Joint Press Statement on the Human Rights and Humanitarian Situation in Myanmar

U.S Department of State

Media Note
Office of the Spokesperson
January 6, 2025

The text of the following joint statement was released by the High Representative on behalf of the European Union and the Governments of the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway, the Republic of Korea, Switzerland, Timor-Leste, and the United Kingdom to address the human rights and humanitarian crisis in Myanmar.

Begin text:

Arakan Army Commander-in-Chief Twan Mrat Naing on the Future of Rakhine State

THE | DIPLOMAT
By Rajeev Bhattacharyya
September 06, 2024

“We are always in favor of repatriation [of Rohingya Muslims] in principle, and there should be voluntary, dignified, and safe repatriation under conducive conditions.” 

The Arakan Army (AA) has emerged as one of the most successful ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) in Myanmar in the war against the military junta’s State Administration Council (SAC). With meticulous planning and alliances with other similar groups across the country, the AA has registered massive success in its operations against the military, which began intensifying on November 13 of last year. Currently, it has established control over 11 out of 18 townships spread across southern Chin State and Rakhine State in Myanmar. A fierce battle is currently on in Maungdaw and other regions, where allegations have surfaced of the AA committing atrocities against the Rohingya, a largely Muslim ethnic group.

Rohingya need emergency humanitarian corridor between Bangladesh and Rakhine State

mizzima
May 31,2024 

Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK (BROUK) has made a statement calling for an emergency humanitarian aid corridor from Bangladesh into areas of northern Rakhine State under the control of the Arakan Army.

Rohingya groups call for urgent ‘humanitarian intervention’ after violence escalates in Myanmar’s Arakan

maktoob media
Maktoob Staff
May 23, 2024

Rohingya organizations on Wednesday issued a dire warning about the worsening humanitarian crisis in Arakan, urging the international community to take immediate action to protect the persecuted ethnic minority from further displacement, violence, and potential mass atrocities.

On the Situation in Burma’s Rakhine State ( U.S. Embassy Burma )

On the Situation in Burma’s Rakhine State
PRESS STATEMENT
MATTHEW MILLER, DEPARTMENT SPOKESPERSON

MAY 21, 2024 

The United States is deeply troubled by the reports of increased violence and intercommunal tension in Rakhine State, including reports of towns being burned and residents, including Rohingya, being displaced. These developments follow concerning reports of forced conscription of Rohingya, as well as the spread of disinformation, misinformation, and hate speech.

‘Nowhere to go’: Rohingya face arson attacks in Myanmar’s Rakhine State

Aljazeera
By Caleb Quinley
Published On 21 May 2024

Rohingya, targeted by the Myanmar military in 2017, are caught in the middle as the Arakan Army and military battle in the western state.

Smoke billows from a group of houses set on fire over the weekend [Courtesy of Planet Labs PBC]

 

Fighting between the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army (AA) has escalated in the western state of Rakhine in recent days, putting thousands of mostly Muslim Rohingya who live in the area at increased risk.

As an armed resistance group seeks to expand its control in Rakhine State, a way forward on the Rohingya issue remains unclear.

United State Instutue of Peace
By: Jessica Olney; Ali Ahmed
Wednesday, May 8, 2024 

Rohingya Face Fresh Uncertainty in Myanmar

An uptick in the conflict between Myanmar’s military and an ethnic armed organization in western Rakhine State is raising new concerns about the fate of the Rohingya population. In 2017, over 800,000 Rohingya, a mostly Muslim community, fled to Bangladesh to escape genocide committed against them by members of Myanmar’s military in Rakhine State. Now, emboldened by the military’s increasing vulnerability in the face of an armed resistance, the Arakan Army (AA) has vowed to push aggressively to expand its territorial and administrative control across the state. But its leaders have been unclear about their plans to address the Rohingya issue. 

 

Rohingya ordered by Myanmar officer to ‘fight for our faith’

RFA
By Kyaw Lwin Oo, Sann Maw Aung and Khet
Mar 2024.04.09 

Conscription among the stateless Muslim minority long-targeted for their religion is violent and widespread. 

Rohingya Muslims ride in the back of a junta military vehicle, March 9, 2024.
(Image from citizen journalist video)

Just before midnight on Feb. 25, Ali opened his door to see junta soldiers pointing guns at him. Myanmar’s military had been making its way through Rakhine state, as part of a newly launched forced conscription campaign and the young Rohingya man was their latest victim.  

Arakan Army’s gains enough to enable self-rule in Myanmar’s Rakhine state

RFA
A commentary by Zachary Abuza
2024.04.06 

Their strength will impact future negotiations over establishing a federal democracy and questions of citizenship. 

The Arakan Army, or AA, is continuing their sweep across Rakhine, furthering the military gains of the ethnic Three Brotherhood Alliance, of which it is a member, in Shan state. While the capture of nine towns, with a tenth in southern Chin state, is another humiliating defeat for the Burmese military, it also sets the scene for a very messy political discussion moving forward.

The West Is Returning To The Rohingya Issue In An Attempt To Divide & Rule This Part Of Asia

EESTi EEST!
By Andrew Korybko
aprill 5, 2024

Russian Permanent Representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzia condemned the UK for calling an open session of the Security Council on Myanmar since “there are things that cannot be discussed in the ‘megaphone diplomacy’ mode” that the British insisted on. Thursday’s talks mostly focused on the situation in Rakhine State, which is where the Bangladeshi-originating Rohingya mostly resided prior to 2017’s conflict pushing most of them into that neighboring nation. Here are some background briefings:

The Rohingya under pressure: imprisoned, without citizenship, but forced to join the Burmese a

agenzia fides
Friday, 5 April 2024 

Sittwe (Agenzia Fides) - In order to replenish its ranks, decimated by combat losses, the Myanmar army is resorting to the forced recruitment of young men from the Rohingya people and sending them to the front in the fight against the Arakan Army, an ethnic militia that is resisting in Rakhine State, the Burmese state where the Rohingya, a discriminated and marginalized Muslim population in Myanmar, are traditionally based. As Rohingya organizations in the diaspora, including the Burmese Rohingya Organization UK and the Free Rohingya Coalition, report, “the Burmese regime has deliberately forcibly recruited the Rohingya because they are particularly vulnerable. They cannot escape due to movement restrictions imposed by the junta. Rakhine State is, so to speak, an open-air prison for the Rohingya. The junta considers them expendable. It is a cruel way to send the Rohingya to their deaths." At least a thousand young Rohingya men - around half of them internally displaced persons - have been forcibly recruited by the Burmese army in recent weeks. They were abducted from their homes, villages, markets and displaced persons camps and taken to army bases where they received military training. After two weeks of military training, the young men were armed and forced to wear Burmese military uniforms and sent to the front lines in Rakhine State. Non-governmental organizations fear that dozens of people have been killed, "although the exact number of victims is difficult to verify due to the news blackouts imposed by the regime in this region." Other internally displaced Rohingya who have returned to Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine state, after military training will be called to the front lines if necessary. In February last year, the Burmese regime announced that it would implement the 2010 law on compulsory military service. But in the case of the Rohingya, who were deprived of their citizenship by a 1982 law and thus have no protection or recognized rights, there would be no legal basis to impose compulsory military service on them. 

 

UN Shows Conflicting Approaches to Myanmar Crisis

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
John Sifton
Asia Advocacy Director
April 4, 2024 

The United Nations Security Council’s first open meeting on Myanmar since 2019, New York, April 4, 2024. © 2024 John Sifton/Human Rights Watch

Myanmar’s already abysmal human rights situation is getting worse.

That’s what senior United Nations officials told the UN Security Council on April 4, during a rare open meeting on Myanmar, its first since February 2019.

The council heard of a spiraling human rights and humanitarian catastrophe, with particularly worrisome abuses in Rakhine State. Conflict has “weakened transnational security” and instability has led to a crisis with “global implications,” officials said.

We must not allow Myanmar to become a forgotten crisis: UK statement at the UN Security Council

GOV.UK
From: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and Dame Barbara Woodward DCMG OBE Published4 April 2024

Statement by Ambassador Barbara Woodward at the UN Security Council meeting on Myanmar. 

Thank you President, and thank you ASG Khiari and Director Doughten for your insightful briefings.

Colleagues, as we’ve heard, it is now over three years since the Myanmar military overturned the democratically elected government, setting the country on a path of violence and humanitarian suffering.

Rohingya NGO urges UN to ensure peace for the Rohingya in Myanmar’s Rakhine

mizzima
March 30, 2024

The Myanmar Ethnic Rohingya Human Rights Organisation in Malaysia (MERHROM) issued a statement 29 March urging the UN Security Council (UNSC), the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), world leaders, and the international community to intervene immediately in order to restore peace and save the Rohingya, especially in Rakhine State.

UN ‘alarmed’ by reports of civilian casualties in Myanmar air attacks

Aljazeera
19 March 2024 

Continuing air raids in the restive country’s Rakhine state are reported to have killed dozens. 

The United Nations chief has expressed “alarm” at reports that the Myanmar military is bombing civilian areas.

Antonio Guterres called for calm late on Monday following reports that continuing air attacks on villages in the restive country’s Rakhine state have killed dozens.

‘Piles of corpses’ left after Myanmar junta attacks village

RFA
By RFA Burmese
2024.03.18 

An aerial attack left 20 people dead and 33 injured in a township under Arakan Army control.

A junta aerial bombardment killed and injured dozens in western Myanmar, residents told Radio Free Asia.

Most residents in Thar Dar, a predominantly Rohingya village in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, were sleeping when a fighter jet dropped a bomb around 1 a.m. Friday, a resident said.

Arakan Army seizes junta outposts in Minbya Town, Rakhine State

mizzima
February 24, 2024 

The Arakan Army (AA) captured three outposts that had been under the control of the junta’s No. 9 Command Training Depot in Kanni Village, Minbya Town, Rakhine State. on 21 February.

Rohingya Men in Myanmar Are Being Forcibly Recruited by The Junta’s Military

The Irrawaddy
Hein Htoo Zan
February 23, 2024

A IDP camp for Rohingya people near Rakhine State’s capital Sittwe. / The Irrawaddy

 

Myanmar’s military is forcibly recruiting Rohingya men from villages and camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Rakhine State and it is feared they will be used as human shields, activists and residents of the state warn.

A New Era is Dawning For the People of Myanmar’s Rakhine State

THE | DIPLOMAT
Kyaw Hsan Hlaing
February 13, 2024

After years of conflict and ethnic cleansing, recent military gains by the Arakan Army have opened up fresh possibilities for the region’s future. 

On February 8, the rebel Arakan Army (AA) seized Mrauk-U, the former capital of the Arakan kingdom in Rakhine State, western Myanmar, along with the towns of Minbya and Kyauktaw. In fact, since the resumption of war between the AA and the country’s military junta on November 13, the AA has now successfully taken over six cities in the state, as well as two cities in neighboring southern Chin state, while destroying at least seven navy vessels and a helicopter. These ongoing victories have invigorated the long-standing dreams of Rakhine nationalists for an independent Arakan.

Muslim father- son duo abducted, set their car on fire by ARSA members in Maungdaw

Narinjara News 

 By: Web Master
Date: 13 August 2023 

The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), a terrorist armed group, recently abducted a Muslim man with his son and later burned down their car in northern Maungdaw township of Rakhine State.

The abducted father and son are identified as U Saw Lean Mula and U Hla Win, who hail from Sapae Gone Muslim village in western Myanmar border areas.