Junta forces Rohingyas to protest ethnic rebels in Myanmar’s Rakhine state

RFA
By RFA Burmese
2024.04.22 

Those who refuse to denounce the Arakan Army are made to pay fines.

Rohingyas from Bu May and Bar Sar Ra villages of Sittwe township, Rakhine state, protest March 23, 2024. Myanmar Military

 

Junta authorities in western Myanmar forced hundreds of Rohingya Muslims to protest an ethnic rebel offensive that has the military on the ropes in Rakhine state – and fining them if they didn’t participate, residents said Monday. 

No more words, the Rohingya deserve justice

Dhaka Tribune
Tribune Editorial
Publish : 21 Apr 2024,

The international community has a moral duty to ensure that the Rohingya are ensured justice.

It has now been close to eight years since the Rohingya crisis resulted in over a million of Myanmar’s ethnic minorities being driven out of their homeland and finding shelter within the borders of Bangladesh.

Displaced by conflict in Myanmar, thousands of Rohingya gather along Bangladesh border seeking refuge

Yeni Safak
21/04/2024 Sunday

Rohingya in Myanmar's Rakhine state becoming victim of ongoing conflict between junta forces, insurgent groups, say community leaders

Thousands of Rohingya displaced due to conflict in Myanmar gathered along the Myanmar-Bangladesh border near the transboundary Naf River to seek refuge, a Rohingya leader in Bangladesh told Anadolu.

Myanmar Junta Using Rohingya Recruits to Sow Ethnic Hatred: Activists

The Irrawaddy
Brian Wei
April 19, 2024

                                The burned Doctors Without Borders office. 

Myanmar’s junta is accused of burning down Buthidaung town in Rakhine State using forced Rohingya recruits in an apparent attempt to boost ethnic hatred.

Burmese Rohingya Association in Japan condemns Rohingya conscription

mizzima
April 18, 2024 

Rohingya refugees walk after crossing the Naf river from Myanmar into Bangladesh in Whaikhyang/Photo: AFP

The Burmese Rohingya Association in Japan ( BRAJ) has released a statement condemning the Myanmar junta’s conscription of Rohingya civilians into the army.

Below is the 16 April BRAJ statement:

The Burmese Rohingya Association in Japan ( BRAJ) is outraged, deeply concerned and condemns the forced conscription of Rohingya men into the brutal Burmese military regime services and forcing vulnerable Rohingya civilians to take part in the regime-orchestrated protests against Arakan Army (AA) in some parts of Arakan, which were aiming to destroy unity and to divide people along ethnic and religious lines.

Moving Towards Understanding and Reconciliation in Myanmar’s Rakhine State

THE I DIPLOMAT
By Christopher Win
April 18, 2024

Recent comments by the commander of the Arakan Army have prompted a heated debate about history, language, and ethnic identity. 

The Sakya Man Aung pagoda in Mrauk-U, the ancient capital of Arakan, in Rakhine State, Myanmar.

In discussions of Myanmar’s intricate ethnic tapestry, the discourse around identity, particularly the term “Rohingya,” remains highly charged and complex. The controversy was reawakened last month, when the United League of Arakan/Arakan Army (ULA/AA), an ethnic Rakhine insurgent group fighting for autonomy from the central state, used the term “Bengali” in an official statement in lieu of the term “Rohingya.” This was then echoed in social media posts by Twan Mrat Naing, the leader of ULA/AA, sparking significant controversy among both domestic and international observers.

Rohingya Muslims forcibly conscripted in Myanmar, deployed as human shields

ABNA
Tuesday,16 April 2024

The military in Myanmar military has forcibly recruited over a thousand Rohingya Muslim men and boys while the religious minority members are denied citizenship, a report said.

AhlulBayt News Agency: The military in Myanmar military has forcibly recruited over a thousand Rohingya Muslim men and boys while the religious minority members are denied citizenship, a report said.

‘Human shields on the battlefield’: Myanmar forces Rohingya into military

Al Jazeera
16 Apr 2024

Forced conscription into the military is the latest tactic Myanmar’s military-led government is using to target the persecuted Rohingya population.

Link : Here

Myanmar: If the hospitals are closed, where do people go?

MSF
15 Apr 2024

Myanmar is facing an acute humanitarian crisis since fighting escalated at the end of October 2023. The intensification of conflict has led to a lack of humanitarian access, a decimation of the healthcare system, and—due to a law passed in February—increasing fear of military conscription or forced recruitment into other armed groups.

‘A living death’: Camp conditions push Rohingya to the high seas

Frontier Myanmar
April 10, 2024

Rohingya refugees wait to be rescued from the hull of their capsized boat as a vessel of Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency approaches in waters off Aceh province on March 21. (AFP)

Amid budget cuts and surging crime in the refugee camps in Bangladesh and war in their native Rakhine, more Rohingya are taking a perilous journey by boat to Indonesia and Malaysia, where an increasingly hostile reception awaits.

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.

U.N. Security Council: Refer Mass Internment Of Muslims And Other Atrocities In Myanmar To ICC

SCOOP World
Sunday, 7 April 2024,
Press Release: Fortify Rights 

Mass arbitrary detention, life-threatening restrictions in Rakhine State

(BANGKOK, April 4, 2024)– The Myanmar military junta’s ongoing confinement of more than a half million Rohingya Muslims to internment camps and villages in Rakhine State constitutes a situation of mass arbitrary detention and an act of genocide under international law, said Fortify Rights today. According to a new investigation by Fortify Rights, the junta not only continues to confine Rohingya en masse, but it has also tightened restrictions on lifesaving humanitarian aid to Rohingya and Kaman Muslims in internment camps and villages throughout the state.

Fisheries skills can improve lives of Rohingyas in Bhasan Char: Nippon Foundation chief

THE BUSINESS STANDARD
TBS Report
06 April, 2024

As part of Government's Ashrayan-3 project, Bhasan Char began hosting Rohingya refugees relocated from Cox's Bazar in December 2020 

Photo: Courtesy

Developing fisheries skills among the Rohingya youth can enhance the community's quality of life in Bhasan Char, said Nippon Foundation Chairman Sasakawa Yohei. 

Indonesian interest must be considered in Rohingya refugee issue: Govt

ANTARA
April 5, 2024 

Rohingnya migrants get a health check upon arrival at the Meulaboh Jetty Harbor, West Aceh, Aceh, Thursday (March 21, 2024). ANTARA FOTO/Syifa Yulinnas/Lmo/foc.

Banda Aceh, Aceh (ANTARA) - The Aceh Office of Indonesia's Law and Human Rights Ministry stressed that the handling of Rohingya refugees in Aceh must take into account the country's national interest.

BROUK: Genocide against Rohingya intensifying

mizzima
April 5, 2024

File Photo: Rohingya refugees are seen on the coast of Jurong Mulia, in Sabang, Aceh province, on December 2, 2023. (Photo by Khairu / AFP)

 

The Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK (BROUK) warned that the ongoing genocide against the Rohingya is intensifying and it is urging the United Nations (UN) Security Council to immediately take steps to enforce the International Court of Justice’s provisional measures order on Myanmar to protect the ‘extremely vulnerable ’Rohingya.

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. 

 

As Crisis in Myanmar Worsens, Security Council Must Take Resolute Action to End Violence by Country’s Military, Address Humanitarian Situation, Speakers Urge

United Nation
9595th Meeting (AM)
SC/15652
4 April 2024

Meetings Coverage and Press Releases

Senior UN Official Announces Plan to Appoint Special Envoy ‘in the Coming Days’ 

 Bringing the multifaceted crisis in Myanmar to the fore, speakers urged the Security Council today to take decisive measures to end violence by that country’s military and address the deteriorating humanitarian situation, also calling for the swift appointment of a United Nations Special Envoy to enhance the Organization’s engagement on the matter.

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.

Genocide Against Rohingya Is Intensifying, Warns Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK

Prograssive Voice of Myanmar
Author: Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK
April 2nd, 2024

Press Release

                                    Media Release from Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK

The Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK (BROUK) today sounded the alarm, warning that the ongoing genocide against the Rohingya is intensifying. BROUK urged the UN Security Council to immediately take steps to enforce the International Court of Justice’s provisional measures order on Myanmar to protect the ‘extremely vulnerable’ Rohingya. The British government, as penholder on Myanmar at the United Nations (UN) Security Council, should urgently convene a meeting to discuss the growing crisis.