur.

Suu Kyi's culpability

The dominant narrative suggests Suu Kyi's hands are tied and that she has no control over the military. This is a half-truth.

By law, the military controls the ministries of Defense, Home Affairs and Border Affairs. These are instrumental ministries with respect to abuses in northern Rakhine State and Suu Kyi doesn't control them.

But in military lockstep, the State Counselor's office has flatly denied any abuses may have taken place since October 9. And she's since doubled down, accusing the international community of "always drumming up cause for bigger fires of resentment.

Her office has demanded apologies from the BBC and the UN's refugee agency after the latter alleged "ethnic cleansing" was taking place.

Moreover, Suu Kyi does control the ministries of Information, Foreign Affairs and others, and she could swiftly renew travel authorizations for aid workers. But she isn't.

No one in the country has as much moral authority to change public opinion and counteract hate speech as Suu Kyi.

So UN officials and governments are rightly sounding alarms. 

The UN Special Advisor on genocide prevention last week called for urgent action while the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights alleged again that crimes against humanity may be taking place. The US government called for a "credible and independent investigation," a call echoed by various Asian parliaments in recent weeks.

But this is not enough. 

Left to its own devices, Myanmar will continue to destroy this ethnic and religious minority. We can't let that happen.

What can be done

In his final days in office, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon should travel to Myanmar and personally ensure the authorities provide immediate and unfettered access to all populations in need in Rakhine State. Any failure to end this despicable aid blockade will result in significant loss of life -- indeed, it likely already has.

In addition, UN member states should push for a UN Commission of Inquiry into what is happening in Rakhine State.

In August, Aung San Suu Kyi appointed an "Advisory Commission" on Rakhine State, which is led by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. Fortify Rights welcomed the move, but Annan himself has said the commission does not intend to focus on human rights. It's unclear if that directive comes from him or the State Counselor, but regardless, for the Rohingya, it's a problem.

Annan is expected to address the press this afternoon following a three-day guided tour of Rakhine State. We don't expect him to address ongoing human rights violations, but he should. At this point, it's a moral imperative.

His commission isn't the only one expected to abandon human rights. Last week, Suu Kyi's government appointed yet another body to look into the situation in Rakhine State since since October 9. It has all the markings of a whitewash -- it's led by retired army general Myint Swe, a man formerly blacklisted by the US government -- and doesn't include a single Muslim commissioner.

Now is the time for independent UN-mandated Commission of Inquiry to address the totality of the human rights situation in Rakhine State, including grievances from the Rakhine Buddhist communities.

Such an investigation would provide much-needed credibility and could cooperate with Kofi Annan's team while also delving deep to establish the facts, identify perpetrators and make recommendations to end, once and for all, the cycle of atrocity crimes against Rohingya -- before it's too late.

Aung San Suu Kyi appears to be watching a possible genocide unfold. The international community must not.

Nget Chaung, a camp for displaced people on a marginal smudge of low-lying coastland in western Myanmar, is not a place anyone would want to call home.

"No-one should have to live in the conditions that we see in Nget Chaung," said Pierre Peron, spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Myanmar.

Those conditions, said a humanitarian worker familiar with the camp, "are really the worst."

"The location is flooded much of the time. You have to go through the dirty water to reach your own shelter," said the aid worker, who asked not to be named due to local sensitivities around humanitarian teams operating in the state.

The shelters, many of which were built to last six months but have now been occupied for two years, are "in very bad condition," she said. "There's no livelihood, no opportunity at all."

Nonetheless, this desperate patch of coastal plain is home to some 6,000 Rohingya Muslims, thousands of them children. Most have been in the camp, subsisting in wretched conditions, since their villages were destroyed in a frenzy of mob violence two years ago.

Trapped in 'internment camps'

Across Rakhine state, an impoverished region of some 3.2 million in Myanmar's remote west, more than 130,000 other displaced people are trapped in 67 similar camps, the majority of them de facto stateless Muslims, living under apartheid-like conditions. Most have been there since October 2012, following waves of intercommunal violence that left hundreds dead.

With the camps under guard, and inhabitants forbidden to leave of their own volition -- Minister of Information Ye Htut told CNN they were only allowed to leave under police escort, "to prevent further clashes and (ensure) their safety" -- the settlements "have essentially become internment camps" for about 140,000 people, according to a recent report by the International Crisis Group.

Wai Wai Nu, a Rohingya Muslim activist, has no hesitation in labeling them concentration camps. "The people there are stripped of their human rights, left with no physical, mental or food security," she said. "They are depressed, in pain, hopeless."

The U.N.'s Special Rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, has noted "disturbing reports of deaths in camps owing to lack of access to emergency medical assistance and owing to preventable, chronic or pregnancy-related conditions."

When those outside the camps, but confined to their isolated villages by security forces, are counted, the number of Muslims in the state subject to restrictions on movement totals in the hundreds of thousands. It's a situation which "severely compromises their basic rights to food, health, education and livelihoods," said Peron.

"Without freedom of movement, people simply cannot rebuild their lives, and continue to rely on international humanitarian aid."

'Suffering I have never seen before'

After the U.N.'s Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Kyung-wha Kang, visited Rakhine's camps, including Nget Chaung, in June, she described witnessing "a level of human suffering in IDP camps that I have personally never seen before."

The situation in Nget Chaung has scarcely improved since Kang's visit, said the humanitarian worker familiar with the camp.

While residents confined to other camps can often find limited ways to access surrounding markets to eke out a livelihood, Nget Chaung was rare in that its inhabitants were totally isolated, she said. The camp was only accessible by boat, taking between 1.5 to four hours to reach depending on tides, and particularly exposed to severe storms, which occasionally forced the residents to be evacuated.

It was difficult to get contractors in to improve conditions in the camp, she said, as they had been warned off working there by local communities opposed to the Rohingya presence.

Flooding meant medical clinics could only operate at the entrance to Nget Chaung, putting treatment beyond the reach of those too ill to scramble up the camp's muddy embankments. Skin diseases and gastrointestinal complaints were commonplace. Amidst all this, residents were tormented by the sight of their old villages, within view of their new, prison-like home.

"People have been here two years and they have nothing. Nothing," said the humanitarian worker. "The desperation is extremely high and it's increasing."

How did it come to this?

The crisis in Rakhine state began in May 2012, when the rape and murder of a Buddhist woman by Muslim men ignited long-standing tensions between the Rakhine majority, a Buddhist ethnic group that accounts for about 60% of the state's population, and the sizable and disenfranchised Muslim minority of about one million, many of whom identify as Rohingya.

The waves of violence that followed -- pogroms in June, followed by more organized violence in October -- amounted to crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya by the Rakhines, according to a Human Rights Watch report. The report alleged the collusion of officials, community leaders, Buddhist monks and state security forces, to terrorize and "forcibly relocate" the Rohingya.

In the aftermath of the violence, Myanmar President Thein Sein reportedly told a visiting United Nations delegation that the government did not recognize the Rohingya as citizens of Myanmar, and was planning to install them in refugee camps until another country could be found to take them.

Despite most having lived in Myanmar for generations, the Rohingya are widely viewed as illegal interlopers from neighboring Bangladesh, and are not listed among the 135 officially recognized indigenous ethnicities of Myanmar. A citizenship law introduced in 1982 led many Muslims to be essentially stripped of citizenship retroactively.

In the years since the Rohingya were driven into the camps, their situation has only become more desperate.

In February, the largest provider of humanitarian medical aid in the state, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF, or Doctors Without Borders) was driven out by authorities amid allegations from ethnic Rakhine groups of bias towards the Rohingya.

A month later, a Rakhine mob attacked international aid agencies in the state capital, Sittwe, causing 300 humanitarian workers to flee, $1 million in losses and halting aid for a month. Services have not been restored to capacity, according to the U.N.'s Special Rapporteur on Myanmar -- a memorandum of understanding paving the way for MSF to resume operations was not even signed until September, due to opposition from the Rakhine community.

Yanghee Lee noted in a report table overnight before the U.N. General Assembly that the Rohingya face "systematic discrimination" and have reportedly been subject to human rights violations including "summary executions, enforced disappearances, torture, forced labor and forced displacements, as well as rape and other forms of sexual violence." She called on the allegations to be investigated and the perpetrators held to account.

Recent moves at a national level -- such as a push by monk-led extremist Buddhist groups for a ban on interfaith marriages -- have helped further push Muslims to the social margins.

State-sanctioned marginalization

Under pressure from the international community to curb abuses against the Rohingya, the government is now preparing to announce its solution to the crisis in Rakhine. But a draft of the plan, obtained by CNN, is causing alarm among humanitarian groups.

They fear it only consolidates the state-sanctioned marginalization that has been occurring, and lays the framework for a push to drive the Rohingya out of the country, or leave them permanently interned in camps.

"They're trying to squeeze, squeeze, squeeze the Rohingya so they have no choice but to leave," said Chris Lewa, director of the nonprofit advocacy group Arakan Project, which has been advocating on behalf of the Rohingya for more than a decade.

She describes the government's "action plan" for the Rohingya as part of a "concerted campaign to demoralize, disenfranchise and entice them to leave the country."

David Mathieson, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, agrees. He said that while the plan would legitimately allow the government to remove genuine illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, it appeared designed "to force the Rohingya to get out of there," he said.

"The Rakhine extremists just want the Rohingya pushed out."

More than a million people, he said, are "caught between a hammer and an anvil."

If the goal is to drive the Rohingya out, then it appears to be working, said Lewa. Her organization records the exodus of Rohingya fleeing Myanmar illegally by boat, through networks of people smugglers, through Thailand to destinations like Malaysia and Indonesia.

Her teams of monitors at a dozen departure points along the coast have counted about 10,000 fleeing over the past fortnight -- a significant spike amid mounting pressure. She estimates the total numbers who have fled since the violence now number over 100,000.

Those who flee face a treacherous future. Boats sink, drowning scores at a time; Human Rights Watch has documented how those who fall into the traffickers' hands are vulnerable to exploitation, sexual and otherwise.

The fact that so many choose to leave regardless shows how desperate their situation has become, said Wai Wai. By marginalizing the Rohingya, Myanmar authorities had sparked an exodus and created a growing humanitarian crisis, she said.

What's in the action plan?

A draft of the action plan, which was passed to the U.S. Embassy and other members of the diplomatic community for comment, has been obtained by CNN.

But humanitarian groups who have seen the draft say while it has the potential to deliver citizenship to a proportion of the Rohingya, it is likely in its current state to define hundreds of thousands as illegal aliens, to be eventually deported.

The plan states that those who are deemed ineligible for citizenship will be housed in temporary camps, with authorities to "work with UNHCR to resettle the illegal aliens elsewhere."

Medea Savary, an associate public information officer for UNHCR Myanmar, dismissed the suggestion, saying international resettlement under the auspices of the organization was "only for refugees that have crossed international borders."

Myanmar's Minister of Information and presidential spokesman Ye Htut told CNN via email that the planned "citizenship verification" process was "long... but open and transparent."

It would require applicants to submit evidence which proved their ancestors were settled in the country before it gained independence in 1948.

Their application would then be considered by a 7-person "township processing committee" consisting of four representatives from government agencies, two representatives from the Rakhine community and one from the Muslim community, he wrote. The latter three would be selected by their respective communities, and could seek opinions from the public.

If all seven members agreed, he wrote, the applicant would be recommended to regional and federal-level committees that could then consider the application.

But critics see major problems with the proposed process, which would appear to give ethnic Rakhines veto power over applications.

"There's no way people would have the sort of documentation required, especially not in poor rural areas," said Mathieson. Lewa said she believed the process was "likely to exclude the vast majority of the Rohingya."

Htut said the government could not predict what proportion of Muslims would be found to be eligible for citizenship under the process.

What's in a name?

Also problematic was the requirement for those submitting to the process to be categorized as "Bengali," rather than Rohingya.

Htut told CNN that the government refused to use the term Rohingya "because even under British rule, their censuses and official data never mention" the term.

Earlier this year, large numbers of Rohingya were excluded from the country's first national census in three decades because they refused to register as Bengalis, a label they believe implicitly undermines their claim to be recognized as legitimately belonging to Myanmar.

The name issue was significant, said Wai Wai, not least because the class of citizenship being dangled at those opting to identify as Bengali was "naturalized" citizenship -- a "second-class" form of citizenship which carried less rights and could be stripped at any time.

"Using this name means they are going to make these people foreigners first," she said. "That's why people are worried -- because they were citizens of Burma in the past, they enjoyed a dignified existence.

"They will be downgrading their citizenship retrospectively to a second-class citizenship that can be taken away."

The draft plan states that those who do not comply with being registered as Bengalis will meet the same fate as those who fail the citizenship test.

A U.S. State Department spokesperson told CNN it had urged Myanmar to eliminate the "Bengali" requirement from the process, and had expressed concern over other elements, including the proposal to place those who do not receive citizenship in camps.

It encouraged the government to incorporate feedback from the international community into future revisions of the plan.

But whether the government will heed their advice remains to be seen. In Lewa's eyes, the international community has been "too quiet" on the issue.

But as Myanmar transitions from decades of military ruled isolation towards democracy, its leaders appear more receptive to international opinion.

Next month, the country will play host to the leaders of countries including the United States, China, India, Australia and Japan at the East Asia Summit.

For Wai Wai, international pressure, including through such channels, remains the best, perhaps only hope for a dispossessed group virtually powerless to change their circumstances themselves.

"Who knows what will happen? It depends on the international community. It depends on the government," she said

"If the government imposes this forcefully then we will see another big injustice in the world. We're concerned it will lead to a bad outcome... Young people who have no hope, we cannot imagine where it will lead."