Many Rohingya still trying to flee Myanmar’s violence

COX’S BAZAR, BANGLADESH — The massive exodus of Rohingya Muslims fleeing Myanmar to escape brutal persecution appears to have slowed, but refugees say tens of thousands more are huddled near beaches or in forests waiting to escape.

Some Rohingya who have fled over the last week said Myanmar soldiers were shooting at those trying to flee to Bangladesh. Others said thousands were stuck in Myanmar because most boatmen had made the crossing to safety themselves and soldiers had burned many of the boats that remained.

Over the last month, an estimated 430,000 Rohingya have arrived in Bangladesh as their homes and villages were set on fire by mobs of soldiers and Buddhist monks. They have brought with them accounts of soldiers spraying their villages with gunfire.

In the first three weeks of the latest violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, thousands of Rohingya poured into Bangladesh each day, walking for days through forests or taking rickety boats on the rain-swollen Naf River. But Associated Press journalists have seen only a handful of people enter by land or sea at a few border crossings over the last week. However, there are several crossing points on the border between the two countries where Rohingya have entered over the last month, making it impossible to verify how many people enter Bangladesh each day.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, also noted that the number of incoming Rohingya appeared to have dipped.

One man who fled Myanmar, Syed Noor, said Sunday that tens of thousands of Rohingya were waiting at border points in Myanmar desperately trying to escape. “They are stuck in one place because the Myanmar army is shooting at us,” said Noor.

“The information that we have is very patchy. But we know that there are people on the other side and under pressure and we know that there people who are displaced internally,” Grandi said.

He said the exodus of Rohingya from Myanmar to Bangladesh is “the most urgent refugee emergency in the world” right now.

PAULA BRONSTEIN, GETTY IMAGES Rohingya wait for treatment Sunday in Amtola, Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Over 430,000 Rohingya refugees have fled into Bangladesh since late August during the outbreak of violence.