A Rohingya Muslim refugee from Myanmar fills water at a makeshift camp on the outskirts of the Indian city of Jammu, June 20, 2017. (Photo by AFP) A Rohingya Muslim refugee from Myanmar fills water at a makeshift camp on the outskirts of the Indian city of Jammu, June 20, 2017. (Photo by AFP) There seems to be no end in sight to the plight of Rohingya Muslims as those members of the community who have fled persecution in Myanmar are now facing difficulties in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh. The Indian government announced on Saturday that it would make a case to the country’s Supreme Court for the expulsion of up to 40,000 Rohingya Muslims who have arrived over the past 10 years, claiming that they are a security threat. The move has faced strong opposition from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein and civil rights campaigners. According to the UN, there are 16,000 Rohingya Muslims registered in India and many more are still undocumented. Officials say nearly 7,000 of the Muslims live in shanties in Jammu in the Indian Himalayas. Reports say 47 families live in dilapidated structures at the Kanchan Kunj camp in New Delhi. “I would rather have the [Indian] government kill us or put us in jail than have us deported back there (Myanmar),” a Rohingya residing in India said. “If we go back there, they will cut us into pieces and stack us 10-15 people together and set us on fire.” In Myanmar, the Rohingya Muslims face death, torture, and rape by military forces and gangs of Buddhist extremists in the western state of Rakhine, according to reports and eyewitnesses. They have been fleeing bouts of violence in recent months. Nepal The government in neighboring Nepal, meanwhile, is also attempting to prevent the entry of more members of the Muslim minority to the country. Those who have arrived live in slums in northern Kathmandu. “Nepal has increased surveillance at its border to stop more Rohingya from entering the country after the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar because we cannot bear any more crises,” Nepal’s Home Ministry spokesman Ram Krishna said. The UN says more than 400,000 desperate Rohingya Muslims have so far fled the violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine state and crossed into neighboring Bangladesh. PressTV-Rohingya exodus from Myanmar tops 400,000: UN The UN says over 400,000 desperate Rohingya Muslims have so far fled the violence in Myanmar and crossed into Bangladesh. Bangladesh restricts movement of Rohingya Meanwhile, Bangladeshi police said on Saturday that they had issued an order banning the Rohingya from leaving the areas and camps the government has designated for them in the southeastern border district of Cox’s Bazar, where the majority of refugees are living in squalid conditions. “They should stay in the designated camps until they return to their country,” Sahely Ferdous, a police spokeswoman, said in a statement. “They cannot travel from one place to another by roads, railways, or waterways.” Rohingya are asked not to take shelter in the homes of their friends or acquaintances, while locals have been asked not to rent houses to the refugees, and bus and truck drivers requested not to transport the Rohingya, according to the spokeswoman. Bangladeshi prime minister to urge probe in Myanmar Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Saturday summoned the Myanmarese envoy for the third time to protest its neighbor’s actions. Hasina then headed for the UN General Assembly in New York to plead for international assistance in a bid to cope with the mounting crisis. “She will seek immediate cessation of violence in Rakhine state in Myanmar and ask the UN secretary general to send a fact-finding mission to Rakhine,” said Nazrul Islam, a spokesman for the premier. “She will also call the international community and the UN to put pressure on Myanmar for the repatriation of all the Rohingya refugees to their homeland in Myanmar,” he said. Myanmar’s government brands the Rohingya Muslims in the country as “illegal immigrants” from Bangladesh, launching a deadly and brutal crackdown on them. Rohingya Muslims, however, have had roots in Myanmar that go back centuries. They are considered by the UN the “most persecuted minority group in the world.” The Myanmarese military has been attacking Rohingya Muslims and torching their villages in Rakhine since October 2016. The attacks have seen a sharp rise since August 25, following a number of alleged armed attacks on police and military posts in the troubled western state.
There have been reports of massacres and ethnic cleansing by Myanmarese army and Buddhist mobs against the Muslim population in Rakhine. Canada ‘to raise issue of Rohingya at UN’ Separately on Saturday, Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland expressed concern over the plight of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, saying that she will raise the issue and speak up on their behalf at the UN General Assembly next week. “Based on the reports, this looks a lot like ethnic cleansing and that is not acceptable,” Freeland said at a rally staged in support of the Rohingya by several Canadian Muslim organizations in Toronto. She added that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had expressed his “very strong condemnation” of the treatment of the Rohingya directly to Myanmar’s de facto ruler Aung San Suu Kyi earlier this week. Freeland declined to provide details on what she or Trudeau have planned to do at the UN but said the issue was one that both would be “focusing on.” Another rally in support of the Rohingya is to take place in Ottawa on Sunday afternoon.
UN says over 400,000 Rohingya have entered Bangladesh as Dhaka seeks help
The United Nations says so far more than 400,000 desperate Rohingya Muslims have fled the violence in Myanmar and crossed into neighboring Bangladesh, as Dhaka pleads for global help to cope with the humanitarian crisis.
“An estimated 409,000 Rohingya refugees have arrived in Bangladesh since August 25, fleeing violence in Myanmar's Rakhine state,” said Joseph Tripua, a UN refugee agency spokesman, in a statement on Saturday.
The latest figure came a day after the UN announced that some 391,000 Rohingya refugees had entered Bangladesh, showing a leap of 18,000 in a matter of a day. The exodus from the violence-wracked Rakhine state makes it one of the fastest growing refugee crises in recent years.
On Saturday, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina headed for the UN General Assembly in New York to plead for international assistance in a bid to cope with the mounting crisis.
“Sheikh Hasina will raise the Rohingya issue during her speech at the UN General Assembly. She will seek immediate cessation of violence in Rakhine state in Myanmar and ask the UN secretary general to send a fact-finding missing to Rakhine,” said Nazrul Islam, a spokesman for the premier, on Saturday.
He added that Hasina would call on the international community to put pressure on Myanmar for the “repatriation of all the Rohingya refugees to their homeland in Myanmar.” The Bangladeshi prime minister left for New York a day after Dhaka summoned the Myanmar envoy for the third time to protest over its neighbor’s actions.
Conditions are deteriorating in Bangladesh’s border town of Cox's Bazar, where the constant influx has increased pressure on already-overcrowded Rohingya camps with 300,000 members of the minority from earlier refugee waves.
A joint report prepared by a group of UN agencies and two charities said at least a woman and two children had lost their lives “in a stampede during an unauthorized clothing distribution on the road in Balukhali Pan Bazar area” earlier on Friday.
The volatile Rakhine, located in the northwest of Myanmar, has been the scene of communal violence since 2012. Many of the Muslims have lost their lives while tens of thousands have been displaced as a result of attacks by Buddhists. The refugees largely live in camps in dire conditions.
Since October 2016, Myanmar’s government has laid a siege to the western state of Rakhine, where the Rohingya Muslims are concentrated. There, horrific violence, including killing, rape and torching property, has been taking place against the minority Muslims, according to reports and eyewitnesses.
The attacks have seen a sharp rise since August 25 after dozens of police and border outposts in Rakhine came under attack purportedly by a group claiming to be the defenders of the Rohingya. The alleged assaults were launched in response to a government clampdown in the area, where over a million Rohingya are based.
Rohingya Muslims fleeing violence and persecution in their home country of Myanmar continue to arrive in Bangladesh. Refugees are waiting for handout from aid agencies since they lack food, clean water and shelter. Locals say many of the Rohingya refugees are also sick and wounded. Thousands of the displaced people have been stranded or left without enough food for weeks.
Myanmar’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi is under fire by the international community and rights groups for allowing the government troops and the Buddhist mobs to further impose a violent clampdown on the desperate minority.
Suu Kyi, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, is also heavily criticized by a number of her fellow Nobel laureates, including Malala Yousafzai and Desmond Tutu, for allowing such atrocities against the Rohingya.
Myanmar’s government denies full citizenship to the Rohingya, branding them illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. Dhaka, in turn, regards the desperate refugees as Myanmarese and harshly pushes them back. The Rohingya, however, track their ancestors many generations back in Myanmar
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