Rohingya man narrates 16 days’ ordeal on route of trafficking

The Daily Star

Mohammad Jamil Khan
Thu Oct 13, 2022 

A transnational syndicate is using a new land route through Myanmar to traffic people, mostly Rohingyas from refugee camps in Bangladesh, to Thailand and Malaysia.

Previously, Rohingyas used to be trafficked to those countries by sea, but traffickers started using the new route as law enforcers increased vigilance in Cox's Bazar and in the Bay of Bengal.

The human trafficking syndicate comprises of Bangladeshis, Rohingyas, people of the Burmese Mog tribe, and Thai and Malaysian nationals and it has been using this land route for around eight months, said sources in law enforcement agencies, Rohingya leaders, and a trafficked youth.

Luring Rohingyas with promises of a better life in Malaysia or Thailand, members of the syndicate first take them from camps in Cox's Bazar, to a village in near Myanmar border, and then send them to the destinations via Rakhine State, they said.

Is the opportunity for Rohingya repatriation slipping away?

The Daily Star

Lt Gen Md Mahfuzur Rahman (LPR)
Sat Aug 13, 2022 

Photo: Mohammad Ponir Hossain/REUTERS

Five years since the 2017 exodus of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar as a result of its military's horrific persecution, there is no sign of repatriation on the horizon. And as long as the military junta continues to rule, there is hardly any scope for repatriation. This was reflected by Myanmar's Senior General Min Aung Hlaing in 2017, when he said in a media interview, "we did not send them to bring them back."

Even after the military coup in February 2021, when the junta was under tremendous pressure from inside and outside, General Min Aung Hlaing reiterated in May 2021, in an interview with an international media outlet, that there is "no option of bringing back the Rohingyas". Whatever discussions on repatriation we hear and see are part of diplomatic rhetoric; no serious analyst would take it at face value. However, it is always better to have engagement with the present Myanmar government on this issue rather than a complete disengagement.

Israel supported Burma's military against Rohingya Muslims in exchange for international recognition

MEMO MIDDLE EAST MONITOR

October 7, 2022

Rohingya laborers have lunch during their break as they work at a brick production workplace in a village on December 23, 2021, in Sittwe, Rakhine State, Myanmar [Aung Naing Soe/Anadolu Agency]

Recently declassified Israeli Foreign Ministry documents reveal deep Israeli military ties with Burma, now known as Myanmar, and its significant role in the brutal massacre against the Rohingya Muslims.

According to a report published yesterday by Haaretz, the 25,000 pages of documents detail how the Israeli regime armed and trained the Burmese army, from the 1950s until the beginning of the 1980s.

Since the end of British rule in Myanmar in 1948, different parts of the country have been rocked by relentless civil war.

In Myanmar, Grief and Fury After an Attack on a School

The New York Times  

By Sui-Lee Wee
Sept. 23, 2022

 Eleven children died when soldiers fired on the school, where they said rebels had taken cover. “This is a war crime,” said a U.N. expert.

Damage from the Sept. 16 attack on a school in Let Yet Kone village, in the Sagaing region of central Myanmar. Credit...Social Media, via Reuters

 

 It was the noon hour, and children were playing outside the school, squeezing in their last few minutes of fun before lessons began. Suddenly, there came the roar of helicopters overhead.

Bhone Tayza, 7, looked up. His cousin shouted at him to run, and both of them dashed to hide in a hole in the trunk of a tamarind tree. Then Bhone Tayza remembered he had left his school bag in his classroom and ran back to get it. Soldiers started firing rockets.

Bangladesh spends $1.22 bn a year for 1.2 mn Rohingyas: PM

The Daily Star

UNB, New York

Thu Sep 22, 2022

Photo: PID

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today (September 22, 2022) called upon the international community to take five actions to resolve the prolonged Rohingya crisis, including political and financial support to them.

She made the call at a high-level side event on the Rohingya crisis held at Lotte Palace New York Hotel.

Focusing on the second action, Sheikh Hasina asked the world community to intervene in the proceedings before the International Court of Justice, International Criminal Court and national courts, including supporting the Gambia in the ICJ, in order to enforce international law and to strengthen the fight against human rights violations in Myanmar.

UN expert slams upcoming 'fraud' election in Myanmar

 

By AFP
Published: September 23, 2022

The junta is looking 'to create the sense of legitimacy and inevitability,' says Thomas Andrews, UN's special rapporteur

  UN Special Rapporteur on Myanmar Tom Andrews gives a press conference during the 51th Human Rights Council in Geneva on Sept. 22. (Photo: AFP)

A UN expert on Thursday dismissed as fraudulent an upcoming election in Myanmar, accusing the junta of looking for a veneer of legitimacy and rebuking the international community for not doing enough to challenge the regime.

"The junta is preparing for what it describes as an election," Thomas Andrews, the UN's special rapporteur on the rights situation in Myanmar, told reporters in Geneva.

"This is not going to be an election. It is a fraud."

Myanmar's military seized power and toppled the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021.

The country has been in turmoil ever since, with fighting across swathes of the country and the economy in tatters even as the junta says it plans to hold fresh polls next August.

Myanmar spiralling ‘from bad to worse, to horrific’, Human Rights Council hears

UN News
Live on UN Web TV:
Coverage of the 77th General Debate

21 September 2022
Human Rights

World Bank/Tom Cheatham

A child looks after his younger sibling in Myanmar.

Since the Myanmar military launched its “disastrous” coup last year, UN-appointed independent human rights expert Tom Andrews said on Wednesday that conditions have worsened, “by any measure”.

“With each report I have warned that unless UN Member States change course in the way they collectively respond to this crisis, the people of Myanmar will suffer even further,” he told the Human Rights Council in Geneva, saying that conditions have “gone from bad to worse, to horrific for untold numbers of innocent people in Myanmar”.

Myanmar, Bangladesh must solve border tensions peacefully

ASIA TIME

By TILOTTAMA RANI CHARULATA

SEPTEMBER 22, 2022

The Bangladeshi government’s diplomatic and military preparations need to be strengthened

Myanmar border guard police patrol the fence in the 'no man's land' zone between the Myanmar and Bangladesh border. Photo: AFP / Phyo Hein Kyaw

Many Rohingya people fled from Myanmar a few years ago in fear of their lives, but recently the Myanmar army has had to face strong resistance from other independence-seeking rebels. Along with the Arakan Army, the military is in serious conflict with the Cochin Army, and elements of the Shan, Karen, Mong, Shin and Kaya peoples.

As a result, the Tatmadaw (military) has adopted a slightly different strategy from its persecution of the Rohingya to avoid international surveillance of its suppression of the rebels. As a part of this, it has mounted a campaign on the border with Bangladesh.

UN-appointed expert says better sanctions on Myanmar needed

The Washington Post

By David Rising | AP
September 22, 2022

FILE - A school bag lies next to dried blood stains on the floor of a middle school in Let Yet Kone village in Tabayin township in the Sagaing region of Myanmar on Saturday, Sept. 17, 2022, the day after an air strike hit the school. A United Nations-appointed human rights expert called Thursday for governments and companies to coordinate efforts to cut off the military-led government of Myanmar from its revenue and weapons sources, saying life in the Southeastern Asian nation has become a “living hell” for many since the generals seized power last year. (AP Photo, File) (Uncredited/AP

BANGKOK — A United Nations-appointed human rights expert called Thursday for governments and companies to coordinate efforts to cut off the military-led government of Myanmar from its sources of revenue and weapons, saying life in the Southeastern Asian nation has become a “living hell” for many since the generals seized power last year.

Tom Andrews, in Geneva to deliver his annual report on Myanmar to the U.N. Human Rights Council, told reporters that while many countries have been imposing sanctions on individuals, military entities, financial institutions and energy companies, what is needed is “coordinated action.”

PM seeks UN’s intensified role in Rohingya repatriation

THE BUSINESS POSTS
BSS . New York
22 Sep 2022

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi holds a meeting with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at the bilateral meeting room of Lotte New York Palace hotel on Tuesday– BSS Photo

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has iterated her call to the international community and the United Nations to play intensified role in solving the Rohingya crisis by repatriating the forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals to their motherland.

The prime minister made this call while UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi paid a courtesy call on her at the bilateral meeting room of Lotte New York Palace hotel 0n Tuesday.

Rohingya teen dies, several injured after shells fired from Myanmar land in Bangladesh

bdnews24.com 

Bandarban Correspondent
Cox’s Bazar Correspondent,
Senior Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 16 Sept 2022,

The shells fell on a refugee settlement across no man's land

 

A Rohin‌gya teenager has reportedly been killed and several others injured after mortar shells fired from Myanmar exploded in Bangladeshi territory, according to officials and community leaders.

The shells fell on a refugee settlement near the Tumabru and Konapara border in Bandarban's Ghumdhum Union around 8 pm on Friday, the latest in a string of violent incidents that have put residents on edge.

Mortar fired from Myanmar kills Rohingya youth in Bangladesh

Aljazeera
17 Sep 2022

More than a million Rohingya live in camps in southern Bangladesh that comprise the world’s largest refugee settlements.

Rohingya refugees gather at a market inside a refugee camp in Cox''s Bazar, Bangladesh, in 2019 [File: Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuters]

A Rohingya teenager has been killed and at least six people were injured when a mortar shell fired from Myanmar exploded inside Bangladesh territory, local officials and a Rohingya leader said.

The youth was killed by a mortar blast late on Friday, said Dil Mohammed, a Rohingya leader, in an area designated as no-man’s land – a strip of land along the Myanmar-Bangladesh border where an estimated 4,000 Rohingya live.

Myanmar’s threat on Bangladesh’s sovereignty

dailyobserver 

Published : Monday, 5 September, 2022 

Mehjabin Bhanu

 

Despite strong protests, Myanmar continues to violate the border. A week after firing mortar shells on the Bangladesh border, the Myanmar forces again fired from warplanes on the Bangladesh border. Yesterday (On September 03), two shells fired by the Myanmar army exploded in Bangladesh territory near the zero line of the Naikshyongchari border in Bandarban. Although it exploded within 120 meters of the terrain, no one was injured or injured in the incident. In the morning, the place where the two bullets fell is an uninhabited area. 6 days before this incident, on August 28, mortar shells landed in the populated area of Ghumdhumpara, north of Naikshyongchari.

But it did not explode. With two such incidents in a row and ongoing fighting between Myanmar's insurgent group Arakan Army (AA) and Myanmar's security forces, the local residents of the Bangladesh border are suffering from fear and insecurity. Those who cultivate jum(One kind of cultivation method in the hilly area) in the hillsadjacent to the border are staying at home instead of farming. Security analysts said that such incidents are disrupting the normal life of the residents of the border areas.

The 2021 Military Coup in Myanmar and the Rohingya Outlook: Interview with Aung Kyaw Moe | Nazia Khan

Mainstream 

Mainstream, VOL 60 No 37 September 3, 2022

Myanmar, is a country of 54 million people and acts as a link between South and Southeast Asia. At the time of independence from Britain in 1948 a democratic government was in place. In 1962 a military coup brought rule of a military junta that lasted for decades. The military-junta rule faced opposition from pro-democracy activists which included Aung Sang Suu Kyi, the leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD). The 8888 Uprising and 2007 Saffron Revolution forced the military junta to adopt the 2008 Constitution through a referendum. Eventually, the military junta allowed an election in 2010 and also released Aung San Suu Kyi who had been kept under house arrest intermittently. The democratisation process also intensified the issue of the Rohingya ethnic community in the Rakhine State. The Rohingyas were not included in 135 ethnic groups recognized by the 1982 Citizenship Law and thus denied citizenship. Rohingya issue took a central place with the rise of extremist monks, Ashin Wirathu, and Bamar Buddhist extremist groups like the 969 Movement and Ma Ba Tha. Amidst this, the Aung San Suu Kyi-led NLD party won an overwhelming majority in the 2015 election in Myanmar. Being in a position of power, Suu Kyi failed to acknowledge the plight of Rohingya who fled the country as a result of military violence and ethnic cleansing in 2017 in the northern Rakhine State. She not only refused to recognize the term Rohingya but defended the Myanmar military junta in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against the case of Rohingya Genocide filed by the Republic of the Gambia. After winning the second election with a majority in 2020, the military junta carried out a coup in February 2021 against the Aung Sann Suu Kyi-led NLD government. Currently, Aung San Suu Kyi is jailed on the charges of election fraud and corruption. The citizens protested against the coup by the military, to which it retaliated with brute force. The deposed elected government responded by forming a Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw which created a government in exile known as National Unity Government (NUG). NUG also has an armed wing People’s Defense Forces to fight the military forces. Further, an all-inclusive platform known as, National Unity Consultative Council has been formed which includes the government in exile, civil society, activists and ethnic political parties of Myanmar to fight for restoring democracy in Myanmar.

Seven Rohingya dead after boat seized, Myanmar authorities say

THE STRAITSTIMES

Sep 2, 2022, 

 Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims fled a military crackdown in Buddhist-majority Maynmar in 2017. PHOTO: EPA-EFE

 

YANGON - Seven Rohingya people from a group of 65 seized by the Myanmar authorities from a boat off the southern coast died of hunger, thirst and exposure, state media said on Friday.

On Monday, the authorities detained a vessel near Pyapon township, around 120km south of commercial hub Yangon, said the Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper.

"Four traffickers and 65 smuggled Bengalis were temporarily detained," it said, using the term by which Rohingya are pejoratively referred to by many in Myanmar.

Three men and four women later "died due to the bad weather and lack of food and water".

Fifth anniversary of the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar: UK statement

Press release

The UK announces new sanctions and legal action in support of Myanmar’s Rohingya community.

Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and The Rt Hon Amanda Milling MPPublished25 August 2022

Minister for Asia Amanda Milling

• UK takes fresh action against the Myanmar Armed Forces on 5th anniversary of the military’s campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya
• new sanctions against military-linked companies to target the military’s access to arms and revenue
• UK confirms its intention to intervene in The Gambia v. Myanmar International Court of Justice Case to support international justice efforts

Five years after the crackdown, Myanmar’s remaining Rohingya ‘living like animals’

The Guardian

Rebecca Ratcliffe 

South-east Asia correspondent

Thu 25 Aug 2022 

While 700,000 Rohingya Muslims fled Myanmar after 25 August 2017, 600,000 remain, facing harsh restrictions on movement, persecution and poverty‘

• Like an open prison’: a million Rohingya refugees still in Bangladesh camps five years after crisis   

F

ive years ago Muhammad*, his wife and two children sheltered at their home, terrified as they heard of violence tearing through nearby villages. The Myanmar military had launched so-called “clearance operations” in northern Rakhine state, forcing huge numbers of Rohingya people to flee into neighbouring Bangladesh.

Rohingya: ‘Kill us, but don’t deport us to Myanmar’

 B B C

Rajini Vaidyanathan
BBC South Asia Correspondent

Yasmin is one among thousands of Rohingya children who are unable to get proper education

In her four fragile years, Yasmin has lived a life of uncertainty, unsure where she belongs.

Born in a refugee camp in Bangladesh, she is unable to return to her ancestral village in Myanmar. At the moment, a dingy room in India's capital, Delhi, serves as home.

Like hundreds of thousands of Rohingya people - an ethnic minority in Myanmar - Yasmin's parents fled the country in 2017 to escape a campaign of genocide launched by the military.

Myanmar Rohingya desperate to leave Bangladesh camps and go home after five years

THE GLOBE

 AND MAIL
RUMA PAUL
DHAKA
REUTERS

Rohingya refugees gather to mark the fifth anniversary of their exodus from Myanmar to Bangladesh, at a Kutupalong Rohingya refugee camp at Ukhiya in Cox's Bazar district, Bangladesh, on Aug. 25.SHAFIQUR RAHMAN/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Myanmar Rohingya Muslims protested across refugee camps in neighbouring Bangladesh on Thursday, the fifth anniversary of clashes between Rohingya insurgents and Myanmar security forces that drove hundreds of thousands of Rohingya from their homes.

More than a million Rohingya are living in squalid camps in southern Bangladesh comprising the world’s largest refugee settlement, with little prospect of returning to Myanmar, where they are mostly denied citizenship and other rights.

Genocide case against Myanmar over Rohingya atrocities cleared to proceed

The Guardian

Rebecca Ratcliffe
in Bangkok
Fri 22 Jul 2022

UN’s international court of justice rejects arguments advanced by military junta over crackdowns against Muslim minority group
Rohingya refugees who fled Myanmar for Jamtoli camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh in January 2018. Photograph: Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuters

The United Nations’ highest court has rejected Myanmar’s attempts to halt a case accusing it of genocide against the country’s Rohingya minority, paving the way for evidence of atrocities to be heard.

The international court of justice rejected all preliminary objections raised by Myanmar, which is now ruled by a military junta, at a hearing on Friday.

The case, which was filed by the Gambia, centres on brutal military crackdowns in 2016 and 2017 that forced more than 700,000 Rohingya to flee over the border to neighbouring Bangladesh.