Myanmar Military Opens Fire on Funeral

VOA

VOA News
Updated March 28, 2021 

Mourners attend a joint funeral of three protesters, who were shot dead the day before by security forces during a crackdown anti-military coup demonstrations in Kawthaung in southern Myanmar. (Credit: Dawei Watch)

Myanmar’s security forces opened fire on a funeral Sunday, a day after more than 100 people were killed during protests against the February military coup.

Mourners fled the funeral in Bago, near the commercial capital of Yangon, as the gunfire erupted, according to witnesses. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Turkish NGO to distribute aid worldwide during Ramadan

Daily Sabah
BY DAILY SABAH WITH AA
ISTANBUL DIPLOMACY
MAR 28, 2021

Osman Gerem, the head of the Sanliurfa  Humanitarian Platform, during the interview  with Anadolu Agency (AA ), in Sanliurfa , Turkey, March 28,2021, (AA) 

A Turkish nongovernmental organization (NGO) plans to provide humanitarian aid to the different corners of the globe during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which starts on April 13.

The Şanlıurfa Humanitarian Aid Platform, which has been actively engaged in providing aid to the victims of the Syrian civil war for the past 10 years, is preparing to cheer up those struggling around the world.

‘We have nothing’: Refugee camp fire devastates Rohingya, again

Aljazeera
Faisal Mahmud
27 Mar 2021

Refugees recount ordeal after deadly blaze leaves tens of thousands without a shelter, reawakens trauma of Myanmar army’s 2017 crackdown.

At least 15 people were killed in Monday's fire and hundreds injured [Faisal Mahmud/Al Jazeera]

Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh – The last time Farida Begum saw her home turned into a smouldering ruin was some three and a half years ago.

On that night, soldiers had arrived in the swampy Maungdaw district of Myanmar’s Rakhine state, killed her husband and torched their house.

US Government to Sanction Military-Linked Myanmar Conglomerates: Report

THE I DIPLOMAT 

Sebastian Strangio
March 25, 2021

MEC and MEHL control a vast network of companies that channel profits into the Tatmadaw’s coffers. 

The United States is reportedly set to impose sanctions on two large conglomerates linked to the Myanmar military, the latest retaliation by the Biden administration for the military’s seizure of power last month.

Reuters, citing “two sources familiar with the matter,” said that the move to blacklist Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC) and Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd (MEHL) could come as early as Thursday. The move would prevent the two firms and their many subsidiaries from making any transactions with U.S. persons or having any contact with the U.S. banking system, and would freeze any assets that they have in the U.S.

Western Governments Intensify Diplomatic Pressure on Myanmar Junta

THE I DIPLOMAT

Sebastian Strangio
March 22, 2021

As Myanmar’s junta digs in, the ultimate end goal of the growing international pressure remains unclear.

Western governments are continuing to tighten their positions on the Myanmar junta, with the European Union set to impose sanctions on leading members of the security forces, after the U.S. Congress passed a resolution condemning the escalating use of violence against protesters.

European Union foreign ministers are today expected to approve sanctions against 11 Myanmar officials following the military’s seizure of power and deposition of the elected National League for Democracy (NLD) government.

Myanmar Activist: People 'Expecting' Civil War

VOA
Tommy Walker
March 26, 2021

FILE - Myanmar activist Moe Thway gives a thumbs-up sign from a police truck as he is taken to a township court with other activists, in Yangon, Myanmar, Nov 22, 2013

TAIPEI - The military coup in Myanmar is nearly two months old, but the armed forces, also known as the Tatmadaw, are continuing their violent pushback against anti-coup demonstrators.

According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners Burma, thousands have been detained and hundreds killed.

The junta government, officially the State Administrative Council, has also imposed widespread internet shutdowns that have hampered protesters' online communications, a key method for organizing demonstrations.

ယနေ့သတင်းစာများ ( ကြေးမုံ+ မြန်မာ့အလင်း+ မြဝတီ ) မတ်လ ၊၂၀၂၁

 ရက်စွဲအလိုက် သတင်းစာများကို ဤနေရာတွင် ဝင်ရောက် ရှာဖွေနိုင်ပါ သည်။

ကြေးမုံ သတင်းစာ

30.03.2021 - 

မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတွင်း လူ့အခွင့်အရေးချိုးဖောက်မှု အထောက်အထား ကုလစုံစမ်းသူတွေ စတင်စုဆောင်း

VOA

ဗွီအိုအေမြန်မာပိုင်း
ဝင်းမင်
27 မတ်၊ 2021

မှတ်တမ်းဓါတ်ပုံ- ၂၀၁၉ စက်တင်ဘာတုန်းက ၄၂ ကြိမ်မြောက် လူ့အခွင့်အရေးကောင်စီညီလာခံမှာ အစီရင်ခံတင်ပြနေတဲ့ IIMM မြန်မာနိုင်ငံဆိုင်ရာ လွတ်လပ်တဲ့ စုံစမ်းစစ်ဆေးမှု ယန္တရား အဖွဲ့ ဥက္ကဌ Nicholas Koumjian

 

မြန်မာနိုင်ငံမှာ ပြင်းထန်တဲ့ လူ့အခွင့်အရေး ချိုးဖောက်မှုတွေနဲ့ ပတ်သက်တဲ့ အထောက်အထား၊ မှတ်တမ်းတွေကို နိုင်ငံထဲ သွားခွင့် မရသေးပေမဲ့လည်း စတင်စုဆောင်းနေပြီလို့ ကုလသမဂ္ဂရဲ့ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံဆိုင်ရာ စုံစမ်းစစ်ဆေးမှု ယန္တရား (IIMM) အကြီးအကဲက ပြောလိုက်ပါတယ်။

Dozens feared dead as security forces stage violent crackdown

AFP
Frontier Myanmar
MARCH 27, 2021

A protester in Yangon's Thaketa Township walks along a smoke-filled road earlier today. (Frontier)

Security forces killed at least 24 protesters today, witnesses said, in violent crackdowns on demonstrations across the country as the military regime staged a major show of force for its annual Armed Forces Day parade.

The capital Nay Pyi Taw saw a grand parade of troops and military vehicles in the morning, with a speech by Senior General Min Aung Hlaing warning that acts of so-called “terrorism” were unacceptable.

By afternoon, as protesters continued to come out across Myanmar, AFP verified at least 24 people were killed – though local media put the death toll at far higher, with Myanmar Now reporting 91 killed.

Rohingya rebuild shelters after deadly Bangladesh camp fire

FRANCH 24

Balukhali (Bangladesh) (AFP)

5/03/2021

A Rohingya refugee child stands by his burnt home days after a fire at a refugee camp in Bangladesh's southeastern Cox's Bazar district Munir Uz zaman AFP

About 30,000 Rohingya refugees who fled a deadly blaze at camps in Bangladesh returned to their scorched shanties Thursday, seeking to rebuild their makeshift homes as others searched for missing relatives, officials and aid groups said.

The settlements in southeast Bangladesh -- home to nearly a million of the Muslim minority from Myanmar, many of whom escaped a military crackdown in 2017 -- were hit by a major fire on Monday that left at least 15 people dead and nearly 50,000 homeless.

Rohingya refugee camp burns, displacing 45,000

MISSION NETWORK NEWS

By Kevin Zeller

March 26, 2021

Bangladesh (MNN) — A deadly fire engulfed a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh earlier this week. The blaze killed at least 11 people. Hundreds more went missing, meaning the true death toll could be much higher. The United Nations has released 14 million dollars for relief efforts. Read more and see pictures of the destruction here and here.

The secret network helping hundreds of Myanmar police flee to India

WHBL

Sheboygan, WI, USA / 1330 & 101.5 WHBL
By Devjyot Ghoshal
Syndicated Content
Mar 25, 2021

AIZAWL, India (Reuters) - Strung across remote mountain settlements, a secret network of activists and volunteers is helping spirit hundreds of defecting Myanmar policemen away from the military’s brutal crackdown on dissent and into relative safety in a small northeastern Indian state.

Their escape - by car, motorcycle and on foot through densely forested terrain - is often guided by volunteer-led groups on both sides of the border, according to accounts from at least 10 people who are involved in the loose-knit network or have used it to cross the border. Once in India, local activists and residents provide food and shelter in safe houses, the people said.

Those Rohingya Women in the Jammu Camps

The WIRE
Neha Dixit

26 March 2021

After recent arrests, hundreds of Rohingya refugees have started fleeing relief camps in Jammu. Here are the stories of three women who lived in these camps.

On March 7 this year, close to 160 Rohingya refugees living in Jammu were detained in a sub-jail. According to officials, they were sent to a “holding centre” under the Foreigners Act and did not hold valid travel documents.

India does not have any legislation recognising refugees, but the country adheres to the principle of non-refoulement (not sending refugees to a place where they face danger) as part of the customary international law. Some of them have cards issued by the UN High Commission for Refugees acknowledging their status as refugees.

Turkey’s TIKA sends food aid to Rohingyas after huge camp fire

DAILY SABAH WITH REUTERS
ISTANBUL ASIA PACIFIC
MAR 25, 2021

A general view of the Rohingya refugee camp after a massive fire broke out two days ago and destroyed thousands of shelters in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, March 24, 2021. (Reuters Photo)

Turkey's state-run aid agency will provide two meals a day to approximately 20,000 people who were left without shelter after a massive blaze swept through a Bangladeshi refugee camp holding almost a million Rohingya Muslims on Monday, leaving at least 15 people dead, over 500 injured and nearly 50,000 homeless.

The Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA), which plans to reestablish a kitchen in the region in a short time, will provide two hot meals a day to nearly 20,000 refugees in cooperation with the World Food Program (WFP), in an effort to help Rohingyas in Cox's Bazar district through difficult times.

UN emergency fund allocates $14 million for Rohingya refugees left homeless by massive fire

UN News

25 March 2021
Migrants and Refugees

UNICEF/Salman Saeed On 23 March, a ten-year-old child stands amidst debris at the Kutupalong refugee camp in southern Bangladesh. Behind him, the fire still burns, a day after the massive blaze tore through the camp.

The United Nations’ top relief official on Wednesday released $14 million in emergency funding to provide life-saving assistance to thousands of Rohingya refugee families, after a massive fire ripped through the Kutupalong camp in southern Bangladesh, earlier this week.

UN expert calls for emergency summit on Myanmar as situation ‘likely to get much worse’

ASSOCIATED PRESS OF PAKISTAN

Thu, 25 Mar 2021

File Photo

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 25 (APP):A UN human rights expert has called on the international community to hold an “emergency” summit of all the stakeholders in Myanmar, including the parliamentarians, who were democratically elected prior to February’s military coup.

Tom Andrews, the Special Rapporteur investigating human rights in Myanmar, in a statement on Thursday warned that the “pace and scope” of the international response to the military coup in the southeast Asian nation “is falling short of what is required to head off a deepening crisis”.

US and UK ratchet up sanctions on Myanmar's military

 B B C

BBC News

Tim McDonald

26 March 2021

The US and UK have imposed sanctions on Myanmar's two military conglomerates in a move that significantly ratchets up pressure on the country's leadership.

Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC) and Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd (MEHL) control significant portions of Myanmar's economy, with interests across many of the country's major industries.

The US Treasury has now added the two companies to a blacklist, freezing any assets they have in the US and banning US individuals and businesses from trading with them.

The UK has imposed sanctions on MEHL.

"These actions will specifically target those who led the coup, the economic interests of the military, and the funding streams supporting the Burmese military's brutal repression," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said. "They are not directed at the people of Burma.

U.S. Treasury Blacklists Largest Firms Run by Myanmar Milit

Bloomberg

Philip Heijmans

25 March 2021,

Protesters stand off against military junta forces in Yangon on March 16. Source: Getty

The U.S. imposed a fresh round of sanctions targeting the Myanmar military by blacklisting the two largest business entities it controls, according to the Treasury Department.

The sanctions announced Thursday against Myanmar Economic Corp. and Myanma Economic Holdings Ltd., which freeze any assets the two companies hold in the U.S., mark the most severe action taken by any country against the military since it overthrew the civilian-elected government in a coup on Feb. 1.

“These sanctions specifically target the economic resources of Burma’s military regime, which is responsible for the overthrow of Burma’s democratically elected government and the ongoing repression of the Burmese people,” the Treasury Department said in a statement.

We must support the young people who can save democracy in Burma

THE HILL

BY MICHAEL BAILEY,
OPINION CONTRIBUTOR
03/25/21

© Getty Images

The streets of Burma, also called Myanmar, look very different today than they did only a month ago. Countless protesters now fill them in defiance of the recent military coup and human rights violations. Military control is certainly not new for Burma, but it is up against a stronger force this time, with a new generation of young people who want democracy, respect for human rights, and a more inclusive future for the country.

“A social cohesion is being propelled throughout the country faster than ever before,” says Aung Kyaw Moe, the founder and executive director of the Center for Social Integrity, a nonprofit dedicated to building diversity and inclusion in Burma. “Young people are calling in democracy and are resolved to do so through unity, dignity, and nonviolence.”

Aid workers struggle to reunite Rohingya children separated by deadly fire

EasternEye

March 24, 2021

A woman and a child are seen on the backdrop of temporary shelters set up for displaced Rohingya refugees days after a fire at a refugee camp in Ukhia, in the southeastern Cox's Bazar district on March 24, 2021 in which fifteen people died and 400 residents were missing. (Photo by MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP via Getty Images)

AID WORKERS searched on Wednesday (24) to reunite Rohingya Muslim families separated when a huge fire swept through the world’s biggest refugee settlement in Bangladesh, forcing about 45,000 people from their bamboo and plastic homes.

AID WORKERS searched on Wednesday (24) to reunite Rohingya Muslim families separated when a huge fire swept through the world’s biggest refugee settlement in Bangladesh, forcing about 45,000 people from their bamboo and plastic homes.