Rohingya misery continues
At least 12 people, most of them children, drowned when a boat carrying Rohingya Muslim refugees to Bangladesh capsized.
The dead are the latest victims of the violence in Myanmar that has forced more than half a million people to flee.
Bangladeshi police yesterday said that the boat sank near Shah Porir Dwip, on the southern tip of Bangladesh, late on Sunday with up to 35 people on board.
Since late August, Bangladeshi fishermen have been cramming their boats with desperate Rohingya fleeing a Myanmar security crackdown that the United Nations has called ethnic cleansing.
Police officer Mohammed Mainuddin said that the bodies of 10 children, a woman, and a man – had been found.
A photographer earlier saw the bodies of four children, two women and a man washed up on a beach. Authorities said 13 people had been rescued.
About 519,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar since August 25, when attacks by Rohingya militants on police and military posts in Rakhine state sparked a ferocious response from Myanmar’s security forces.
Myanmar rejects accusations of ethnic cleansing and has labelled the militants from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, who launched the initial attacks, terrorists.
The insurgents declared a one-month ceasefire from September 10, which was due to end at midnight last night.
The ability of the group, which surfaced in October last year, to mount any sort of challenge to the Myanmar army is not known but it does not appear to have been able to put up resistance to the military offensive launched in August.
It would be difficult for the insurgents to operate in areas where the military has driven out Rohingya civilians, in the north of Rakhine state, near the border with Bangladesh.
The insurgents said on Saturday they were ready to respond to any peace move by the Myanmar government, but also noted that the ceasefire was about to end.
More than six weeks after the violence erupted, Rohingya continue to arrive in Bangladesh, which was already home to 400,000 members of the Myanmar Muslim minority before the latest crisis.
Mostly Buddhist Myanmar does not recognise the
Rohingya as citizens, even though many have lived in Rakhine for generations.
Myanmar state media in recent days reported that “large numbers” of Muslims were preparing to cross the border. It cited their reasons as “livelihood difficulties”, health problems, a belief of insecurity and fear of becoming a minority.
But even as refugees arrive, Bangladesh is insisting that they will all have to go home.
Myanmar has responded by saying it will take back those who can be verified as genuine refugees. Most Rohingya are stateless and many fear they will not be able to prove their right to return.
A Myanmar official held talks on a repatriation plan in Bangladesh last month and Bangladesh home minister Asaduzzaman Khan is due to visit Myanmar for more this month.
Mr Khan said on Sunday he believed an agreement would be worked out.
Myanmar leader and Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has faced international criticism and dismay for not doing more to stop the violence, although she has no power over the security forces under a constitution drafted by the military.
The US and Britain have told Myanmar the crisis is putting at risk the progress it has made since the military began to loosen its grip on power in 2011.
The European Union and the US are considering targeted sanctions against Myanmar military leaders in response to the violence.
Sunday’s apparent accident was the latest involving refugees. On September 28, a boat carrying about 80 refugees overturned, leaving only 17 survivors.
In early September, 46 bodies were recovered after a boat sank in the narrow stretch of water that separates Myanmar and Bangladesh. The dead comprised 19 children, 18 women and nine men.