Malaysian PM assails Suu Kyi over plight of Rohingyas

Although Bangladeshi border guards have pushed back dozens of Rohingya-laden boats toward Myanmar in the past weeks, many Rohingyas have been entering Bangladesh, through some secret entry points, mostly with the help of some underground agent networks.

These activists unanimously agreed to form a Europe-wide Rohingya organisation to strive for the cause of the Rohingya minority who are on the verge of extermination from Myanmar’s Arakan State.

“An worldwide response that consists primarily of assigning blame for this humanitarian tragedy is no longer tenable”.

The vast majority of those who arrived took refuge in makeshift settlements, official refugee camps and villages, said Sahany.

Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, seeking reconciliation among ethnic groups in fractious western Myanmar, urged the army on Tuesday to respect civilians’ rights as concerns rise about treatment of the Muslim Rohingya minority.

On Saturday, Foreign Minister Anifah Aman insisted that the Rohingya crisis was “no longer” an internal affair of Myanmar but an global matter given the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya who had fled to Malaysia and other neighboring countries.

The new figure of 21,900 people having fled – based on statistics collected by various groups and provided to the BBC by the International Organization for Migration – is more than double that given by the United Nations refugee agency last week.

In response to growing concerns from the global community, the president’s office announced Friday the formation of a 13-member investigation commission tasked with probing the background to the October 9 attacks and also November 12-13 incidents in Maungdaw in which over a thousand Rohingya houses were destroyed, villagers were killed and human rights groups have alleged Rohingya were raped by soldiers.

The Myanmar government denies the allegations but has banned journalists from visiting Rohingya areas. However, worldwide pressure on the country is mounting.

Dr Mahathir also said that when Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi was arrested during his reign, he wrote a letter and sent someone to meet her.

He said that observers should be “very, very careful” in using the word genocide. “It is a charge that requires legal review and judicial determination”.

“It is not a charge that should be thrown around loosely”.

As SEC Championship Game fans visiting from Alabama and Florida looked on, Hussain’s fellow demonstrators marched up and down the sidewalks around the CNN Center, chanting “Stop killing Rohingya!” and “Stop genocide right now!”

Paramilitary troopers put on alert on the Myanmar frontier have prevented at least 40 Rohingyas trying to cross the border by boat just on Monday, he said.

“But for the past week, every day over 1,000 Rohingyas are fleeing Myanmar”.

“I would appreciate it so much if the global community would help us to maintain peace and stability, and to make progress in building better relations between the two communities, instead of always drumming up cause for bigger fires of resentment”, Ms Suu Kyi told Channel News Asia.

“And only now they say they will investigate who is responsible”, he underlined.

More than 230,000 Rohingya are already living in Bangladesh, a lot of them illegally, although around 32,000 are formally registered as refugees. Security forces then sealed off access to Maungdaw district and launched a counter-insurgency operation.