Bangladesh police disperse rally against Myanmar’s treatment of Rohingyas

According to an estimate of the United Nations (UN), around four lakh Rohingya Muslims, the embattled minority fleeing violence in Myanmar, have taken refuge in Bangladesh in the last three weeks.

He also criticised the government for blocking the BNP convoy of relief for the Rohingya refugees.

There have been reports of massacres and ethnic cleansing by Myanmarese army and Buddhist mobs against the Muslim population in Rakhine.

The Rohingya are a stateless Muslim minority in Myanmar.

“There’s really no sign that this flow of people is going to dry up”, Chris Lom of the International Organisation for Migration, said from the Bangladeshi border district of Cox’s Bazar. They have seen evidence of arson attacks on Buddhist villagers, but on a much smaller scale. After the country gained independence from the British in 1948, Myanmar’s military-ruled governments dissolved the Rohingya’s social and political organizations and denied the Rohingya ethnic recognition.

“I rushed to the spot and found people crying over the dead body of a child”, Ponir said.

These new refugees also bring the total Rohingya population in southeastern Bangladesh to more than 800,000, including those who fled earlier violence in Rakhine. They have been denied citizenship and basic national rights since the 1970’s, with restriction from even before that.

Aung San Suu Kyi, the former dissident and Nobel peace prize victor, is under fire internationally for its ambiguous position on the fate of this muslim minority persecuted in Burma. More than 379 000 Rohingyas are refugees in the bordering country of Burma since the end of August to flee a campaign of repression of the burmese army following the attacks of rebels rohingyas. Released hours before the state violence erupted that led to the mass exodus of the Rohingya, this report called for concrete structural change that could help eliminate the barriers for impeding the peace and coexistence in Rakhine State.

Bangladesh Nationalist Party senior leader Nazrul Islam Khan on Monday alleged that Myanmar is repeatedly violating Bangladesh airspace due to the government’s incapability to run the country and its subservient policy.

US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Patrick Murphy will voice Washington’s concerns about the Rohingya and press for greater access to the conflict area for humanitarian workers, the State Department said. “We’re now paupers as we’ve left behind everything in Myanmar to save ourselves from the wrath of military”, she said, horror still sounding in her voice.

Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch has called for targeted sanctions and an arms embargo on Myanmar’s military.

He said the US should re-impose sanctions on Myanmar that were in place before it made transition from military to civilian rule. Its response was to forge closer ties with China. “Are we looking at a million people arriving before end of this year?” the IOM official said.

“Long-term, the trajectory is probably tighter relations”.

The army retaliated. Helicopters fired on Rohingya villages, and soldiers burned these villages to the ground.

“I’m particularly anxious that the demand for food, shelter, water and basic hygiene support is not being met due to the sheer number of people in need”, said Save the Children Director Mark Pierce. They have taken all of our civil rights and our freedom.