Burma’s Displaced People in India and Bangladesh

Geneva, 5th April 2004

Paper presented by Chris Lewa

Burma’s borders with India and Bangladesh have received much less international attention than the Thailand-Burma border. A major reason is the difficult access to refugees in these border areas due to policies of the host governments. Nevertheless, outflows from Burma to India and Bangladesh are no less significant. More than 50,000, mostly Chin, have fled to India while up to 200,000 Rohingya are found in Bangladesh in and outside refugee camps.

An essential difference appears when comparing the overall situation along the eastern and western borders of Burma. In Chin and Arakan States, bordering India and Bangladesh respectively, there is little ethnic armed resistance and the military regime does not resort to ruthless counter-insurgency tactics to assert control, as is the case along the Thai-Burma border. Therefore, the worst forms of human rights violations such as massive forced relocation, torture, summary executions, are less frequent, but this does not mean that the situation is noticeably better. Over the last decade, the Burma Army’s presence has rapidly expanded along the western border. The establishment of new battalions has resulted in two significant consequences:

UN says some 230,000 people displaced by fighting in coup-hit Myanmar

PRESS TV
Thursday, 24 June 2021

Children and elders line up for food distribution in the eastern town of Namlan, Myanmar, on May 25, 2021, after being displaced from fighting between the military troops and ethnic forces. (Photo by AFP)

The United Nations says an estimated 230,000 people have been displaced by fighting in Myanmar and need humanitarian assistance, several months after the military took power and plunged the Southeast Asian country into chaos.

Turmoil has gripped Myanmar since de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) were ousted on February 1 through a military coup, with near-daily protests and a nationwide civil disobedience movement.

Protesters are demanding the restoration of civilian rule and the release of Suu Kyi and her associates, who have been under arrest ever since.

Nearly 71 Million People Forcibly Displaced Worldwide As Of 2018, U.N. Report Says

capital paublic radio
By Ashley Westerman | NPR
Wednesday, June 19, 2019

 Rohingya refugees gather in the "no man's land" behind Myanmar's barbed-wire-lined border in Maungdaw district, Rakhine state, in 2018. Some 700,000 refugees fled into Bangladesh following a brutal crackdown by the Myanmar military in 2017.

Ye Aung Thu / AFP/Getty Images

 

A record 70.8 million people had been forcibly displaced by war, persecution and other violence worldwide at the end of 2018, according to the latest annual Global Trends report by the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

Displacement Episode 1: The Rohingya ( Harvard University )

Fighting in Myanmar’s Rakhine Estimated to Have Displaced 22,000 People

RFA 
2019-03-27

Members of the Arakan National Party conduct a field visit to a displacement camp in western Myanmar's Rakhine state in an undated photo.Photo courtesy of Htun Aung Kyaw

Intense fighting this week between Myanmar forces and the rebel Arakan Army (AA) in Rakhine state's Buthidaung and Rathedaung townships has displaced 2,000 villagers, raising the prospect of additional food and water shortages in the war-torn region, relief and disaster management workers said Wednesday.

Myanmar -- investors should be cautious but take the risk.

         NIKKEI

ASIAN REVIEW

MARCH 27, 2019

If government pursues humanitarian agenda, foreign partners can back projects, even in Rakhine State.

Simon Tay

Aung San Suu Kyi told investors that "much of Rakhine's economic potential still remains untapped." © Reuters

A humanitarian crisis that has been brewing at the border between Myanmar and Bangladesh since 2016 is reaching a critical point. At Cox's Bazar, just inside Bangladesh, an estimated 740,000 displaced Muslim Rohingya from Myanmar's Rakhine State are encamped in temporary shelters, hoping that the international community will take them in as refugees or facilitate their safe return to the homes they claim in Myanmar.

‘Do more to stop trafficking’.

THE Star ONLINE

Friday, 22 Mar 2019

BANGKOK: Authorities in China and Myanmar are failing to stop the brutal trafficking of young women, often teenagers, from the conflict-ridden Kachin region for sexual slavery, according to a report by Human Rights Watch.

Myanmar’s Rakhine State Sees Increase in Conflict, Displacement

THE GLOBAL POST
by Hannah Leibson ,March 16, 2019

Around 6,000 Rohingya have been living on a thin stretch of land between the two countries since fleeing Myanmar. Photo: Munir Uz Zaman, AFP

More than 3,200 people were displaced last week in Myanmar following intensified fighting between the Arakan Army rebel group and the Myanmar Military in the northern Mrauk-U Township. With nine Myanmar police officers confirmed dead, and eleven more still held-prisoner, this latest clash with the Burmese military signals continued strife for stabilizing Myanmar’s poorest region, sitting at a 78 percent poverty rate.

Land Confiscation Is Latest Barrier to Return for Myanmar’s Displaced

REFUGEES DEEPLY

Written by Peter Yeung
Published on March 15, 2019 

 

An amendment to Myanmar’s land-ownership laws will make it nearly impossible for Rohingya refugees and Myanmar’s internally displaced to return to land they’ve tilled for generations, Peter Yeung reports.

Traders selling produce in Yangon, Myanmar.

 

Hussein Ahmed was once the respected chief of Inn Din, a village in the northern part of Myanmar’s Rakhine state. But since the end of 2017, the 74-year-old Rohingya has been a refugee in Bangladesh’s sprawling Kutupalong refugee camp.

Rohingyas’ right to return must be high on int’l agenda: UK Minister

theindependent
19 February, 2019

It's time to look beyond short-term live-saving assistance, she says

The United Kingdom has reaffirmed its commitment to help resolve the Rohingya crisis saying that the right of these displaced people's return to their place of origin in Myanmar's Rakhine State must remain high on international agenda.

Hundreds More Flee Fighting in Northern Rakhine Over Weekend

The Irrawwady
11 Feburary 2019, By Moe Myint

People displaced by fighting between the Myanmar military and Arakan Army over the weekend take shelter and have a meal at the Yoe Ta Yoke monastery in Ponnagyun Township, Rakhine State, on Sunday. / Rakhine Ethnic Congress / Facebook
YANGON — Fighting between the Arakan Army (AA) and the Myanmar military’s Light Infantry Division 22 drove more than 500 residents of Saung Du Village, in northern Rakhine State’s Kyauktaw Township, out of their homes over the weekend.

Amnesty: Myanmar army ops target Rakhine state.

5,200 men, women, children displaced due to ongoing fighting by Jan. 28, according to human rights group citing UN figures.

11.02.2019

By Ahmet Gurhan Kartal

LONDON

Myanmar security forces have shelled villages and blocked civilians from accessing food and humanitarian assistance in western Rakhine state since early 2019, a rights groups said Monday.

“Security forces have also used vague and repressive laws to detain civilians in the area,” according to the Amnesty International report based on fresh evidence on ongoing military operations.

( 21.11.2016 ) 30,000 displaced by violence in northern Rakhine State: UN

MYANMARTIMES
By AFP | Monday, 21 November 2016

Up to 30,000 people have been displaced by renewed violence in northern Rakhine State, the UN said on November 18. Half of the displacement occurred over the course of the previous week, when dozens of people died in clashes with the military.