Eight injured in Mrauk U violence.

Frontier 
MYANMAR
Wednesday, March 20, 2019
By AFP

People look at an unexploded rocket in Mrauk U township in Rakhine State on March 16. (AFP)

YANGON — Fighting between Myanmar's military and the Arakan Army in Mrauk U, the ancient capital of the Rakhine kingdom, has left at least eight injured, scaring tourists and sparking fears that the historical monuments are under threat.

Plight of Rohingya Muslims tied to Britain, Japan and World War II.

nzherald.co.nz

16 Mar, 2019

Nearly one million Rohingya refugees are in Bangladesh. Photo / The Washington Post by Ismail Ferdous

Washington Post
By: Jayita Sarkar analysis

Last month the United Nations and its partners appealed for US$920 million ($1.34 billion) to assist nearly one million Rohingya refugees now encamped in Bangladesh. These refugees are fleeing the violence in the northern part of the Rakhine state in Burma. That violence has been perpetrated by the Burmese military under the pretext that the Rohingya are not citizens of Burma, also known as Myanmar, but "resident foreigners" from Bangladesh who neither speak the Burmese language nor are part of Burma's myriad ethnic groups.

China denies offering cash to lure Rohingya to Myanmar.

The Peninsula Qatar
08 Mar 2019

Rohingya refugee children play football at the Balukhali refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, March 5, 2019. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain

By SM Najmus Sakib I Anadolu

DHAKA: A Chinese official has denied reports that his country’s government delegation had promised each family of Rohingya refugees $6,000 if they returned to restive Rakhine State in Myanmar, a media report said.

According to BenarNews, an online news service, Chinese Embassy Attaché in Dhaka Vera Hu said: "China never offers money to Rohingya people for them to go back.”

Myanmar: Arakan Army Is Not A Terrorist Outfit – OpEd

eurasiareview
March 9, 2019

By S. Chandrasekharan

Location of Burma. Source: CIA World Factbook.

It looks that both the Myanmar Government and its Army with the tacit support of China are trying make out that the Arakan Army is deeply in cohort with the terrorist outfit- the ARSA in causing depredations in Rakhine State.

Rohingya Trading Identity for Partial Citizenship, More Rights in Rakhine State

The Irrawaddy
By Moe Myint 7 March 2019

Lawmakers take a rare stand for persecuted Muslims in western Burma after learning that the movement of about 500 people recently awarded citizenship remains restricted.

YANGON — More than half of the 7,000-plus Muslim Rohingya who have applied for citizenship in Rakhine State over the past three years have now been accepted following a wave of approvals in just the last few months, according to the Ministry of Labor, Population and Immigration.

Suu Kyi urges investment in Rohingya crisis' epicenter.

Myanmar leader keen to boost rural economy as 2020 election looms

NIKKEI ASIAN REVIEW
YUICHI NITTA, Nikkei staff writer

FEBRUARY 27, 2019 12:42 JST

The economic potential of Rakhine State "remains untapped," Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi told investors and businesses last week. © Reuters

THANDWE, Myanmar -- Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar's de facto leader, has chosen impoverished Rakhine State as a venue to issue a new call for foreign investment, even as her government faces international criticism for failing to stop persecution of the Rohingya Muslim minority there.

Daw Suu's Rakhine investment forum speech in full.

MYANMAR TIMES
THIHA KO KO | 23 FEB 2019

State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi speaking during the opening ceremony of the Invest Myanmar Summit 2019. Photo - EPA

State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi touted Rakhine State's "untapped" economic potential to investors and trade organisations on Friday in a Japan-sponsored investment forum held in Ngapali beach. But she glossed over violence and humanitarian nightmare in the area, saying the international community had “focused narrowly on negative aspects” of the ongoing northern Rakhine crisis, which led to an estimated 730,000 Muslim refugees fleeing to Bangladesh.

Suu Kyi: Invest in Rakhine.

THE Star ONLINE
Saturday, 23 Feb 2019

New ventures: Investors looking at the schedule of the Rakhine State Investment Fair at Ngapali beach in Thandwe, Myanmar. — Reuters

NGAPALI BEACH: Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi called for investment in the crisis-hit western state of Rakhine, saying the world had “focused narrowly on negative aspects” in the state from which some 730,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled since 2017.

Rakhine parliament turns down Tatmadaw.

MYANMAR TIMES
CHAN THAR | 21 FEB 2019

A police officer visits a policeman injured in an attack by the Arakan Army in Buthidaung on January 4. Nyan Lynn Aung/The Myanmar Times

The Rakhine State parliament on Wednesday turned down a motion submitted by Tatmadaw (military) MP Major Thet Oo Maung urging the state government to win public support for the military.

Twenty-two Rakhine lawmakers rejected the motion, while 11 supported it, according to MP U Kyaw Lwin.

Bangladesh Proposes Creation of Safe Zone for Rohingyas In Myanmar's Rakhine

LATEST LY
Marisha Dolly Singh Feb 14, 2019
 

Toronto, February 14: Even as Bangladesh continues to host close to one million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, the Sheikh Hasina government wants to begin the process of repatriating them back to Myanmar sooner rather than later. To begin this process, Bangladesh’s Foreign Minister has called for India along with Russia and China to help monitor a ‘safe zone’ in the state of Rakhine, Myanmar to which the Rohingya would be sent back to.

People Flee Escalating Violence in Myanmar's Rakhine, Southern Chin States.

VOA NEWS
February 10, 2019,
By: Lisa Schlein

A Mro ethnic women with child displaced from the surge of fighting between ethnic armed rebel group of the Arakan Army and government troops take refuge at a compound of a Buddhist pagoda in Buthidaung township in the restive Rakhine state, Jan. 25, 2019.

GENEVA — The U.N. refugee agency says it is worried by reports of people fleeing escalating violence in Myanmar's southern Chin State and Rakhine State, adding to growing instability in these regions.

Documentation of Atrocities in Northern Rakhine State ( US State Department )

'The Frictions in the Rakhine State Are Less About Islamophobia Than Rohingya-Phobia'

THEWIRE
Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty
30/Sep/2017

Rohingya refugees walk to the shore with his belongings after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border by boat through the Bay of Bengal in Teknaf, Bangladesh, September 5, 2017. Credit: Reuters/Mohammad Ponir Hossain

New Delhi: Photographs of terrified Muslim men, women and children fleeing the Rakhine state of Myanmar to neighbouring Bangladesh in the last few weeks have made the global community take note of the Rohingya issue like never before.

A brutal crackdown by the Myanmar army on the Rohingya Muslim inhabited areas of Rakhine (formerly Arakan), in response to a reported attack in mid-August on the security posts by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), an armed group fighting for the rights of the Rohingyas, led to the exodus of more than 400,000 Rohingyas to refugee camps in Bangladesh.