Rohingya refugees drown as exodus mounts

About 20,000 more Rohingya attempting to flee are stuck at the border.

The Supreme Court today agreed to hear on Monday a plea challenging the decision to deport Rohingya immigrants back to Myanmar on various grounds including alleged violation of worldwide human rights conventions.

In recent days, thousands of Rohingya Muslims in Burma, have made their way to neighbouring Bangladesh, fleeing an aggressive Burmese military campaign that ravaged dozens of villages in the country’s restive state of Rakhine.

Bangladesh already hosts 400,000 Rohingya and does not want more.

The latest clashes and ensuing army crackdown have killed about 370 Rohingya insurgents, but also 13 security forces, two government officials and 14 civilians, the Myanmar military said on Thursday.

Myanmar classes the militants as “Bengali terrorists” and has accused them of indiscriminate murder and torching both Rohingya homes and those of other communities.

There have also been reports of innocent civilians being killed and injured amid the ongoing violence and of villages being burned down.

Violence erupted in Rakhine, Myanmar on August 25 when the southeast Asian country’s security forces launched an operation against the Rohingya Muslim community. Rakhine Buddhists, feeling unsafe after the upsurge in fighting, are moving south to the state’s capital, Sittwe, where Buddhists are a majority and have greater security.

On behalf of the Bangladesh people, President Hamid greeted the Turkish president and people on the occasion of Eid-ul-Azha and thanked Erdogan for making the telephone call and extending his support for Bangladesh.

Top photo: Myanmar’s Rohingya ethnic minority members flee their homes through rice fields after crossing over to the Bangladesh side of the border near Cox’s Bazar’s Teknaf area, September 1, 2017.

More than 400 Hindu residents of Rakhine state crossed into Bangladesh after being attacked by armed men, officials and survivors said.

An aid worker with an global agency in Bangladesh reports: “What we’re seeing is that many Rohingya people are sick”. While most are walking to cross the border, many are taking rickety boats to enter Bangladesh.

“Many children have been killed”, he told BuzzFeed News from Geneva, “many women, many elderly”.

The Rohingya are denied citizenship in Myanmar and classified as illegal immigrants, despite claiming roots there that go back centuries.

Why are Rohingya refugees stranded in no-man’s land? “We ran away so they couldn’t find us”, said Samira, 19, a survivor from one of the boats, as the monsoon wind and rain blew off the sea to soak her bright orange hijab.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees called on Bangladesh to open its borders to the Rohingyas to enable a humanitarian corridor.

Aid workers were seen enlisting the names of the Hindu refugees while local Hindus providing them with food and shelter.

According to information from the border forces of Bangladesh, the bodies of 15 children and 11 women were found.