Fleeing Rohingyas overwhelm camps
United Nations accuses Yangon of ‘ethnic cleansing’
THE NUMBER of Rohingya refugees fleeing a military crackdown in Myanmar has topped 370 000, a crisis that the UN human rights chief called “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing”.
Hundreds of thousands of the long-persecuted ethnic minority continued to stream via land and rickety boats into Bangladesh this week, arriving exhausted, dehydrated and recounting tales of horror at the hands of the Myanmar military, including seeing friends and neighbours shot dead and homes torched.
“It seems they wanted us to leave the country,” said Nurjahan, an elderly Rohingya woman who escaped her burning village and ended up camped by the side of the road, unsure of where to go.
The International Organisation for Migration put the number fleeing Myanmar, also known as Burma, at 370 000, but admitted it could go much higher.
As the refugees continue to inundate the area, ferry operators are charging about $122 (R1 600) for a river crossing – far out of the reach of many.
Relief efforts have been rapidly overwhelmed, with stocks of food, temporary shelter kits and other supplies running low.
Prices of bamboo and plastic sheeting used to make shelters and vegetables are soaring.
With camps full, many of the Rohingya refugees like Nurjahan have simply sat down on the roadside.
On Tuesday, Bangladesh’s prime minister, Sheikh Hasina Wazed, visited the camps in the Cox’s Bazar, which has sheltered thousands of the stateless Rohingya refugees since an exodus in the 1990s.
Her foreign minister has accused Myanmar of committing “genocide”. She said Myanmar would have to take back the Rohingya, since they “created this problem, and they will have to solve it”.
International condemnation of Myanmar’s leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has intensified, along with repeated calls for her Nobel Peace Prize, which she won in 1991, to be rescinded – something the Nobel committee says will not happen.
The US has condemned the attacks and the ensuing violence. Suu Kyi’s supporters said the episode has demonstrated how limited her powers are, as the military still controls 25% of the seats in the parliament.
Myanmar’s more than 1 million Rohingya Muslims are essentially stateless and the government in Yangon considers them illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. – Washington Post