By Liz Mys and Andrew Day

RB Article

March 22, 2017

Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh 

“In some camps there are latrines in front of their dwellings upon the mazes of long bamboo sheds. They are choked with the blackest rancid bubbly mixture of everything nasty that you can possibly imagine from excrement to dead animals. Mosquitoes hovering over their putrid breeding ground just inches from where thousands of people are laying on the mud floors of their huts. In the midst of the hot season, the gunk in the latrines thicken into a bog like mixture.- Andrew Day 

Unlike the Kutapalong Registered camp where the main source of water is ground water, with tube wells (one functioning tube well to 107 families on average), Nayapara camp, which is in Teknaf sub district beside the river Naf and groundwater is not available due to hydrological constrains. 

In order to provide water in the Nayapara camp, an artificial reservoir was constructed within the boundary of the camp. Drinking water is supplied through a pipe line network and during the dry season, water is trucked in to the camp. 

The operating time of the water taps is 2 hours per day, though it is of one cause of discrepancy. The families report that they only manage to collect 3 to 4 containers per family per day, 6 to 8 liters. For an average family of 6 or more this ration is hardly enough and well below the 15 to 20 liters recommended.

The water they are getting to drink and to cook with, depending on where you are will come from a dirty ravine, shallow tune wells or pumped from reservoirs. The quality of water is terrible. Most of the water sources begin to dry up at the end of the hot season, before the rain comes, making supply scarce.

Men can bathe with a bucket standing by a tube well, or some will go to the murky brown water that has collected in an ablution pond at some of the larger mosques. The women can’t do so as easily without harassment. 

In these densely populated areas, many women can only hope for a small water pail to wash themselves inside their huts.

The rain will finally come during the monsoon season. The heavy downpours will cause the latrines to flood over and the hellish contents therein flows into their sleeping quarters and saturates all their possessions. Their clothes, their cooking pot, whatever that has not been taken away by the current of flood water, which when it gets so bad could rise up to chest high of this bacteria laden runoff.” – Andrew Day

“It is dangerous in the forest where we go to collect wood or dry leaves, there are robbers, or villagers or forest ranger demand money from us. They sometimes take our tools or beat is until we pay. But we don’t have money to pay”. – Refugee, Leda Camp. 

Many have told stories of beatings from thugs and police for something as basic as collecting water from a nearby stream. Women folk tells of how they are stopped, verbally abused and raped if they are intercepted by these men. These incidents doesn’t get reported to the authorities as their statuses of being unregistered deem them illegal and unprotected by any laws.

The access to clean and safe water everywhere is a problem. Very few water sources are ever tested but with the shallow wells and reservoirs so overlapped with sewage, it is inevitable that eating and drinking will make them sick.

These unnecessary circumstances are breeding grounds for infections and typhoid is a reoccurring condition or rather a perpetual one, to the point where fevers and vomiting are not to be taken as cause for alarm because they are so common. A common combination is typhoid with anemia and most likely a bacterial skin disease. 

Living is impossible when people are eating and drinking traces of faeces daily. That’s if they have anything to eat at all. 

Many unregistered Rohingya live in unofficial refugee settlements, where malnutrition rampant. In one makeshift camp, the global acute malnutrition rate is at 30%, double of emergency threshold. 

But despite of this, the government has denied permits for aid agencies to assist unregistered refugees, stating that medical, food, drinking water and training facilities run by the charities were encouraging an influx of Rohingya to the country.

Borrowing, lending, trading, selling and buying food are common coping mechanisms among the refugees to compensate for the food deficit. Those who are registered also share their food rations with those who are not. There have also been reported incidences of forced sale of food rations to local villagers which have been instigated and aided by camp personnel, the Mahjees and local thugs.

“I have to borrow sometimes up to five kilograms of food a week to feed my family.” Nayapara refugee, family of 14.

According to UNHCR the recent influx of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, saw 70,000 people cross over to Bangladesh since October 2016. From the 1990s, the country has had a huge number of refugees who fled the persecution and violence against them. The number of refugees in Bangladesh is reported to be almost 1 Million in total, only 10% refugees able to receive aid in the UN registered camps. 

Adding to the already huge number of refugee in the country, these families are currently living in makeshift tents around the border areas. Some 2000 families are reported to be hiding in the forests. 

With the monsoon season expected in 2 months time and almost right in the middle of the month of Ramadan, these families will have to face an event more dire situation on top of lack of food and medical care. 

• UNHCR seeks equal treatment for all Rohingya in Bangladesh

http://www.unhcr.org/news/latest/2017/3/58cfac434/unhcr-seeks-equal-treatment-rohingya-bangladesh.html

By Nita Bhalla

Thomson Reuters Foundation

March 21, 2017

NEW DELHI - Tens of thousands of Muslims who have fled violence in northern Myanmar are living in "extremely poor" conditions in neighbouring Bangladesh and need better shelter as the country's cyclone season approaches, the Red Cross said on Monday. 

Some 75,000 Rohingya people from Rakhine state have arrived in Bangladesh since Myanmar's military began a security operation last October, in response to what it says was an attack by Rohingya insurgents on border posts. 

Many refugees are living in "unplanned and overcrowded settlements" in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar district, said the Red Cross, and do not have adequate food, clean water, shelter materials or medicines.

"Most don't have access to regular medical services and they are not getting enough food or sufficient nutrition," said Azmat Ulla, Bangladesh Head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, in a statement.

"Shelter is also a big issue. Many are living in sub-standard temporary structures. We need to scale up our support, particularly as there will be additional challenges ahead with the onset of the flood and cyclone season."

Bangladesh's April to December cyclone season often causes mass evacuations from coastal low-lying villages and widespread crop and property damage.

Cox's Bazar, located on the southeast coast, is prone to the cyclones formed in the Bay of Bengal -- and some of the most vulnerable residents are the thousands of displaced Rohingya people who live in make-shift camps in the district.

Rohingya Muslims have been fleeing apartheid-like conditions in northwestern Myanmar, where they are denied citizenship, since the early 1990s. There are now at least 300,000 who have crossed into Bangladesh, according to the Red Cross.

Around 30,000 are registered as refugees and are living in the two official camps in Cox's Bazar. But most are in makeshift camps or with host communities, said the Red Cross, where they lack access to basics such as toilets and healthcare.

A U.N. report last month, based on interviews with survivors in Bangladesh, said the Myanmar army and police had committed mass killings and gang rapes of Rohingya in a campaign that may amount to crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.

(Reporting by Nita Bhalla, Editing by Ros Russell.)

By Radio Free Asia

March 21, 2017

Investigators from a Myanmar commission probing reports of recent violence against Rohingya Muslims in the northern part of restive Rakhine state will draft a “balanced” report based on fact-finding missions in Rakhine villages and refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh, where tens of thousands of the minority group have fled from a crackdown, a member of the body said Tuesday.

Members of the Maungdaw Investigation Commission, appointed by the Rakhine state parliament last October, have wrapped up a fact-finding trip to the area and will soon meet with another group of members from the body that went to Bangladesh, said commission member Saw Thalay Saw.

“Most of them [residents of the affected townships in northern Rakhine] are getting back to their business, and they have been receiving help from the state government and international nongovernmental organizations,” she said. 

“We will hold a meeting about our visits and will work on reaching a decision about them,” she said. 

Maungdaw Commission members went to northern Rakhine state on March 17 and met with border guard police and local government officials, as well as with resettled families and individuals who fled during the October attacks, Myanmar News Agency reported

The commission members also discussed plans to ensure health care, shelter, and food for residents, the report said.

The commission’s two groups will discuss having a balanced point of view from both sides—Rohingya who accuse security forces of committing atrocities against them and ethnic Rakhine villagers whose accounts differ from those of the Rohingya, Saw Thalay Saw said.

Some Rohingya have accused Myanmar security forces of carrying out extrajudicial killings, torture, arson and rape during a four-month crackdown following a deadly attack on local border guard posts last October that was blamed on Rohingya militants.

About 1,000 people have died during the security operations, and more than 77,000 have fled mainly to Bangladesh where they have sought refuge in displaced persons camps.

The group from the Maungdaw Investigation Commission that went to Bangladesh to talk to Rohingya about the alleged rights abuses has completed its trip.

Ten investigators questioned about 35 Rohingya in relief camps in southern Bangladesh, who gave accounts of persecution and horrors they faced, according to a report by TRT World, the international news platform of the Turkish Radio and Television Corp.

Saw Thalay Saw, who is also a lawmaker from Shwegyin in Bago region, told RFA’s Myanmar Service last week that the group was going to Bangladesh to investigate what happened to those who fled Myanmar and to check both sides in order to get complete information.

It is not known when the commission will complete its second report and submit it to the Rakhine state government. The first report was submitted to Rakhine lawmakers on Dec. 27, 2016.

No proper strategy

In February, the commission completed another fact-finding mission in the affected areas to investigate United Nations’ allegations of human rights violations against Rohingya Muslims in northern Rakhine that said abuses committed by soldiers and police during the crackdown indicated “the very likely commission of crimes against humanity.”

At the time, Saw Thalay Saw told RFA that the commission members visited several villages in Maungdaw township, one of the areas under security lockdown, and investigated the differences between the U.N. report and the situation on the ground.

Rights groups have criticized the investigation commission and three others set up by President Htin Kyaw, the Myanmar army, and the police to look into reports of atrocities against the Rohingya during the security operations.

The Rohingya face routine discrimination in Buddhist-majority Myanmar where they are denied citizenship and other basic rights.

“All problems in Rakhine from the past and present have occurred because each government has been unable to solve them with the proper strategy,” Rakhine state lawmaker Zaw Zaw Myint told RFA on Tuesday. 

He went on to say that the situation in Rakhine will never be resolved as long as the rights of the ethnic Buddhist Rakhine people are not taken into consideration. 

‘Crimes against humanity’

U.N. special rapporteur to Myanmar Yanghee Lee, who recently visited the affected areas in northern Rakhine state and Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh, told CNN on Monday that the violence could indicate crimes against humanity committed in the Southeast Asia nation.

When Lee visited refugee camps in Bangladesh, she spoke with more than 140 people about the reports of indiscriminate killings, arson, torture, and rape during the four-month-long-security operations in northern Rakhine state.

When asked by CNN if the crisis in Rakhine amounted to genocide, she said, “I would not use that word right now, but …from the allegations I heard and from where I saw it, it could amount to crimes against humanity.”

Though Lee has called for a U.N. inquiry commission to look into the recent violence against the Rohingya in Rakhine state, she said the “international community really did not have the appetite for it.” 

On March 16, the European Union submitted a draft resolution to the U.N. Human Rights Council calling for an immediate international probe of human rights violations by the military against Muslim Rohingya in Myanmar’s Rakhine state. 

Members of the Human Rights Council will vote on the resolution this week.

Reported by Waiyan Moe Myint and Min Theing Aung for RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Bangladesh coast guards walk in the Thengar Char island in the Bay of Bengal, Bangladesh, Feb. 2, 2017.

By Paul Alexander

Voice of America

March 21, 2017

Bangladesh has proposed moving an influx of refugees from Myanmar to an isolated island that only emerged from the sea 11 years ago, partially floods at high tide and disappears completely for three months during the annual monsoon season.

Local officials say extensive time – likely years -- and work would be required, at significant expense, to make Thengar Char habitable. The only regular residents now are a handful of water buffalo, though pirates and other criminals reportedly make use of it occasionally.

The prospect of living there is leading some of the ethnic Rohingya refugees to return to homes they fled due to rapes, arson and extrajudicial killings that they blame largely on Myanmar’s powerful military.

“There was a lot of concern among the refugees when they heard about it,” said Vivian Tan, a U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees representative who has been involved in the Rohingya issue. “They heard no one lives there. They’re concerned about food. They’re concerned about drinking water. They’re concerned with where they can live. There’s a huge flood risk. It sounds like it’s not very hospitable.”

Thengar Char was formed by the 1 billion tons of silt that flow every year from the peaks of the Himalayas to the turbid waters of Bangladesh’s Meghna estuary in the Bay of Bengal. About 59 kilometers and a two-hour boat ride from the coast, it covers about 186 square kilometers, much of it marshy with a shoreline that looks ready to crumble.

The monsoons bring not only heavy rains that swamp the island, but strong winds that also concern aid agencies. Human Rights Watch has called it a “human rights and humanitarian disaster in the making.” There are no roads, let alone cell phone service.

One key reason for wanting to move the refugees is clear. Two camps of registered Rohingyas (there are about 6 other smaller camps with non-registered Rohingyas) are located at Cox’s Bazaar, a district that includes a long beach that Bangladesh would like to develop for tourism. But the government finds itself stuck between the needs of its own impoverished populace and international policies against forcing refugees to return to the conditions that they fled.

Rohingya refugees collect aid supplies including food and medicine, sent from Malaysia, at Kutupalang Unregistered Refugee Camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, Feb. 15, 2017.

“UNHCR has been very clear: there has to be a feasibility study, there must be consultation, and it must be voluntary,” Tan said. “There needs to be a clear overview on what needs to be done for better planning.”

The estimated 1 million Rohingya, who are mostly Muslims, face official and social discrimination in Myanmar and are generally denied citizenship, even if their families have lived there for generations.

A wave of Rohingya crossed into Bangladesh from Rakhine state in 2012 to flee violence from the country’s Buddhist majority, and others have left since then. However, Rohingyas started to cross inside Bangladesh in 1978. Bangladesh broached the idea of a relocation plan in 2014.

On October 9, nine policemen were killed in Rakhine in an attack blamed on Rohingya insurgents. Myanmar's military launched a "clearance operation" in the area to ferret out the insurgents. Soon after the four-month operation started, Rohingya began fleeing the area, accusing soldiers, police and local Buddhist groups who accompanied the forces during the raids, of abuses, including rapes, killings and arson. UNHCR has said the actions very likely constituted "crimes against humanity."

The ruins of a market that was set on fire are seen at a Rohingya village outside Maugndaw in Rakhine state, Myanmar, Oct. 27, 2016.

Myanmar’s military has denied any abuses and says only 100 Rohingya were killed, while two senior U.N. officials working among the refugees said more than 1,000 may have died. About 100,000 are estimated to have left, 70,000 to Bangladesh and 30,000 elsewhere in Myanmar.

Bangladesh doesn’t really know how big the refugee issue is and has been conducting a census of the Rohingya. Unofficial estimates put their number at 200,000 to 500,000.

About 33,000 registered refugees live in the squalid, overcrowded Cox’s Bazaar camps, mostly in shelters made of bamboo and plastic the thickness of garbage bags. Several other camps have sprouted up, and some refugees have found temporary homes among the native Bengalis.

Despite criticism of the plan to move the refugees to Thengar Char – an earlier proposal to shift them to a populated island was abandoned -- the government has said it plans to push ahead, though there is no timeline or other specifics.

At the bare minimum, aid officials say, the government would need to build an embankment around the island to prevent flooding and create shelters from cyclones. There’s no fresh water. Other infrastructure would be needed, including schools. Security would have to be bolstered.

The government has put out feelers for outside aid or grants to fund the project, presumably hoping the refugees would leave at some point, allowing Bangladeshis to take advantage of the improvements.

As they wait to learn Bangladesh’s plan for them, the Rohingya continue to be victims. The conditions they live in leave them open to disease. Some have become prey for human traffickers and drug smugglers, and that would likely continue if they move to an island already used by criminals.

It’s unclear if those who crossed back into Myanmar plan to stay or just want to get their families and whatever is left of their possessions before leaving again. If that’s the case and they are forced or coerced into moving to the island, they could launch a second exodus by sea to India or Indonesia, shifting their burden elsewhere.

By Vivian Tan

UNHCR

March 21, 2017

UKHIYA, Bangladesh - At a glance, Mostafa and Sohel* have a lot in common.

As a young man in 1992, Mostafa fled violence in the northern part of Rakhine state in Myanmar to seek refuge in Bangladesh.

Twenty-five years later Sohel took the same journey. After weeks of violence amid a security operation in his village, the 22-year-old had to be carried across the Naf River to safety earlier this year, his body burnt and swollen.

Pointing to the scars on his feet, Sohel said: “They beat us senseless and left us to die in a ditch. We were five people in the group, only three survived.”

Both men found refuge in Bangladesh, where Mostafa recently guided Sohel to a hospital to received treatment for his injuries. But despite their common Rohingya background and circumstances, Mostafa and Sohel are being treated very differently.

As part of the influx of refugees in the early 1990s, Mostafa is among 33,000 registered refugees living in two government-run camps serviced by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and its partners in south-eastern Bangladesh.

He has a home in Kutupalong camp and access to basic services including food assistance, healthcare and education for his wife and three children. Now in his 50s, he has learnt to speak English well and is working as a photographer in the camp.

In contrast, Sohel has no legal status in Bangladesh as one of more than 70,000 Rohingya new arrivals who are believed to have fled a security operation between October 2016 and February 2017. He lives with people from his home village and keeps a low profile. He receives ad hoc assistance if he is lucky.

A third category consists of an estimated 200,000 to 500,000 undocumented Rohingya who arrived in Bangladesh between the two influxes. They live in makeshift sites and local villages, and until recently had no access to humanitarian aid.

“The current situation is not sustainable,” said Shinji Kubo, UNHCR’s Representative in Bangladesh. “Regardless of when they came and where they live, these people have the same needs and deserve equal access to protection and assistance.” 

The new influx has highlighted the urgent need to verify the number and location of the new arrivals. Without this information, vulnerable refugees risk falling through the cracks while others could be receiving duplication of assistance. 

“We are advocating for a joint verification of the new arrivals with our partners as soon as possible,” said Kubo. “This exercise will help the government and humanitarian agencies to better target assistance to those who need it the most, be they new arrivals, refugees who came earlier or locals who host them.”

UNHCR works with humanitarian agencies such as the International Organization for Migration and the World Food Programme in Cox’s Bazar.

Several thousand new arrivals are believed to be hosted in the two official camps, straining the capacity of existing refugees and the infrastructure. The water supply in Nayapara camp is expected to run out by the end of March and there are fears of disease outbreaks as a result of overcrowding and poor sanitation.

Many more new arrivals are living in existing makeshift sites or new ones that have sprouted spontaneously.

In Ukhiya district, a site called Balukhali has emerged in the last two months and now hosts 1,600 families, according to a local politician helping them. Located beyond some rice fields, it is a mish-mash of flimsy shelters and latrines made of thin plastic sheets, dried leaves, tree branches and bamboo. These structures could constitute safety and health hazards unless proper site planning is undertaken.

Miriam*, 65, has just moved to Balukhali with her son’s family. “We were living in a local village for more than two months but the leader said we can only receive assistance if we go to a camp,” she said as her son cleared some land to build a shelter. “We have nowhere else to go, we’ll have to stay here.”

The Bangladesh government has announced it will extend a 2016 census of undocumented Rohingya living outside the two camps to include the new arrivals.

“In the long run, we hope that all Rohingya in Bangladesh can be documented to ensure full respect for their rights,” said UNHCR’s Kubo. “Knowing the profile of this population will also help us to identify longer-term solutions for them.”

Despite his traumatized state, Sohel is clear about one thing: “Here I am living in someone else’s house and I worry about the future. If we are given status in Myanmar, we will definitely go back.

*Names changed for protection reasons

By Antoni Slodkowski and Mohammad Ponir Hossain 

Reuters

March 21, 2017

BALUKHALI, BANGLADESH -- Scared, hungry and badly beaten, Rohingya women fleeing an army crackdown in Myanmar recount harrowing tales of destruction and death: a father burned alive, an uncle slaughtered with a machete, a brother arrested and not heard from again.But huddled in makeshift refugee camps, dependent on food rations and the mercy of fellow refugees, they also carry something else: hope inspired by their newborn children, for whom Bangladesh is now home.

The babies' delicate features present a sharp contrast with the squalid conditions of the makeshift refugee camp, where a skipped meal or food poisoning can mean the difference between survival or death.

The Myanmar army launched its "clearance operation" after Rohingya insurgents attacked border guard posts in northwestern Rakhine state in October.

The United Nations said it had committed mass killings and gang rapes and burned villages in a campaign that may amount to crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.

"One-and-a-half months ago the military came to our village and kept firing their guns," said Amina, one of the refugees, as she cradled her 16-day-old daughter, Sumaiya.

"You see us alive only because god was so kind," added Amina, 30. "They caught my uncle and my younger brother and we don't know whether they are dead or alive."

The military calls its crackdown on the Muslim minority a lawful counterinsurgency operation to defend the country and has denied the allegations. Myanmar launched several investigations into the alleged abuse, but human rights monitors say they lack credibility and independence. 

Amina is one of about 75,000 refugees to have successfully made an often perilous crossing through the fields, eventually fording a river boundary to reach Bangladesh.

Some starved for weeks, while others gave everything they had to pay off people smugglers. Many never made it, drowning or getting shot by Myanmar security forces on the journey.

Survivors, who rely on shelters of bamboo sticks and black plastic sheets for protection from a scorching sun, face a major challenge in keeping their newborns alive.

The camps often lack medical facilities and running water, leading aid agency workers to worry about an outbreak of water-borne diseases such as cholera.

"People are living in tough circumstances. Most don’t have access to regular medical services and are not getting enough food," said Azmat Ulla, an official of the International Federation of Red Cross in Bangladesh, launching an emergency appeal for help on Monday.

SURVIVING ON RATIONS

Many women struggle for funds, having lost male relations, the sole breadwinners in most families. They rely on handouts from the World Food Program and other agencies.

Clinics run by non-government bodies and the U.N. are overrun, scrambling to treat thousands of patients each month.

Minara Begum, 22, calms her crying one-month-old son, Ayub, as she tells of fleeing from her village of Nasha Phuru with her husband and mother-in-law.

"My child doesn't get enough breast milk as I don't eat enough nutritious food," she said. "I have to buy milk powder, though it's not very good for my son."

Many women said they survived or witnessed acts of gang rape by soldiers.

An official of a large Western aid agency told Reuters it had distributed more than 660 "dignity kits" for assault victims, besides counseling nearly 200 women who suffered trauma after the killing of a family member, usually male.

"This is just the tip of the iceberg," said the worker, who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

LUCKY TO BE ALIVE

The quiet of Cox's Bazar, a beachside resort town, makes for a jarring contrast with the temporary camps amid rice paddies and salt flats just an hour's drive away.

Large groups of desperate women line the roads, begging for money from passing cars, often well after sunset.

A red blanket spread on the earthen floor of her shelter, Rehana Begum, 25, cares for her one-day-old daughter.

"We were in our home and suddenly the military came to our village and started shooting," said Rehana Begum, who fled her village of Jambuinna in Myanmar three months ago.

"When we heard the sound of gun shots we immediately went to our relatives. We walked for four hours without any food and water to reach the border at 1 a.m. We paid $18 to a broker to cross."

The figure is equivalent to 25,000 Myanmar kyat.

Intercepted by Bangladesh border guards, Rehana Begum's family narrowly escaped being sent home.

"They wanted to send us back, but then we heard gunshots from the Myanmar side and the guards released us, saying, 'Stay in Bangladesh and save your lives'," she said.

By Abdul Aziz

Dhaka Tribune

March 20, 2017

Following the visit of the Myanmar delegation, Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar claim their harrowing tales of violence were dubbed lies by the envoys.

Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar have claimed that a Myanmar delegation that spoke to them had dismissed their claims of murder, torture and rape at the hands of Myanmar army.

A 10-member Myanmar government delegation met refugees from the Kutupalong, Balukhali and Leda camps on Sunday and Monday.

According to the Rohingyas, they asked them why the community had fled to Bangladesh. When the refugees unanimously explained the military operations in the Rakhine state, the envoys reportedly dismissed the claims.

Anwar Kamal, a Rohingya refugee, alleged a Myanmar envoy called him a liar after Anwar described the atrocities he witnessed.

Whenever a refugee would speak, they would interrupt and say they were lying, he said.

“I heard a delegation member say ‘These Rohingyas are making things up after fleeing to Bangladesh,’ which makes it clear that they’re just for show,” he added.

The delegation met with the deputy commissioner of Cox’s Bazar after their arrival on Sunday. Afterwards, they met with some Rohingyas who are part of a fresh influx of refugees at the Kutupalong camp.

On Monday morning, they visited the Balukhali camp for unregistered refugees in Ukhiya, and then the Leda camp in Teknaf in the afternoon.

Farida Akhter and Yasmin Akhter, two refugees from the Balukhali camp said they shared their own horrific accounts of being tortured at the hands of Myanmar soldiers.

However, the 10-member delegation has not spoken to the media at all during their visit. Members of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and other aid agencies accompanying the delegation also refused to make any statements.

Hafez Ahmed, another Rohingya refugee, who claims to have spoken to the delegation said the envoys were all for show.

When Hafez and some other Rohingyas expressed their desire to go back to Myanmar after the Rakhine state is made safe for them, the delegation refrained from making any remarks, he said.

By Julhas Alam

Associated Press

March 20, 2017

Dhaka, Bangladesh -- An investigating team formed by Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi visited two makeshift camps in southern Bangladesh on Monday and questioned some of the thousands of Rohingya Muslims who have fled from Myanmar, alleging mistreatment by soldiers and majority Buddhists.

The Rohingya refused to show their faces to the 10 visiting investigators, fearing reprisals when they return home, said magistrate Imrul Kayes, who accompanied the team.

He said the men and women talked from behind a curtain and gave accounts of horrors they faced, including the raping of women, killing of children and burning of villages.

About 35 people described their experiences to the investigators in Cox's Bazar district, he said. The investigators did not speak to the media.

About 90,000 Rohingya Muslims have crossed the border from Myanmar into neighboring Bangladesh.

Myanmar's army launched counterinsurgency operations in Rohingya areas in northern Rakhine state last October after the killing of nine border guards. U.N. human rights investigators and independent rights organizations charge that soldiers and police killed and raped civilians and burned down more than 1,000 homes during their operations.

Myanmar's government has rejected the allegations, but promised to investigate.

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

By bdnews24.com

March 19, 2017

A Myanmar government delegation has reached Cox’s Bazar to visit three camps where the Rohingyas, who fled persecution in their own country, are sheltered.

The 10-member team arrived in the tourist town in the morning on Sunday and met the Cox’s Bazar deputy commissioner at around 11am.

From there they set off for Kutupalong camp in Ukhia, their first destination for a visit, according to Md Ali Hossain, DC of Cox’s Bazar.

Investigation Commission Secretary of Myanmar U Zaw Myint Pe is leading the 10-member team. Five of the members of the team are from the committee Myanmar government constituted on the face of an international outcry to resolve the Rohingya issue.

The refugees from Rohingya Muslim community fled Myanmar in the face of an army crackdown that began in October last year following an attack by unidentified miscreants on a security check post.

According to the International Organization for Migration, some 70,000 refugees have so far taken shelter inside Bangladesh since then.

“They are here to see the plight of the Rohingyas. We also discussed possibilities of economic and cultural cooperation between the two neighbours,” Ali added.

He said the delegation would visit one camp in Balukhali in Ukhia and another in Letah in Teknaf on Monday.

By Esther Htusan

Associated Press

March 19, 2017

SITTWE, Myanmar — Hundreds of hard-line Buddhists in a Myanmar state wracked by religious violence protested Sunday against the government's plan to give citizenship to some members of the persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority community.

Rakhine state's dominant Arakan National Party led the protest in Sittwe, the state capital, where many Rohingya lived before an outbreak of inter-communal violence in 2012 forced them to flee their homes.

"We are protesting to tell the government to rightfully follow the 1982 citizenship law and we cannot allow the government giving citizenship cards to these illegal migrants," said Aung Htay, a protest organizer.

The Rohingya face severe discrimination in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, with many in Rakhine and elsewhere considering them to be illegal migrants from neighboring Bangladesh, even though Rohingya have been in Myanmar for generations. The 2012 violence killed hundreds and drove about 140,000 people — predominantly Rohingya — from their homes to camps for the internally displaced, where most remain.

Rakhine, one of the poorest states in Myanmar, is home to more than 1 million stateless Rohingya.

Sunday's protest took place three days after the Rakhine Advisory Commission, led by former U.N. chief Kofi Annan, urged Myanmar's government to reconsider a failed program to verify Rohingya for Myanmar citizenship and to remove restrictions on freedom of movement.

"We also look at the question of citizenship, and we also call for all those who have been recognized as citizens to have all the rights attached to that citizenship," Ghassan Salame, a member of the commission, said last week.

Myanmar's new civilian government, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, welcomed the commission's proposal. Suu Kyi's office said that most of the commission's recommendations would be "implemented promptly."

The government withdrew the Rohingya's so-called white cards two years ago as part of a plan to expel them from the country and cancel their citizenship under the 1982 law.

By Human Rights Watch

March 19, 2017

Statement to the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission Hearing

Co-Chairmen Representatives McGovern and Hultgren and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to submit a written statement for today’s hearing on the Human Rights of the Rohingya People.

Human Rights Watch has conducted research on the human rights situation in Burma for more than 25 years, focusing on abuses against political dissidents and media, laws-of-war violations in the armed conflicts in ethnic minority areas, and longstanding violenceagainst Burma’s Muslim population, including rampant and systemic violations against the ethnic Rohingya.

About 120,000 Rohingya are currently displaced in camps in Rakhine State as a result of violence in 2012, and nearly 100,000 displaced persons live in squalid, prison-like conditions in camps within Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine State. The humanitarian situation for both remaining internally displaced persons (IDPs) and newly resettled persons remain dire due to restrictions on movement and lack of access to livelihoods and basic services. The Burmese government refuses to use the term Rohingya, which the group self-identifies as but is rejected by ultra-nationalist Buddhists in favor of the term “Bengali,” implying illegal migrant status in Burma. Burma’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi refers to the group as the “Muslim Community in Rakhine State.”

Renewed violence broke out after an October 9, 2016 attack by Rohingya militants on border guard posts in northern Rakhine State. In the wake of the attack, the Burmese military initiated a series of “clearance operations,” locking down the area and denying access to humanitarian aid groups, independent media, and rights monitors. The United Nations estimates that more than one thousand people died in the crackdown. More than 450 Rohingya are being held in Buthidaung prison on charges linked to the attacks on the border posts. 

Human Rights Watch documented numerous abuses associated with the military operations, including widespread arson, extrajudicial killings, and systematic rape and other sexual violence.

Satellite imagery analyzed by Human Rights Watch identified at least 1,500 buildings that were destroyed in Maungdaw township in October and November. The burn scars were consistent with arson attacks, while the pattern of destruction strongly suggested that the buildings were destroyed as part of a military operation. Eyewitness accounts placed accountability for the burnings squarely with the military.

In late 2016 and early 2017, Human Rights Watch researchers in Bangladesh interviewed 40 Rohingya refugees who had fled Rakhine State. The villagers described to Human Rights Watch seeing Burmese military personnel burn their homes, drag family members outside and shoot them, and rape women and girls. Human Rights Watch documented 28 incidents of rape and other sexual assault, some of which involved several victims. Burmese army and Border Guard Police personnel took part in rape, gang rape, invasive body searches, and sexual assaults in at least nine villages in Maungdaw district between October 9 and mid-December. Survivors and witnesses, who identified army and border police units by their uniforms, kerchiefs, armbands, and patches, described security forces carrying out attacks in groups, some holding women down or threatening them at gunpoint while others raped them. Many survivors reported being insulted and threatened on an ethnic or religious basis during the assaults. The sexual violence did not appear to be random or opportunistic, but part of a coordinated and systematic attack against Rohingya, in part because of their ethnicity and religion. A report by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights also provided detailed accounts of atrocities and concluded that the abuses “seem to have been widespread as well as systematic, indicating the very likely commission of crimes against humanity.”

Massive displacement has been an enduring product of the recent violence and deteriorating conditions. As of January 31, the UN estimates that at least 92,000 have fled their homes—69,000 to neighboring Bangladesh, while 23,000 remain displaced within Maungdaw township.

The humanitarian crisis in northern Rakhine State is worsening each day that access to highly vulnerable and food insecure populations is not fully restored. It is crucial that international stakeholders such as the US government publicly press for the resumption of regular and uninterrupted aid deliveries. The Burmese government has failed to fulfill its promise to allow for the full resumption of aid to impacted areas, deepening the crisis for an already vulnerable population. The World Food Programme (WFP) reported on December 29 that “severe food insecurity appears highly widespread.” On January 13, the delivery of emergency food assistance was permitted to 158 affected villages in Maungdaw township, with some 35,000 reportedly reached by January 30. International staff has not been allowed to conduct distributions. Neither the WFP nor the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has been able to conduct a comprehensive needs assessment across the impacted areas in Maungdaw, and thus can only estimate the number of people currently in need of humanitarian assistance.

The Burmese government has failed to adequately or effectively investigate abuses against the Rohingya, and has not acted on recommendations to seek UN assistance for an investigation into the violence. It established various committees to investigate the situation in Rakhine State, but the investigations have consistently lacked independence and credibility. The government’s national investigation commission has announced that the military clearance operations were conducted “lawfully,” denied all rape allegations, and rejected evidence of serious abuses and religious persecution.

Burma’s government should immediately allow unfettered humanitarian access to all parts of northern Rakhine State as the United Nations and others have urged, in order to reach people without adequate access to food, shelter, health care, and other necessities. The US government and others with influence in Burma should press the military and civilian authorities to urgently end abuses and grant access to the area.

In light of the Burmese government’s failure to carry out credible investigations of its own, it is clear that the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, which is currently in session, should create an independent, international investigation body to look into recent abuses. Yanghee Lee, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, has called for the establishment of a commission of inquiry at the session.

The US government should work with the European Union, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and others to support a Human Rights Council resolution creating an independent, international fact-finding mission to investigate abuses in Rakhine State, and press the Burmese authorities to cooperate with the probe and provide investigators access to key areas. The US government, which has contributed significant development aid to Burma throughout its democratic transition, should signal that unchecked abuses of the Rohingya will impair the growing US-Burma relationship.

Beyond addressing immediate human rights and humanitarian concerns, the US government should also call on Burma’s union and state governments to cease persecution of the Rohingya population. The 1.2 million Rohingya in Burma have long been targets of government discrimination, facilitated by their effective denial of citizenship under the 1982 Citizenship Law, which should be amended to meet international standards or repealed. The Rohingya have faced enduring rights abuses, including restrictions on movement; limitations on access to health care, livelihood, shelter, and education; arbitrary arrests and detention; and forced labor. Travel is severely constrained by authorization requirements, security checkpoints, curfews, and strict control of IDP camp access. Such barriers compound the health crisis caused by poor living conditions, severe overcrowding, and limited health facilities. The extension and long-term maintenance of curfew orders in northern townships such as Maungdaw and Buthidaung are also a matter of significant concern, and should be rescinded. 

Written Testimony of John Sifton, Asia Advocacy Director

By Bernama

March 19, 2017

NARATHIWAT: Thai authorities detained 27 ethnic Rohingya in the Salamai sub-district of Tak Bai early Saturday for allegedly trying to enter Malaysia. 

Narathiwat Regional Immigration chief Col Noppadol Rakchart said those detained — 22 men, three women and two children — were arrested in a lorry at 1.30am. 

"The lorry driver, identified as Somrak, disclosed that he had driven the Rohingya from Ban Mod, Thung Krut in Bangkok to Narathiwat before handing them over to a syndicate which would smuggle them to Malaysia," he told reporters here. 

Noppadol said the driver had done the same with two other groups of Rohingya before this and was paid Baht 30,000 (RM3,800) for each trip.

Meanwhile, one of the ethnic Rohingya, via an interpreter, said they had entered Thailand through the Mae Sot border after paying Baht 15,000 (RM1,900) to the syndicate.

By Mary Scully

Pakistan Today

March 17, 2017

Aung San Suu Kyi rose to the stature of human rights goddess in 2012 when she was finally able to leave Myanmar for Norway to pick up the Noble Peace Prize awarded her in 1991. That was also the year the military junta unleashed a wave of terror and ethnic cleansing against Rohingya Muslims in Arakan state.

The 2012 campaign forced tens of thousands of Rohingya to flee for their lives to Bangladesh or across the Andaman Sea to Thailand. The Rohingya genocide became internationally infamous when Bangladesh closed its borders and refused entry and when Thailand took unsound boats of refugees out to sea and abandoned them. When again in 2015 thousands of Rohingya were stranded in boats off Thailand and Indonesia, not allowed to land, the plight of Rohingya became an international human rights cause.

Through all this, Suu Kyi remained in silent collusion or spoke in equivocations but now openly sides with the junta against the Rohingya.

State-sponsored sexual violence as a weapon of war with impunity has been an issue for decades in Burma. There are many activists and organisations that have done consistent and extensive work on the issue, mostly working from exile in other countries. Documentation goes back as far as 1993 but just between 2005 and 2016, eleven women’s organisation from Myanmar published 33 separate reports on military sexual violence against women in ethnic groups or in groups the military is at war with. Although it is Rohingya who are sustaining what has been called the “final states of genocide,” many other ethnic groups are also targeted with systematic mass rape, conscription of child soldiers, forced labour, massacres, and deliberate destruction of villages and fields. Myanmar could be called a hellhole of ethnic persecution by the army of the Buddhist ethnic majority.

Suu Kyi never had much to say on the issue—or on any issue other than electoral politics—until 2011 when she made a video statement to a Nobel Women’s Initiative ceremony saying: “Rape is used in my country as a weapon against those who only want to live in peace, who only want to assert their basic human rights, especially in the areas of the ethnic nationalities. Rape is rife. It is used as a weapon by the armed forces to intimidate the ethnic nationalities and to divide our country.”

Human rights seems to be a ceremonial gesture to Suu Kyi rather than a commitment because in December 2014, after she was elected to parliament as a renowned human rights figure, she was asked about military impunity for sexual violence which had just been documented in a report titled “If they had hope, they would speak: the ongoing use of state-sponsored sexual violence in Burma’s ethnic communities” from the Women’s League of Burma, a coalition of women’s groups. Suu Kyi’s response was to defend the military by saying the ethnic armed groups also use sexual violence in conflict. Probably – but what does that have to do with impunity for the military committing human rights crimes? It is a non-sequitur meant to dodge the issue of impunity.

During the current offensive against the Rohingya, Suu Kyi has been running interference for the military out of two of her cabinet offices: the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the State Counsellor’s Office. Staff members in those offices claim Rohingya are torching their own homes to get sympathy; they respond to every media report of rape or complaints by victims and witnesses of rape and torture that it’s all made-up and exaggerated to get international sympathy or “fabricated in collusion with terrorist groups.” Her representatives block every attempt to have formal or independent investigations of the allegations by blocking journalists and human rights monitors from entering the Arakan state. Most deplorably, in December, Suu Kyi’s State Counsellor’s staff posted a meme on their website with the words “Fake Rape,” and accused Rohingya women of making up rape allegations. There are also videos of Suu Kyi laughing and ridiculing the accusations during speeches in other countries.

Perhaps nothing shows up the political bankruptcy of Suu Kyi more than contrasting her ridicule and denial of accusations by Rohingya women with the public expression of solidarity from the Karen Women’s Organisation (KWO). Karen are a people within the state of Myanmar engaged in conflict with the army and paramilitary forces since the 1940s with the same human rights issues, including systematic mass rape. The KWO issued a strong statement of solidarity with Rohingya saying: In honour of the courage of women in Myanmar, we ask Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD government today, to make a simple nation-wide announcement: “Sexual violence is prohibited to members of the Myanmar Army. Any Myanmar soldier found to have committed this crime, and his commanding officers, will be severely punished.”

In the long run, ending state-sponsored violence against men, women, and children in Myanmar will require dismantling the state apparatus and thoroughgoing revolutionary change since the Myanmar military has become inextricable from the ruling elite. That class connection is what Suu Kyi most resonates with more than she does human rights or solidarity with those suffering injustice. It has nothing to do with Buddhism so much as with accepting and justifying inequality. What is needed is for the vision of the 8888 movement, for which so many freedom fighters died, to be fulfilled.

This article was not intended to vilify Suu Kyi personally but to expose her politically as the cynical human rights face of the military which continues to rule Myanmar with an iron fist, denies democratic and civil rights to millions of its ethnic minorities, and is committing genocide against Rohingya Muslims.

The heartfelt purpose is to build international solidarity with Rohingya who have fought long enough alone.