Bangladesh: UNHCR Camp Settlement and Protection Profiling - Round 6 - November 2019

Duterte asks Malaysia, Indonesia to take in Rohingya refugees

GMA NEWS ONLINE

Published December 23, 2019 

By VIRGIL LOPEZ, GMA News 

 

President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday renewed his vow to accept Rohingya refugees and asked Malaysia and Indonesia to do the same.

Duterte made the pitch as he faced agrarian reform beneficiaries in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, a territory that saw decades of armed conflict linked to poverty and injustice.

Stay or go: For Rohingya refugees, a divisive debate over island camp plans

The New Humanitarian
Freelance journalist and regular TNH contributor
Kaamil Ahmed
Wednesday, 20 November 2019,

‘Every hour, you have a different thought about what's the best thing for your life.’

COX’S BAZAR

Ali Ahmed’s bamboo tea shop deep in Bangladesh’s Rohingya camps is a hub for debate and discussion for some of the hundreds of thousands of refugees living in these packed settlements.

Lately, the conversation has centred on one divisive issue: the government’s plans to transfer up to 100,000 refugees to Bhasan Char, a disaster-prone island near where Bangladesh’s Meghna River meets the Bay of Bengal.

Most Rohingya scoff at the idea of moving to a distant island exposed to cyclones and frequent floods. But in tea shops like Ahmed’s, the tone of these debates is changing.

Worn away by the grind of life in the camps and the dimming prospects of a safe return home more than two years after 700,000 Rohingya were pushed out of Myanmar, some refugees, Ahmed for one, are reconsidering their options.

Myanmar’s Neighbors Must Build Trust Among Rohingya Refugees

PassBlue
Noeleen Heyzer
November 10, 2019

The 35th Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit opening ceremony, Nov. 3, 2019. To help Rohingya refugees to return to Myanmar and rebuild their lives, the author of this essay urges Asean leaders to work more heartedly on gaining trust among the affected parties. 

At the 33d summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Singapore last year, the issue of Myanmar’s Rakhine/Rohingya crisis was high on the agenda. The chairman’s closing statement expressed the group’s readiness to support Myanmar in repatriating refugees by conducting a needs-assessment overview in Rakhine State. The Muslim Rohingya had fled ethnic persecution there, committed by the Burmese-led army.

Rohingya crisis: UN chief warns refugees must be repatriated to Myanmar safely

sky news
Sunday 3 November 2019

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims fled Myanmar in 2017, after security forces began a campaign of murder in the area.

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees fled Myanmar for Bangladesh

The head of the UN has called on Myanmar to take responsibility for hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslim refugees and work towards their safe return to the country from Bangladesh.

A wave of refugees began fleeing Myanmar in late August after its response to an attack by Rohingya militants on more than 20 police posts that the government said left 12 members of the security forces dead.

Photo album on Rohingya refugees unveiled

Dhaka Tribune

Tribune Report
November 3rd, 2019

 Guests at the launching ceremony of photo album ‘Rohingya: the stateless refugees in Bangladesh’ by Bayazid Akter at Bangladesh National Museum in Dhaka on Saturday, November 2, 2019 Mahmud Hossain Opu/Dhaka Tribune

Prolific photo journalist Bayazid Akter took the varied images of the forcibly displaced Rohingya people, and it was his 7th solo photography exhibition

A photo album on Rohingya people titled ‘Rohingya: the stateless refugees in Bangladesh’ by Bayazid Akter was unveiled at an event at Bangladesh National Museum in Dhaka on Saturday.

UAE-backed project bringing light to lives of Rohingya refugees

[N]
Haneen Dajani
Oct 18, 2019
Thousands of displaced families at a refugee camp in Bangladesh are being supported by a campaign led by a winner of the Zayed Sustainability Prize

Sunna Design teamed up with Electricians Without Borders to bring light to refugee camps in Bangladesh. Courtesy Electricians Without Borders

Rohingya refugees have known only darkness for years, but finally many have a chance to step into the light thanks to a UAE-backed initiative.

In August 2017, hundreds of thousands of the Muslim-minority group were forced to flee their homes in Myanmar amid a brutal campaign of violence branded as ethnic cleansing and possible genocide by the United Nations.

eopardizing Safety, Security Of Rohingya Refugees

THE NEW NATION
Tuesday, September 24, 2019
Saleem Samad :

International rights groups have dubbed Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) as a rogue Islamic militant group, and responsible for series of crime against humanity in restive Rakhine State, Myanmar.

The ragtag radicalized militant's recruits from among Rohingyas under the leadership who were born and raised in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are creating law and order situation in the refugee camps in Bangladesh.

OPINION: ‘I escaped genocide but I cannot escape Australia’s immigration policies’

SBS Dateline
By JN Joniad
23 September 2019
 

In 1982, the Myanmar government introduced regulations denying citizenship to anyone who could not prove Burmese ancestry dating back to 1823. Now, the United Nations has officially called Rohingya a ‘stateless’ ethnicity. As of today, nearly one million Rohingyans have fled to Bangladesh since Myanmar’s military began ethnic cleansing. JN Joniad, a Rohingya man, told Dateline his story. 

 

In Myanmar, I was given a ‘White Card’. I needed this card to travel within my own town. I was banned from going to other cities and I couldn’t get a passport. I had, effectively, a temporary residency permit in my own country.

Rohingya refugees face mobile phone blackouts

Aljazeera
21 September 2019

The Bangladeshi government orders ban on the sale of SIM cards to a million Rohingya in the world’s biggest refugee camp. 

Last week, we received a WhatsApp message from a Rohingya refugee in Bangladesh. It may have been one of the last messages he could send.

A Million Rohingya Refugees Are About to Be Cut Off From the World

VICE
By David Gilbert
Sep 6 2019

In the world's largest refugee camp, the Bangladeshi government is moving to strip Rohingya of a essential lifeline: their cell phones.

Up to a million stateless Rohingya refugees are living in unsanitary and overcrowded conditions in the world’s largest refugee camp in Bangladesh, having fled persecution and violence in Myanmar over two years ago. 

Now, the Bangladeshi government wants to cut off one of their last links to the outside world.

The telecommunications minister has ordered the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC), with the help of mobile phone operators, to cut off cell phone service to Cox’s Bazarfrom Sunday, citing “public safety” and “state security” as reasons for taking the action.

Is public opinion turning?

Dhaka Tribune

Humayun Kabir Bhuiyan
August 27th, 2019

 The hill cutting and deforestation near Camp no 20 in Balukhali, Ukhiya in Cox’s Bazar, as seen on Sunday, to clear the way for more Rohingya refugee camps, poses a twofold threat: one to the environment, and another to the refugees themselves as these hills become more vulnerable to landslides Syed Zakir Hossain/Dhaka Tribune

Government appears helpless, at least for now

When the Rohingyas streamed into Bangladesh two years ago, fleeing the pogrom against them by the Myanmar military, sympathy for their plight was high in Bangladesh.

When the PM said a nation of 170 million could feed one million more in need, her words echoed the public sentiment, and were widely applauded.

Zakat fund raises $38.1 million for 648,476 refugees this year

GULF NEWS
UAE
Published:  August 26, 2019
Staff Report

UNHCR initiative expands to Bangladesh for the first time

 A Rohingya woman holds her son and daughter after being moved to a refugee camp in Bangladesh. Image Credit: AP 

Dubai: UNHCR’s Refugee Zakat Fund assisted 648,476 internally displaced people in the first half of the year.

According to a report released on Monday, $38.1 million was raised through global donors, surpassing the target of $26 million.

In Bangladesh refugee camps, Rohingya youth speak out

Frontier

MYANMAR

By CLARE HAMMOND | FRONTIER
Photos VICTORIA MILK

Monday 26 August 2019

After two years languishing in camps in Bangladesh, young, educated Rohingya are finding expression through writing… and demanding a say in decisions about their future.

‘The land where we lived has gone' – the life story of a Rohingya refugee

The Guardian
@Gay_Alcorn
Sun 4 Aug 2019

  Habiburahman ... “I am three years old and effectively erased from existence” he writes in his book.                                                   Photograph: Sophie Ansel

As a young man Habiburahman fled oppression in his native Myanmar and lives, stateless, in Australia. Now he has written a book about his struggle – and his suffering people.

“A tyrant leant over my cradle and traced a destiny for me that will be hard to avoid: I will either be a fugitive or I won’t exist at all.” – From First, They Erased Our Name: A Rohingya Speaks, by Habiburahman.

There has been much written about the Rohingya people of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. The Muslim ethnic group has been persecuted for generations, most recently from 2017, when 800,000 picked up whatever they could carry to flee to Bangladesh. But little has been written from the point of view of a Rohingya growing up in Myanmar – the daily humiliations, the struggle for survival, the fear, the stories whispered through generations to ensure they are not lost. Habiburahman, known as Habib, was born in a village in the west of the country around 1979 – he is not quite sure of the year. He has written his life story, and through that, the story of his people.

What life is like on the border of Myanmar and Bangladesh, where a UN-labeled 'genocide' has left 1 million refugees living in limbo

BUSINESS INSIDER
James Pasley

A Myanmar security personnel keeps watch along the Myanmar-Bangladesh border as Rohingya refugee sit outside their shelters. Munir Uz Zaman / AFP / Getty 

• Myanmar and Bangladesh are divided by the Naf River.
• Below the river, Rakhine State in Myanmar has been a place of conflict for decades. The Rohingya people, who lived there, have not been recognized as citizens since 1982.
• This is what life on the border looks like on the ground.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

‘Hollow Promises’: Bangladesh Home Minister Calls Myanmar Officials’ Upcoming Visit an Eyewash

NEWS18

Sujit Nath
News18.com
July 26, 2019

The Myanmar government is sending a high-level delegation to Bangladesh to discuss with the displaced people the arrangements made for their repatriation and resettlement.

SKolkata: Amid growing differences between Bangladesh and Myanmar over the Rohingya issue, Bangladesh Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan has expressed disappointment over the “hollow promises” made by Myanmar on the repatriation and resettlement of Rohingya Muslims.

The forces against religious freedom are ascendant. The Trump administration mounts a defense.

The Washington Post
By Hugh Hewitt 

July 20 at 11:00 AM

8:55 – 9:10 am Keynote Address and Call to Action by Secretary Pompeo in the Loy Henderson 9:10 – 10:05 am Opening Plenary Session of the Ministerial in the Loy Henderson

Trump met a lot of refugees and seemed to learn about their crises for the very first time

Vox
By Zeeshan Aleem 
Jul 20, 2019, 

President Trump displayed awkwardness and ignorance throughout a meeting with refugees.

Yazidi activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Murad speaks to Donald Trump.

Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post/Getty Images

In a meeting with victims of religious persecution on Wednesday, President Donald Trump repeatedly appeared to be unaware of many of the world’s most pressing humanitarian crises.

Trump met with more than two dozen survivors of religious conflict, a few of whom told their stories — and made impassioned entreaties for aid — directly to the president. As he asked questions of his guests, the president seemed to reveal a stark lack of familiarity with the fundamental details of problems faced by Rohingya in Myanmar, Uighurs in China, and Yazidis in Iraq — groups in crisis that his own administration has established positions and policies on.

Malaysia preparing strategic paper to help Rohingya refugees

malaysia kini
 Bernama
17.07.2019

PARLIAMENT
| The Foreign Ministry is preparing a strategic paper to determine the optimum role Malaysia can play to help the Rohingya refugees, the Dewan Rakyat was told today.

Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah (photo, above) said Malaysia is consistent in championing the fate of the community, especially in bringing their oppressors to justice.