SPECIAL REPORT ON DESPERATE Who are the Rohingya?
THE Rohingya are a historically peaceful Muslim ethnic group based in Myanmar’s western state of Rakhine, bordering Bangladesh.
Myanmar is overwhelmingly Bhuddist and regards the Rohingya as illegal immigrants.
The clan – one of the world’s largest groups of stateless people – have been denied citizenship.
Until recently there were more than a million in Myanmar. The Rakhines resent them and there was horrific violence between the two communities during World War Two. The current cycle of misery began in 2012 when rioting left 200 dead, mainly Rohingya. Muslims were largely driven out of the cities and 130,000 set up home in camps in Bangladesh.
A year ago nine officers at police outposts were killed in raids blamed on Rohingya. Similar attacks in August left 12 dead, triggering a crackdown by Myanmar military.
This has resulted in 500,000 Rohingya fleeing for their lives. CONFUSED, frightened and horribly wounded, tiny Talisma Bezum clings to her mother after an attack which plumbed new depths of inhumanity.
The raw, grapefruit-sized wound was seared into the poor mite’s head after troops in Myanmar released a hand grenade outside her home.
Now it has turned septic and the eightmonth-old’s mother Areta, 18, fears her daughter may not survive.
The Sunday Mirror made the difficult decision to publish the image to bring home the stark reality of ethnic cleansing – and raise awareness of the aid mission.
Areta trekked for eight days to escape one hell – Myanmar’s Rakhine district, where Rohingya Muslims have been forced out by the military.
Now she finds herself in another – a network of 12 slum camps across the border in Bangladesh where 700,000 weary refugees wait desperately for help.
Areta reached safety by boarding an overcrowded fishing boat to cross the perilous, rain-swollen Naf River. Now she stands on a sodden verge amid a sea of refugees waiting to be registered at Cox’s Bazar – 70 miles south of Bangladesh’s financial capital Chittagong.
BULLETS
Areta said: “The military came to my home and fired bullets at my house.
“They tortured people in the village and then they set off an explosion, a bomb, near my house. My baby’s head caught fire.
“There was nothing we could do. We tried to calm her, to keep her safe. We went to the doctor in Myanmar but there was no medicine.
“I’m scared. I do not know if my daughter will survive or die. I am her mother and there’s nothing I can do.”
The camps were swamped when Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina threw open the border after the campaign to oust the Rohingya people began on August 25.
Half a million – more than Liverpool’s population – have since arrived, on top of 200,000 already there.
Now sewers run openly through the soaked landscape as a putrid smell lingers over the 2,000-acre site. Deadly diseases threaten to sweep the tented cities while monsoon rains turn roads into quagmires, hindering aid agencies.
We heard heartbreaking stories of execution, arson and sexual assaults.
Sajede Begum, 25, watched helplessly as troops and militia stormed Nabura village, in Myanmar’s Rakhine state.
Her daughters Yasminara, five, and Shokatara, seven, died when soldiers torched their wooden home.
With a blank stare, she tells of battling in vain to reach her children before the leaf-roofed home was reduced to ashes.
Just seven days later her husband Mohamed, 26, was shot dead with a single bullet when the same troops returned. All