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November 13, 2017

Downing Street spokesman says UK is 'appalled' by attacks on Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar

ISTANBUL -- A U.K. government spokesman on Monday said violence against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar "looks a lot like ethnic cleansing".

In comments reported in U.K. media, the Downing Street spokesman said the British government had been "appalled by the inhumane violence which has taken place in Rakhine state".

"It’s a major humanitarian crisis which has been created by Burma’s military and it looks like ethnic cleansing," he added.

This follows the UN's description of the violence against Rohingya Muslims as a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing".

Turkey has also been at the forefront of raising the Rohingya crisis internationally.

Earlier on Monday, Live Aid founder Bob Geldof returned a civic award in Dublin in protest at Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi's response to the Rohingya crisis in her country, where, since Aug. 25, over 611,000 people have fled the western state of Rakhine into Bangladesh.

The refugees are fleeing a military operation in which security forces and Buddhist mobs have killed men, women and children, looted homes and torched Rohingya villages.

The Rohingya, described by the UN as the world's most persecuted people, have faced heightened fears of attack since dozens were killed in communal violence in 2012.

Halima, 21, says she was groomed and forced into prostitution in Bangladesh

By Nomia Iqbal
November 13, 2017

The United Nations is warning that more than half a million Rohingya refugees who have fled Rakhine since August are at risk of exploitation in Bangladesh. One woman told Nomia Iqbal, from the BBC's Newsday programme, how she had been groomed and forced into prostitution after fleeing.

With her face covered in a pink scarf, 21-year-old Halima agreed to talk to me in a private place.

"As we entered Bangladesh, we were taken to camp, where a local Bangladeshi man gave us some food," she said. "He told me he had lost his wife and he has two kids. He said he wanted to marry me."

Halima said she had believed him and had accompanied him to his house in Cox's Bazar.

"When I got to the house, I saw seven to eight young girls like me," she said. "I was scared. In this house he forced me to have sex with many men."

Halima says her existence in Bangladesh is not what she expected after fleeing there from Myanmar

Halima came to Bangladesh three months ago to escape the violence in Northern Rakhine. She does not know where her family are and arrived with her neighbours.

More than half of the mainly Muslim Rohingya refugees are children - they have been escaping the violence carried out against them committed by the Myanmar army and some local Buddhist extremists.

Hamima told me she had stayed two months in the house, which was run by a Bangladeshi woman. 

"I was dolled up and had this make-up on," she said. "Sometimes three to four men would come to the house in one night. It was so difficult and I would start bleeding for days."

During that time, she was not given any money, but only three meals a day.

More than half of the refugees are children

One evening a man arrived at the house who would go on to help Halima.

"This man was a police officer who came to have sex but after hearing my story he called me 'sister'. He stayed overnight but did nothing and instead gave me his mobile phone number."

One day, Halima said, she suffered a vicious attack by the female owner of the house and was injured for 15 days.

She decided to make a plan to escape and when another man arrived to sleep with her, she used his mobile phone and contacted the policeman. He arrived with six other officers at midnight.

"He rescued me and six other girls," she said. "He said 'you're free now'."

Criminal gangs and sexual predators are taking advantage of the chaotic nature of the camps to target young children and women

But Halima found herself staying in Cox's Bazar because she did not know anywhere else in Bangladesh. 

Now penniless, she says she has no choice but to be a prostitute. 

She stays in a place with another woman who does similar work and says food and help are provided every now and again. 

For young Halima, this is clearly not the life she expected after fleeing across the border for safety.

"I want to go back to praying five times a day, having meals with my family," she said. "I want the life I had before with my family in Myanmar."

The Bangladeshi government says aid agencies are doing all they can to protect vulnerable people. 

The UN has also said it is focusing on specific activities to tackle the problem, including funding an initiative which involves Rohingya refugees using microphones inside the camps, to announce the names of children when they go missing. 

"I am worried about two sets of risk," the UN's High Commissioner for Refugees, Fillipo Grandi, said.

"One is exploitation, including sexual exploitation, when people come with nothing. They are extremely vulnerable to this. "The other feature of this particular crisis is trauma that people carry with them."

The scale of the problem is staggering.

A 12 year old Rohingya girl who worked as domestic help in a house in Bangladesh, looks out the window at an undisclosed location near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, November 8, 2017. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain

By Tom Allard, Tommy Wilkes
November 13, 2017

COX‘S BAZAR/KUTUPALONG, Bangladesh -- Rohingya refugee children from Myanmar are working punishing hours for paltry pay in Bangladesh, with some suffering beatings and sexual assault, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has found.

Independent reporting by Reuters corroborated some of the findings. 

The results of a probe by the IOM into exploitation and trafficking in Bangladesh’s refugee camps, which Reuters reviewed on an exclusive basis, also documented accounts of Rohingya girls as young as 11 getting married, and parents saying the unions would provide protection and economic advancement. 

About 450,000 children, or 55 percent of the refugee population, live in teeming settlements near the border with Myanmar after fleeing the destruction of villages and alleged murder, looting and rape by security forces and Buddhist mobs.

Afjurul Hoque Tutul, additional superintendent of police in Cox’s Bazar, near where the camps are based, said 11 checkpoints had been set up that would help prevent children from leaving. 

“If any Rohingya child is found working, then the owners will be punished,” he said. 

Most of the refugees have arrived in the past two and a half months after attacks on about 30 security posts by Rohingya rebels met a ferocious response from Myanmar’s military. 

Described by the United Nations human rights commissioner Zeid Ra‘ad Al Hussein as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”, Myanmar’s government counters that its actions are a proportionate response to attacks by Rohingya “terrorists”. 

The IOM’s findings, based on discussions with groups of long-term residents and recent arrivals, and separate interviews by Reuters, show life in the refugee camps is hardly better than it is in Myanmar for Rohingya children. 

The IOM said children were targeted by labor agents and encouraged to work by their destitute parents amid widespread malnutrition and poverty in the camps. Education opportunities are limited for children beyond Grade 3. 

Rohingya boys and girls as young as seven years old were confirmed working outside the settlements, according to the findings.

Boys work on farms, construction sites and fishing boats, as well as in tea shops and as rickshaw drivers, the IOM and Rohingya residents in the camp reported. 

Girls typically work as maids and nannies for Bangladeshi families, either in the nearby resort town of Cox’s Bazar or in Chittagong, Bangladesh’s second-largest city, about 150 km (100 miles) from the camps. 

One Rohingya parent, who asked not to be identified because she feared reprisals, told Reuters her 14-year-old daughter had been working in Chittagong as a maid but fled her employers. 

When she returned to the camp, she was unable to walk, her mother said, adding that her daughter’s Bangladeshi employers had physically and sexually assaulted her. 

“The husband was an alcoholic and he would come to her bedroom at night and rape her. He did it six or seven times,” the mother said. “They gave us no money. Nothing.” 

The account could not be independently verified by Reuters but was similar to others recorded by the IOM.

Azimul Hasan, 10, a Rohingya refugee boy, serves plates at a roadside hotel where he works at Jamtoli, close to Palong Khali camp, near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, November 12, 2017. REUTERS/Navesh Chitrakar

Most interviewees said female Rohingya refugees “experienced sexual harassment, rape and being forced to marry the person who raped her”, the IOM said. 

PAID A PITTANCE, IF AT ALL 

Across Bangladesh’s refugee settlements, Reuters saw children wandering muddy lanes alone and aimlessly, or sitting listlessly outside tents. Many children begged along roadsides. 

The Inter Sector Coordination Group, which oversees UN agencies and charities, said this month it had documented 2,462 unaccompanied and separated children in the camps. The actual number was “likely to be far higher”, it said. 

A preliminary survey by the UNHCR and Bangladesh’s Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commission has found that 5 percent of households - or 3,576 families - were headed by a child.

Reuters interviewed seven families who sent their children to work. All reported terrible working conditions, low wages or abuse. 

Muhammad Zubair, dressed in a dirty football shirt, his small stature belying his stated age of 12 years old, said he was offered 250 taka per day but ended up with only 500 taka ($6) for 38 days work building roads. His mother said he was 14 years old. 

“It was hard work, laying bricks on the road,” he said, squatting in the doorway of his mud hut in the Kutupalong camp. He said he was verbally abused by his employers when he asked for more money and was told to leave. He declined to provide their identities. 

Zubair then took a job in a tea shop for a month, putting in two shifts per day from 6am to past midnight, broken by a four-hour rest period in the afternoon. 

He said he wasn’t allowed to leave the shop and was only permitted to speak to his parents by phone once. 

“When I wasn’t paid, I escaped,” he said. “I was frightened because I thought the owner, the master, would come here with other people and take me again.” 

FORCED MARRIAGE 

Many parents also pressure their daughters to marry early, for protection and for financial stability, according to the IOM findings. Some child brides are as young as 11, the IOM said. 

But many women only became “second wives,” the IOM said. Second wives are frequently divorced quickly and “abandoned without any further economic support”. 

Kateryna Ardanyan, an IOM anti-trafficking specialist, said exploitation had become “normalized” in the camps. 

“Human traffickers usually adapt faster to the situation than any other response mechanism can. It’s very important we try to do prevention.” Ardanyan said. 

“Funding dedicated to protecting Rohingya men, women and children from exploitation and abuse is urgently needed.” 

Reporting by Tom Allard and Tommy Wilkes; Editing by Philip McClellan

In this Nov. 4, 2017, photo, Rohingya Muslim Abdul Karim, 19, uses a yellow plastic oil container as a flotation device as he swims the Naf river while crossing the Myanmar-Bangladesh border in Shah Porir Dwip, Bangladesh. Rohingya Muslims escaping the violence in their homeland of Myanmar are now so desperate that some are swimming to safety in neighboring Bangladesh, even if they have never been in the water before. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

By Bernat Armangue
November 13, 2017

SHAH PORIR DWIP, Bangladesh — Nabi Hussain owes his life to a yellow plastic oil container.

The 13-year-old Rohingya boy couldn't swim, and had never even seen the sea before fleeing his village in Myanmar. But he clung to the empty container and struggled across the water with it for about 2 1/2 miles, all the way to Bangladesh.

Rohingya Muslims escaping the violence in their homeland of Myanmar are now so desperate that some are trying to swim to safety in neighboring Bangladesh. In just a week, more than three dozen boys and young men used cooking oil containers like life rafts to swim across the mouth of the Naf River and wash up ashore in Shah Porir Dwip, a fishing town and cattle trade spot.

"I was so scared of dying," said Nabi, a lanky boy in a striped polo shirt and checkered dhoti. "I thought it was going to be my last day."

Although Rohingya Muslims have lived in Myanmar for decades, the country's Buddhist majority still sees them as invaders from Bangladesh. The government denies them basic rights, and the United Nations has called them the most persecuted minority in the world. Just since August, after their homes were torched by Buddhist mobs and soldiers, more than 600,000 Rohingya have risked the trip to Bangladesh.

"We had a lot of suffering, so we thought drowning in the water was a better option," said Kamal Hussain, 18, who also swam to Bangladesh with an oil container.

Nabi knows almost no one in this new country, and his parents back in Myanmar don't know that he is alive. He doesn't smile and rarely maintains eye contact.

Nabi grew up in the mountains of Myanmar, the fourth of nine children of a farmer who grows paan, the betel leaf used as chewing tobacco. He never went to school.

The trouble started two months ago when Rohingya insurgents attacked Myanmar security forces. The Myanmar military responded with a brutal crackdown, killing men, raping women and burning homes and property. The last Nabi saw of his village, all the homes were on fire.

Nabi's family fled, heading toward the coast, passing dead bodies. But when they arrived at the coast with a flood of other Rohingya refugees, they had no money for a boat and a smuggler.

Every day, there was less food. So after four days, Nabi told his parents he wanted to swim the delta to reach the thin line of land he could see in the distance — Shah Porir Dwip.

His parents didn't want him to go. One of his older brothers had left for Bangladesh two months ago, and they had no idea what had happened to him. They knew the strong currents could carry Nabi into the ocean.

Eventually, though, they agreed, on the condition that he not go alone. So on the afternoon of Nov. 3, Nabi joined a group of 23 other young men, and his family came to see him off.

"Please keep me in your prayers," he told his mother, while everyone around him wept.

Nabi and the others strapped the cooking oil containers to their chests as floats, and stepped into the water just as the current started to shift toward Bangladesh. The men stayed in groups of three, tied together with ropes. Nabi was in the middle, because he was young and didn't know how to swim.

Nabi remembers swallowing water, in part because of the waves and in part to quench his thirst. The water was salty. His legs ached. But he never looked behind him.

Just after sundown, the group reached Shah Porir Dwip, exhausted, hungry and dehydrated.

Nabi is now alone, one of an estimated 40,000 unaccompanied Rohingya Muslim children living in Bangladesh. He looks down as he speaks, just a few feet from the water, and murmurs his biggest wish:

"I want my parents and peace."

Late afternoon on the next day, authorities spotted a few dots in the middle of the water. It was another group of Rohingya swimming to Bangladesh with yellow plastic containers. They arrived at the same time as a pack of cattle — except that the cows came by boat.
___

Bernat Armangue is the South Asia news director for The Associated Press, based in New Delhi. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/BernatArmangue

British Member of Parliament George Foulkes (Photo: Dhaka Tribune)

By Shovel Mamun, Ashif Islam Shaon
November 12, 2017

Shovel Mamun and Ashif Islam Shaon of Dhaka Tribune speaks with British Member of Parliament George Foulkes

He discussed the upcoming Bangladesh general election in 2019 and the Rohingya crisis. Foulkes, Baron Foulkes of Cumnock PC is a British Labour Co-operative life peer. He has been a member of the House of Commons, the Scottish Parliament and as a life peer is now a member of the House of Lords.

What could Commonwealth countries do to solve the Rohingya problem?

Bangladesh has done a lot better than a lot of countries with the Rohingya crisis. Both the people and the government of Bangladesh should be congratulated for their sincere efforts. We want to help Bangladesh and are making every effort to ensure CAP countries are beside Bangladesh to help solve this problem. Every country should put pressure on Myanmar to address their responsibilities.

My hope is that the Rohingya problem is resolved quickly. But things as they are, Bangladesh is a developing country and is faced with far more complications than other developed countries. Britain along with other countries has started to provide funds and assistance to the Bangladeshi government to aid in the effort.

We will raise the Rohingya issue in our parliament to find an effective solution.

Do you think there is a bilateral solution to this problem?

There is a need to have a bilateral agreement between the countries on this issue and Bangladesh needs support from other countries such as the UK. If there is commitment from the global community, it is possible to find a bilateral solution.

In your opinion, do you think Myanmar government has been delaying their efforts to find a solution?

Yes they are. This is genocide. British media has broadcasted reports of Myanmar army torturing the Rohingya people. Every country has a responsibility to pressurise the Myanmar government to find an effective solution quickly.

What are your thoughts on the polls for the upcoming Bangladeshi elections?

Great Britain has been practicing democracy for a very long time. I visited Bangladesh in 1991 during national elections and at the time, all parties, including BNP and Awami league, participated in what I felt was a free and fair electoral process.

However, in the previous election many questions were raised and phrases like “one party election” were being thrown around. My hope is that all parties will come together and participate in the upcoming national elections because in the end, democracy doesn’t work without participation.

What are some challenges in a democracy?

There are a lot of challenges. Take Russia for instance who are said to have influenced the recent US Polls by using social media. Fabricating news to influence the outcome of an election is a global issue and Bangladesh is no exception.

There is however, a difference between developed countries and developing countries such as Bangladesh. In the US, people are able to go and vote freely in a safe and secure polling station that are monitored and where vote rigging is not possible. While the economy of Bangladesh is rising, it is still developing and that brings its own set of challenges.

Rohingya refugees walk after crossing the Naf River in Teknaf, Bangladesh, November 12, 2017. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain

By Serajul Quadir
November 12, 2017

DHAKA -- A senior United Nations official said on Sunday she would raise the issue of persecution of Myanmar’s Rohingya minority, especially sexual violence and torture, with the International Criminal Court (ICC). 

Pramila Patten, Special Representative of the Secretary- General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, also said around $10 million is needed immediately to deliver specialist services for survivors of gender-based violence. 

Patten was speaking in the Bangladeshi capital after a three-day visit to the Cox’s Bazar region, near the border with Myanmar. There she met women and girls who are among hundreds of thousands of Rohingya that have sought refuge in Bangladesh following a crackdown by Myanmar’s military on the predominantly Muslim minority. 

“When I return to New York I will brief and raise the issue with the prosecutor and president of the ICC whether they (Myanmar’s military) can be held responsible for these atrocities,” Patten said after visiting several camps. 

“Sexual violence is being commanded, orchestrated and perpetrated by the Armed Forces of Myanmar, otherwise known as the Tatmadaw.”

“Rape is an act and a weapon of genocide.” 

She said she would brief the U.N. secretary-general on the situation in Cox’s Bazar and that her office’s annual report, to be presented to the Security Council in March, would include a dedicated section on Myanmar. 

Patten said brutal acts of sexual violence had occurred in the context of collective persecution that included the killing of adults and children, torture, mutilation and the burning and looting of villages. 

“The widespread threat and use of sexual violence was a driver and ‘push factor’ for forced displacement on a massive scale, and a calculated tool of terror aimed at the extermination and removal of the Rohingya as a group,” she said. 

“The forms of sexual violence we consistently heard about from survivors include gang-rape by multiple soldiers, forced public nudity and humiliation, and sexual slavery in military captivity. One survivor was in captivity for 45 days by the Myanmar army.” 

Patten said that since the first mass influx of refugees into Bangladesh in August, gender-based violence specialists had delivered services to 1,644 survivors of sexual and gender-based violence, “although this is only the tip of the iceberg”. 

“We need full funding for this humanitarian crisis from the international donor community. The burden is too heavy to be borne by the government of Bangladesh alone,” she added, calling for about $10 million of international funding. 

Patten said she had been denied access to Myanmar itself. 

Myanmar warned on Wednesday that a scolding delivered by the U.N. Security Council could “seriously harm” its talks with Bangladesh over repatriating more than 600,000 Rohingya who have fled Myanmar’s Rakhine state since Aug. 25. 

The United Nations has denounced the violence during the past 10 weeks as a classic example of ethnic cleansing to drive the Rohingya Muslims out of Buddhist majority Myanmar, an accusation Myanmar rejects. 

Reporting By Serajul Quadir; Editing by Catherine Evans

Centre for Policy Dialogue arranges a dialogue on 'Addressing Rohingya Crisis: Options for Bangladesh' at a city hotel on Saturday.-- CPD

November 12, 2017

Remained focused on having a 'bilateral' solution to the Rohingya crisis, Bangladesh is very close to reaching a repatriation agreement with Myanmar, said foreign secretary Shahidul Haque in Dhaka on Saturday.

‘Currently, we're focusing on signing a bilateral arrangement for the return of Rohingyas...we're very close in terms of reaching a return agreement with Myanmar authorities,’ he said.

The foreign secretary was addressing a dialogue titled 'Addressing Rohingya Crisis: Options for Bangladesh' arranged by Centre for Policy Dialogue at a city hotel.

He, however, said if the bilateral arrangement does not work finally, Bangladesh has other options on the table which he would not share right now.

Imtiaz Ahmed of Dhaka University's department of international relations, former Bangladesh ambassador to Myanmar Anup Kumar Chakma and executive director, BRAC Muhammad Musa spoke at the dialogue.

CPD executive director Fahmida Khatun presented the keynote paper at the dialogue chaired by CPD chairman Rehman Sobhan. CPD distinguished fellow Debapriya Bhattacharya moderated the session.

The foreign secretary said foreign minister AH Mahmood Ali is going to Myanmar later this month. ‘Hopefully, we'll be able to close the differences we have in a couple of places of the latest draft. We think we'll be able to resolve it peacefully.’

Noting that the Rohingya crisis will have to be solved maintaining the good relations with Myanmar, Shahidul Haque said Bangladesh has so far adopted a policy which is a mix of 'soft and hard approaches' to resolve the Rohingya crisis.

He agreed with Imtiaz Ahmed who earlier at the dialogue said the radicalisation cannot emerge from the camps at the moment.

Explaining why the terminology 'refugee' is not being used for Rohingyas, he said the government of Bangladesh calls them 'forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals', not citizens, following its experiences of 1978 and 1991-92.

One of the reasons is this time Myanmar wanted to call the people refugees.

In reply to Bangladesh's prime minister's statement in the United Nations General Assembly, Myanmar called 'refugees' in fact, he said.

Imtiaz said Bangladesh should call the Rohingyas 'refugee' as the terminology 'forcibly displaced Myanmar citizens,' does not make any sense and it is not a legal term as well.

The terminology 'forcibly displaced Myanmar citizens,' is absolutely unworkable and wrong as they are not Myanmar citizens, he said adding that citizen is a legal term. ‘So, I think, first we should call them what they are. They are refugees that a legal term. Once you call them refugees, they have to go back,’ he said.

Imtiaz said, ‘For the first time, there is an international consensus and there is enough footage to say genocide took place. Since it is genocide or ethnic cleansing, it cannot be bilateral. No genocide in the world can be bilateral. It's an international issue.’

He said Rohingyas are not only in Bangladesh, also in several countries including India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Imtiaz also said it is high time to arrange international conferences with the countries that hosted Rohingyas. ‘The international community should not see it as an issue between Bangladesh and Myanmar. They rather should see it as a global issue as Rohingya Diaspora is everywhere.’

Imtiaz said radicalisation will not come from the camps and it did not come in the 1970s and 1990s.

Former ambassador Farooq Sobhan said if the Rohingya problem is not solved, the whole 'One Belt One Road Initiative' and BIMSTEC will be seriously jeopardised.

Rounaq Jahan said the media should focus on the plight of Rohingya rather than the challenges of Bangladesh in this regard.

Sukumar Barua said it is not religious issue between Muslim and Buddhist rather it is an issue of state. ‘It can be solved bilaterally but international community will have to keep pressure for resolving the crisis.’

The Buddhist people of Bangladesh extended their helping hands to the displaced Rohingyas, he added.

Indigenous community leader Sanjeeb Drong said if it takes a longer time to send back Rohingyas, the life and security of the indigenous community will be seriously affected in the Chittagong Hill Tracks.

Fahmida, in her keynote presentation, said some Tk 7,126 crore (US$ 882 million) will be required for 10 months from September 2017 to June 2018 to maintain the displaced Rohingyas in Cox's Bazar.

The CPD estimated the fund requirement for the 10 months of the current fiscal year based on an UNHCR estimate, she said.

The initial loss of forest area due to the Rohingya influx is 3,500 acres, which is 0.05 percent loss in total national forest area, the CPD executive director said.

BGB director general Major General Abul Hossain, security expert M Sakhawat Hossain, ActionAid country director Farah Kabir and diplomats from different foreign missions stationed in Dhaka also spoke at the dialogue.

Malaysian Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman said he believed that not only Malaysia, but other countries like Asean’s dialogue partners would raise the issue regarding the Rohingya Muslims. — Reuters

November 11, 2017

MANILA — The Rohingya refugee crisis in Myanmar is expected to be raised at the 31st Asean Summit and Related Summits, which kicks off here tomorrow, with the possibility of it being discussed behind closed door.

Malaysian Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman said even Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, who will be leading the Malaysian delegation to the three-day Summits, was very concerned about what was happening in Rakhine State.

“And in all probability it will be one of the agendas, but it also depends on the circumstances. Maybe there is a closed door meeting, that could be more effective,” he told the Malaysian media covering the Summits.

Anifah also said he believed that not only Malaysia, but other countries like Asean’s dialogue partners would raise the issue which had seen more than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims displaced from their homes, having fled to neighbouring Bangladesh since Aug 25, when the crackdown on the Rohingya intensified in Rakhine state.

Leaders from the 10 Asean member countries and its dialogue partners, namely Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, Russia, United States, Canada, the European Union and the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will gather here for the important summits hosted by the Philippines.

Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi is leading the country’s delegation to the Summits.

Anifah also said the leaders would discuss regional and international issues of common concern such as the South China Sea, Korean Peninsula, counter terrorism and violent extremism and cyber digital economy.

The Manila gathering will see a total of 11 Summits and expected to adopt 56 outcome documents, said Anifah, adding that it includes the non-legally binding Asean Consensus on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers.

“The instrument was drafted as a follow-up to the Asean Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers or Cebu Declaration 2007 inked by Asean leaders in 2007,” he said.

He said Asean Economic Ministers are also expected to sign the Asean-Hong Kong, China Free Trade Agreement (AHKFTA) and the Agreement on Investment among Asean member states and Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China (AHKIA).

Other outcome includes East Asia Summit Leaders’ statement on anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism, cooperation in poverty alleviation and chemical weapons.

On the sidelines of the Summit, Najib is scheduled to hold bilateral meetings with his counterparts — Shinzo Abe of Japan, Lee Hsien Loong from Singapore and China’s Le Keying.

UNCHR psychologist Mahmuda counsels refugees who has suffered traumatic ordeals. (UNCHR: Roger Arnold)

By James Bennett
November 11, 2017

In the refugee camps of Bangladesh, a small handful of psychologists are attempting the near impossible — trying to counsel hundreds of thousands of traumatised Rohingya refugees. 

Many of their patients have seen or suffered unspeakable acts of cruelty at the hands of Myanmar's military.

Bangladeshi psychologist Mahmuda, who goes by the one name, begins to list horrifying — but sadly familiar examples — when asked what trauma her patients have suffered.

"The slaughtering of husbands, missing children," she begins.

But then, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) worker starts to tell a tale of loss so painful, it is hard to listen.

"She saw her husband slaughtered by the army," Mahmuda begins.

Some Rohingya children have seen both their parents slaughtered. (UNHCR: Roger Arnold)

This woman, who Mahmuda estimates is in her early twenties, heavily pregnant and carrying a one-year-old baby, fled alone.

Then her contractions began.

"It was a really, really horrible situation," Mahmuda continued.

As the woman endures labour, entirely, utterly alone, she loses track of her one-year-old.

"She lost her baby," Mahmuda said, her voice wavering.

"She had no relatives, there was no one who could take care.

"And also, she gave birth."

Having lost one child and given birth to another, this distraught new mother walks, for days, alone with her newborn to the safety of Bangladesh.

There, fresh tragedy.

"After long walking, almost eight or 10 days, finally the baby didn't survive," Mahmuda concludes.

Asked what she says to someone enduring such grief, she sighs.

"What I have said to her is now you are safe, secure and you are alive," she said.

Children draw harrowing pictures of memories

Alongside mothers who have lost children, her patients also include children with no parents.

"A few of the children, they don't have any parents, any relatives," she said.

"They have been experiencing — they have seen in front of them — father and mother both slaughtered or burned.

"We have provided some basic support, not in depth counselling."

A child in Rohingya holds up a haunting picture she drew of her memories. (UNHCR: Roger Arnold)

One of the things Mahmuda has asked these traumatised children to do is draw their memories.

The images are confronting — helicopters, shooting down from above, burning villages, and people fleeing in boats.

She says schooling, and more safe spaces for children in the teeming camps are desperately needed.

To provide some basic play therapy, and to become then normalised, in their daily life.

None of this has happened because, faced with now over 600,000 fresh refugees since August, aid agencies are still struggling to feed and house them.

A quarter of young children are malnourished and the disease threat hangs like an ominous cloud.

The Red Cross, UNHCR, Care, Oxfam and Save the Children are launching fresh appeals for funding, amid fears the world is moving on from this still unfolding human suffering.

This file photo taken on September 18, 2017 shows UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres as he addresses the United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York City. (AFP / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Drew Angerer)

By Edith M. Lederer
November 10, 2017

United Nations -- Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday it is "an absolutely essential priority" to stop all violence against Myanmar's Rohingya Muslims, allow them to return to their homes, and grant them legal status.

The U.N. chief told reporters Friday that the U.N. is also insisting on "unhindered humanitarian access" to all areas of northern Rakhine state, where more than 600,000 Rohingya lived before fleeing to Bangladesh.

Guterres is leaving Friday night for Europe and Asia, where he will attend a joint summit between the U.N. and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations which is certain to address the plight of the Rohingya. Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who has faced growing international condemnation over violence against the Rohingya, is expected to attend the meeting in the Philippines from Nov. 10-14.

Buddhist-majority Myanmar doesn't recognize the Rohingya as an ethnic group, insisting they are Bengali migrants from Bangladesh living illegally in the country. It has denied them citizenship, leaving them stateless.

The latest violence began with a series of attacks Aug. 25 by Rohingya insurgents. Myanmar security forces responded with a scorched-earth campaign against Rohingya villages that the U.N. and human rights groups have criticized as a campaign of ethnic cleansing.

"What has happened is an immense tragedy," Guterres said, "and the levels of violence and the atrocities committed are something that we cannot be silent about."

"We insist on the need to make sure not only that all violence against this population stops, but also ... we insist on the need to reassert the right of return," he said.

The secretary-general said the Rohingya must be able to return voluntarily, in safety and dignity, to the areas they came from and not be placed in camps.

Guterres said the root causes of the discrimination that has left the Rohingya stateless, such as their legal status, must also be addressed.

He has previously urged Myanmar's government to give the Rohingya citizenship, or at least legal recognition, so they can move freely, get jobs and an education, and receive health care.

"We'll go on engaging in all possible domains for these objectives to be finally achieved," the secretary-general said.

Guterres applauded a presidential statement which strongly condemned the violence against the Rohingya and was approved unanimously by the Security Council on Monday, calling it "an important step forward."

The statement called on Myanmar's government to "ensure no further excessive use of military force in Rakhine state" and take immediate steps to respect human rights.

It was the strongest council pronouncement on Myanmar in nearly 10 years, and reflected widespread international concern at the plight of the Rohingya.

A Rohingya refugee girl cries as children push each other while standing in line to collect food in the Palongkhali makeshift refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, Nov. 7, 2017.

November 10, 2017

WASHINGTON — Rohingya children in Myanmar and Bangladesh face a tenfold increase in malnutrition compared to last year and require immediate attention, the International Rescue Committee said in a statement Friday.

A recent survey conducted by humanitarian agencies led by International Rescue Committee (IRC) partner Action Against Hunger (ACF) in the Cox’s Bazar region of Bangladesh found that 40,000 Rohingya children between the ages of 6 months and 5 years require life-saving assistance and more than $12 million is needed to respond to such humanitarian crisis.

The survey revealed an acute malnutrition rate of 7.5 percent, nearly four times the international emergency level and 10 times higher than last year.

Children younger than 6 months face a tenfold increase in mortality based on the circumference of their arms, the statement said.

Bare feet of Rohingya refugee children are pictured as they stand in a queue while waiting to receive food outside the distribution center in Palongkhali makeshift refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, Nov. 7, 2017.

The IRC expects 200,000 new arrivals in coming weeks, bringing the total refugee population in Bangladesh to more than 1 million, exacerbating the crisis further.

“The conditions we are seeing in Cox’s Bazar create a perfect storm for a public health crisis on an unimaginable scale,” said Cat Mahony, the IRC’s emergency response director in Cox’s Bazar.

“Extremely vulnerable families with unmet health needs, high levels of food insecurity, limited access to health services and appalling conditions for hygiene, sanitation and access to clean drinking water — all of which contribute to these awfully high rates of malnutrition,” Mahony said.

The IRC has launched an emergency response on both sides of the Bangladesh-Myanmar border for displaced Rohingya, opening four specialized 24-hour care centers with ACF for the emergency treatment of severe acute malnutrition, as the first step.
Rohingya refugees wait to be seen by a doctor at a camp in Bangladesh’s Ukhia district. Thousands of children are suffering from malnutrition despite escaping across the border from Myanmar. Photograph: Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP/Getty Images

By Kate Hodal
November 10, 2017

‘Rampant malnutrition’ reported following Rohingya exodus from Myanmar to Bangladesh as agencies warn shocking new figures may be tip of the iceberg

One in four Rohingya children who recently fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar is now suffering from life-threatening malnutrition, with aid workers warning that refugees are “essentially starving” before they have even crossed the border.

The preliminary findings of a joint nutrition assessment conducted in late October at Kutupalong refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar show that severe acute malnutrition rates among child refugees under five have doubled since May, while nearly half of young children are also underweight and suffering from anaemia. 

The figures – already above international emergency levels – are likely to increase, warned aid agencies, since the assessment surveyed only 10% of the population in need, and included families who had arrived before as well as after violence erupted in Rakhine state in August.

Once data is taken solely from new arrivals, malnutrition – and with it the risk of diarrhoea, dysentery, respiratory infections and measles – is expected to increase. 

“The conditions we are seeing in Cox’s Bazar create a perfect storm for a public health crisis on an unimaginable scale,” said Cat Mahony, emergency response director in Cox’s Bazar for the International Rescue Committee.

“These shocking figures substantiate the IRC’s own findings on worrying food insecurity: three in four do not have enough food, and 95% of the population are drinking contaminated water. This is especially serious, as agencies report that two-thirds of the water in Cox’s Bazar is contaminated with faeces.” 

Malnutrition rates among children in northern Rakhine state were above emergency thresholds even before the recent exodus. But severe acute malnutrition has increased tenfold since last year, according to the joint assessment by Save the Children, IRC partner Action Against Hunger and Unicef. Conditions have worsened due to acute food and water shortages and unsanitary living quarters in Kutupalong camp, which is home to roughly 26,000 refugees.

More than 600,000 Rohingya men, women, and children have crossed the border from Myanmar to Cox’s Bazaar since August. These families joined an estimated 212,000 Rohingya previously living in Bangladesh. The IRC expects an additional 200,000 new arrivals in the weeks ahead, pushing the total refugee population to more than 1 million.

Severe acute malnutrition can affect anyone but, if left untreated, children under five are up to nine times more likely to die than a well-nourished child. 

New arrivals are often forced to set up camp far from the main road where food and medical distribution centres are located, said Save the Children’s Rik Goverde, leaving many refugees facing a long walk simply to get one meal a day.

“Malnutrition is rampant here, absolutely rampant, even among the adults,” said Goverde, speaking by phone from Kutupalong camp.

“Two men just came into the clinic weighing 32kg and 34kg. This hasn’t happened overnight – they have been hungry for a very long time and they are exhausted.”

New arrivals are required to register for an identity card in order to qualify for food distribution, Goverde said, which can take a few days to arrive. Many adults and children are consequently obliged to walk for hours into the forest, where they cut firewood in order to sell it and buy food. 

“There are problems here on every sector – this isn’t just about food and malnutrition,” said Goverde. “We’re sure there are children suffering from mental health issues because they’ve suffered terrible things, they’ve lost their parents in the chaos, or seen their parents being shot. It’s truly grim.”

Unicef and other humanitarian agencies are currently treating more than 2,700 acutely malnourished children at 15 treatment centres. But the agencies are overstretched and underfunded, prompting the IRC to launch an emergency response on both sides of the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, which the agency says will require $12m (£9m) over the next year. 

The response will include four 24-hour care centres to treat severe acute malnutrition, as well as six “one stop shops” that will deliver critical assistance and child protection. The aim will be to reach 80,000 refugees within the first six months.

Two more nutrition evaluations are planned for this month, including one at a makeshift settlement. The findings from the three assessments will help update the projected number of children expected to suffer severe acute malnutrition over the next few months, guiding the emergency response, said Unicef’s Jean-Jacques Simon.

“There is an urgent need to prioritise families with malnourished children and come up with a minimum package of effective interventions to safeguard the health and wellbeing of these children,” said Simon.

Trudeau holds "very direct" talk with Myanmar's Suu Kyi about state-led violence

By Andy Blatchford
November 10, 2017

DANANG, Vietnam — Justin Trudeau used a face-to-face meeting Friday with Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi to lay out some of the evidence he has seen on the state-led violence that has shaken her country and set off a huge refugee crisis.

The prime minister met with Suu Kyi for 45 minutes on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation leaders' summit in Danang, Vietnam.

It was Trudeau's first meeting with Suu Kyi, an honorary Canadian citizen, since a crackdown by Myanmar's security forces began in late August. The alleged attacks have forced more than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims into exile in neighbouring Bangladesh.

The crisis has damaged the once-celebrated global image of Suu Kyi, who is a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

Bob Rae, Canada's special envoy for the Rohingya crisis, joined Trudeau at the meeting. The former Liberal MP said Trudeau was "very direct" with Suu Kyi and the two leaders didn't immediately agree with each other.

"I think it's fair to say we feel that more needs to be done and more could be done," Rae, who briefed Trudeau on Friday on his recent visit to the region, told reporters in Danang.

"There are serious issues that we have to deal with and obviously this is a major, not only humanitarian crisis, but also a political crisis."

Suu Kyi has faced widespread international criticism for not speaking out against allegations that include arson, rape and shootings by Myanmar soldiers and Buddhist mobs.

The United Nations and Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, who also attended Friday's meeting, have said the violence against the Rohingya amounts to ethnic cleansing.

"It's a pleasure to meet again with state counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi — an opportunity to talk about a number of issues, including the refugee situation and how Canada can continue to help in a situation that, obviously, a lot of people back home are concerned about," Trudeau said after shaking hands with Suu Kyi as they began their meeting.

Rae said Canada has committed to remain engaged with Myanmar and to provide help in any way it can to see the refugees safely repatriated back to their homes, and away from the terrible conditions of an overcrowded camp.

He acknowledged it won't be easy.

Rae said Suu Kyi admitted during Friday's meeting that there has been fear and a history of oppression, which have to be dealt with. 

She also expressed a strong willingness, he said, to engage with Bangladesh to allow for the return of refugees to Myanmar and to rebuild based on a plan laid out by former UN secretary general Kofi Annan.

"But for us the key question is: it's not what you say, it's what you do. And that, I think, is where we're going to have to continue to push hard to make sure that there's implementation of basic steps that need to happen," Rae said.

Suu Kyi, he added, faces a difficult task because she wields limited control in a country that has been ruled by a military junta for decades. She is the de facto head of Myanmar's civilian government.

Suu Kyi also faces a potential domestic backlash if she speaks on behalf of the Rohingya, who have been the target of anti-Muslim rhetoric.

Canadian officials, who have spoken on the condition of anonymity, have said Ottawa has been reluctant to overtly blame Suu Kyi for the violence in her country because it believes Myanmar's military is using it to undermine her reputation.

Still, several fellow peace prize winners have publicly condemned the former political prisoner for what they see as her apparent indifference to the plight of the Rohingya.

Trudeau spoke with her in September and also wrote her a letter to outline what she and the government of Myanmar must do to "protect innocent lives" and act according to the expectations of Canada and the world.

The Liberal government has come under pressure to strip Suu Kyi of her honorary Canadian citizenship.

In 2007, Suu Kyi became the first woman — and one of only five people — to be granted honorary Canadian citizenship. John Baird, Canada's then-foreign affairs minister, travelled to Myanmar in 2012 where he personally conferred honorary citizenship on Suu Kyi.

— with files from Associated Press

ANTALYA, TURKEY - NOVEMBER 9: The head of the Red Crescent in Bangladesh Mohammad Habibe Millat speaks to press during the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) General Assembly meetings in Antalya, Turkey on November 9, 2017. The head of the Red Crescent in Bangladesh has described the Rohingya refugee crisis as the “biggest man-made disaster in the world”. (Murat Kula - Anadolu Agency)

By Seyit Ahmet Aytac
November 9, 2017

Head of Red Crescent in Bangladesh says world needs to present united front to resolve refugee issue

ANTALYA, Turkey -- The head of the Red Crescent in Bangladesh has described the Rohingya refugee crisis as the “biggest man-made disaster in the world”.

Mohammad Habibe Millat said his country was doing all it could to assist more than 611,000 Rohingya Muslims who have crossed the border from Myanmar since Aug. 25 but that this was “not the permanent solution”.

Speaking at a summit of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) General Assembly in Antalya, southern Turkey, he said: “From Aug. 25, more than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims, most of them women and children, crossed the border from Myanmar to Bangladesh.

“This is a biggest manmade disaster in the world. We as government of Bangladesh and Red Crescent Society try to do our best and open our border for them for humanitarian reasons.

“We will do everything to help Rohingya muslims as much as we can, but this is not the permanent solution.”

He said the approaching winter raised fears about the welfare of the refugees housed in makeshift camps along the border.

The refugees have fled a military operation in which security forces and Buddhist mobs have killed men, women and children, looted homes and torched Rohingya villages.

Speaking in September, the Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Abul Hasan Mahmood Ali said around 3,000 Rohingya had been killed in the crackdown.

Turkey has been at the forefront of providing aid to Rohingya refugees and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has raised the issue at the UN.

Millat, who is also a Bangladeshi lawmaker, praised First Lady Emine Erdogan for her visit to the camps in September.

- Permanent solution

“I want to thank her as the first high-level person to visit the camps. One of the refugee women told in front of the first lady that they’ve been tortured.

“They are lucky to survive and cross the border. Turkey and its institutions work hard to solve this crisis. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Turkey’s efforts make things little easier, but still we have longway to go.”

He praised the efforts of the IFRC in providing humanitarian aid to the refugees.

“We will continue to support and help the Rohingya Muslims as much as we can but we are low-middle income country. The international community should remember that.

“We thank the government and the people of Turkey for their very kind gesture and we appreciate it.”

Millat called for the world to “speak with the same voice and put pressure on the Myanmar government, that is probably the permanent solution.”

Rohingya, described by the UN as the world's most persecuted people, have faced heightened fears of attack since dozens were killed in communal violence in 2012.

The UN documented mass gang rapes, killings -- including of infants and young children -- brutal beatings and disappearances committed by security personnel.

In a report earlier this year, UN investigators said such violations may have constituted crimes against humanity.

The IFRC General Assembly concludes on Saturday.


    • Rohingya Exodus