Rohingyas flee Myanmar violence in growing numbers
Rohingya Muslims’ exodus continues as the number of Rohingya Muslims who have fled to Bangladesh to escape the deadly violence in Myanmar hit 370,000, UNHRC reports
ROHINGYA Muslims flee Myanmar and take refuge in Bangladesh in increasing numbers since Aug. 25, reaching 370,000, Leonard Doyle, the International Organization for Migration’s chief spokesman, said yesterday, calling the efforts on the border as “at full stretch.”
AN ESTIMATED 370,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Myanmar since Aug. 25, a U.N. spokesman said yesterday. International Organization for Migration’s chief spokesman Leonard Doyle said the humanitarian effort on the Bangladesh border was “clearly at full stretch.”
The latest figure for refugees who have crossed from Myanmar’s Rakhine state to Bangladesh is a 57,000 rise on the figure given by the U.N.’s refugee agency on Monday. According to Bangladesh, around 3,000 Rohingya have been killed in the crackdown.
The U.N. announced a major operation yesterday to airlift aid to the 370,000 Rohingya Muslims who have fled to Bangladesh to escape the deadly violence in Myanmar. In the first of several planned flights, a Boeing 777 chartered by the U.N. Refugee Agency brought 91 tons of shelter material, blankets and other items to Cox’s Bazar, near the border with Myanmar’s troubled Rakhine state.
Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Tuesday promised food aid and shelters for the minority Rohingya, while asking Myanmar to repatriate those who fled the ethnic violence that erupted on Aug. 25 in the Buddhist-majority country. However, international divisions emerged yesterday ahead of the U.N. Security Council meeting on the worsening refugee crisis in Myanmar, with China voicing support for Myanmar’s military crackdown.
The exodus from Myanmar’s western Rakine state began after Rohingya militants attacked police posts on Aug. 25, prompting a military backlash that has sent a third of the Muslim minority population fleeing for their lives.
Exhausted Rohingya refugees have given accounts of atrocities at the hands of soldiers and Buddhist mobs who burned their villages to the ground. They cannot be independently verified as access to Rakhine state is heavily controlled.
Myanmar’s government denies any abuses and instead blames militants for burning down thousands of villages, including many belonging to the Rohingya. But international pressure on Myanmar heightened this week after United Nations rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said the violence seemed to be a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing.” The U.S. also raised alarm over the violence while the Security Council will meet today to discuss the crisis.
Opprobrium has been heaped Suu Kyi, who was once a darling of the rights commu- nity but now faces accusations of turning a blind eye to - and even abetting - a humanitarian catastrophe by Western powers who once feted her as well as a slew of fellow Nobel Laureates.
Tens of thousands of Rohingyas have sheltered in refugee camps in Rakhine since communal violence flared in mid-2012. The state is home to around 1.2 million Rohingyas, who have long been officially labelled Bengali, suggesting they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. Despite having lived in the area for generations, Rohingyas were effectively denied citizenship with a 1982 nationality law and have restricted basic rights such as freedom of movement. According to the law, foreigners cannot become naturalized citizens of Myanmar unless they can prove a close familial connection to the country.