CANADA PROVIDES MILLIONS IN AID

Canada is giving extra money to help Bangladesh cope with the influx of Rohingya Muslims fleeing neighbouring Myanmar. The additional $2.55 million is aimed at helping provide care for women, new mothers and children under five, said International Development Minister

— a term that describes an organized effort to rid an area of an ethnic group by displacement, deportation or killing.

Amnesty International said Thursday it has evidence of an “orchestrated campaign of systematic burnings” by Myanmar security forces targeting dozens of Rohingya villages. In a separate report, Human Rights Watch said Friday that high-resolution satellite images showed 62 villages where fires had occurred, including 35 with extensive damage.

Abul Bashar, 73, a Rohingya in Bandarban, said he travelled 15 days on foot to reach Bangladesh on Wednesday, and was separated from the rest of his family.

He took nothing as he fled. “I have lost everything,” he said. “Our homes were Marie-Claude Bibeau. So far this year, Canada has committed to $6.63 million in humanitarian assistance funding to aid partners in Myanmar and Bangladesh to help conflict-affected people, including the Rohingya. The Canadian Press

burned … It was painful, very painful.”

Elsewhere, near the Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh’s border district of Cox’s Bazar, men, women and children ran after aid trucks as volunteers tossed clothing and packets of dry food.

With hundreds of thousands of Rohingya struggling to find shelter, food and other essential services, aid workers say they are deeply worried by the continuing influx of people by land and water.

“This is … one of the biggest man-made crises and mass movements of people in the region for decades,” said Martin Faller, of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.