A wooden boat carrying dozens of Rohingya Muslim refugees capsizes off Indonesia's coast

AP
YAYAN ZAMZAMI and EDNA TARIGAN
March 20, 2024

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AP) — A wooden boat carrying dozens of Rohingya Muslims capsized off Indonesia’s northernmost coast on Wednesday, according to local fishermen who rescued six people. The survivors said more people were still on the boat.

How is renewed violence in Myanmar affecting the Rohingya?

Aljazeera
By Sarah Shamim
Published On 22 Mar 202

A recent surge in violence by armed groups in Myanmar is causing upheaval and displacement among Rohingya once again.

People rest in a monastery used as a temporary shelter for internally displaced people (IDPs) at a village in Pauktaw township in Myanmar's western Rakhine state [File: AFP]

 

The Rohingya are yet again bearing the brunt of renewed fighting and military air strikes in Myanmar, United Nations chief Antonio Guterres warned this week.

Do Rohingyas have a place in Myanmar’s revolution?

ALIRAN
22 Mar 2024 

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There is a revolution ongoing in Myanmar. The people of Myanmar of various political ideologies and regions are engaging in civil disobedience and have also taken up arms against the military junta. There’s been talk about forging a new constitution and building a new Myanmar beyond and free from the junta.

Illegal Rohingyas have no fundamental right to reside in India, asserts govt in SC

THE ECONOMIC TIMES
Mar 20, 2024,

 

The Union government has made a significant statement regarding the status of illegal Rohingya Muslim migrants in the country. In a submission to the Supreme Court, the government asserted that these migrants do not possess a fundamental right to reside and settle in India. It emphasized that the judiciary should not encroach upon the legislative and policy domains of the Parliament and executive to create a separate category for granting refugee status to such individuals. 

Boats carrying scores of Rohingya refugees capsize off Indonesia: fishermen

ARAB NEWS
AFP
March 20, 2024

Ethnic Rohingya people rescued from their capsized boat rest at a local government building in Samatiga, Aceh province, Indonesia, on Mar. 20, 2024.( AP)

An Indonesian resident transports Rohingya Muslim refugees on a motorbike rickshaw to the Samatiga District Office after Indonesian fishermen rescued dozens of Rohingya after high tides capsized their boat in waters off the West Aceh, in Aceh province, Indonesia, on Mar. 20, 2024. (Reuters)

• A fisherman saw the Rohingyas at 8:00 am (0100 GMT) with their boat sinking
• The Rohingya boat had capsized off Kuala Bubon beach in West Aceh

Rohingya trapped in the middle of Myanmar’s escalating conflict

The New Humanitarian
Analysis, San Thai Shin
19 March 2024 

‘They have oppressed us throughout history, and it has been a decade that they've detained us, like in this internment camp.’ 

Soldiers take part in a military parade in Myanmar's capital, Naypyitaw, on 27 March 2019. A junta seized power on 1 February 2021, but opposition armed groups have enjoyed a string of recent battleground gains. 

 

Editor’s note: San Thai Shin is the Burmese name for a Rohingya person living in Bangladesh's refugee camps. He is a researcher and a columnist, and prefers to write under his Burmese name in order to speak and report freely. 

PM calls upon UNDP to raise more funds for Rohingya

Dhaka Tribune
UNB
Publish : 18 Mar 2024, 

The visiting UNDP goodwill ambassador and Crown Princess of Sweden Victoria pays a courtesy call to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at a hotel in Dhaka on Monday, March 18, 2024. Photo: PID

 

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday urged the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) to make an effort to raise a larger international funds for the support of the Rohingya people.

AA unable to confirm reported deaths of 100 Muslims at battlefront

Narinjara
Date: 15 March 2024 

The Arakan Army (AA) is yet to confirm the reports claiming that 70 to 100 Muslims, who were forcibly enlisted and deployed at frontlines, were killed at Ah Ngu Maw battlefront in Rathedaung township of Rakhine State.

Hellfire and Damnation in Myanmar: Ex-World Bank Country Head Recounts Rohingya Catastrophe Response

The Irrawaddy
David Scott Mathieson
March 16, 2024

Damned If You Do. Foreign Aid and My Struggle to Do Right in Myanmar by Ellen Goldstein

 

The crisis in Myanmar’s Rakhine State gripped the decade of the “democratic opening”, as state oppression of the Rohingya Muslim minority surged in 2012, culminating in the 2016 and 2017 mass expulsion that drove over 700,000 people into Bangladesh. The crisis severely affected many other parts of Myanmar in ways not fully appreciated at the time, much of it exacerbated by the cruel disregard of the military who perpetrated the ethnic cleansing, and by the obtuse arrogance of State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD). The international community didn’t exactly shower itself in glory either, but as usual, found a way to exonerate its own complicity, corruption, cowardice and incompetence.

Rohingya pawns in Myanmar’s cynical conscription drive

ASIA TIME
Syeda Noshin Sharmily
March 15, 2024

Junta offering rice, salaries and ID cards to internally displaced Rohingya to join the military in failing regime’s latest sign of desperation 

Rohingya refugees walk after crossing the Naf river from Myanmar into Bangladesh in Whaikhyang. Photo: Asia Times Files / AFP / Fred Dufour

Faced with a decline in authority and mounting territorial losses, Myanmar’s beleaguered junta has resorted to a controversial new war-fighting strategy: conscripting Rohingya Muslims under the auspices of a new People’s Military Service Law.

Myanmar man nabbed in Rohingya torching case

FTM
Predeep Nambiar
14 Mar 2024,

Cheras police chief Zam Halim Jamaluddin said a magistrate has allowed the man to be remanded for seven days. (Bernama pic)

 

PETALING JAYA: Police have detained a Myanmar national over the torching of a Rohingya woman in Cheras last weekend.

Video Shows Rohingya Forcibly Recruited Into Myanmar Military

VOA
Ingyin Naing

March 14, 2024

 Dozens of young Rohingya men ride a military truck on March 9, 2024. (UGC courtesy video) 

washington — 

VOA has recently obtained video footage depicting Rohingya from Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps being trained as soldiers in Rakhine state, the scene of heavy fighting between Myanmar’s military junta and ethnic armed groups.

A ring-fence around the Rohingya can’t last – Australia’s policy needs to change

the interpreter
Published 13 Mar 2024 

Last year, I wrote in The Interpreter about the nightmare scenario unfolding for the Rohingya living in refugee camps in Bangladesh, where dwindling aid, a dependent population, and unprecedented outbreaks of disease reached unacceptable and inhumane levels. Today, the situation has not changed. A deeper look at Australia’s aid agenda is required.

5 Rohingyas arrested with weapons during raid in Ukhiya's camp

THE BUSINESS STANDARD
TBS Report
11 March, 2024, 

Police have arrested five Rohingyas withholding weapons during a raid at the camps in Cox's Bazar’s Ukhiya. Photo: Collected

Two one-shooter guns, two rounds of bullets, and one short gun cartridge were also recovered from their possession on Sunday (10 March)

The arrestees are – Mohammad Salam, Ziaur Rahman, Hashim Ullah alias Master Hashim, Rahim Ullah, and Ataullah.

Videos appear to show Myanmar military training Rohingyas

RFA
By RFA Burmese
2024.03.11 

Meanwhile, conscription law is driving Burmese youth to flee to Thailand and Malaysia. ‘We no longer feel safe,’ said one. 

People who appear to be Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state undergo weapons training by junta military personnel on March 10, 2024. Image form citizen journalist video 

Videos have emerged on social media in recent days that appear to show junta personnel providing military training to ethnic Muslim Rohingyas at a site in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state, amid reports of forced recruitment around the country.

How do Rohingyas use mobile banking services in camps?

Dhaka Tribune
Siam Sarower Jamil
Publish : 10 Mar 2024, 

• Such illegal activities take place in broad daylight without any obstacles
• Refugees using the mobile networks of Myanmar and Bangladesh
• Mobile banking available because of the availability of illegal SIM cards
• Authorities in the dark 
  

 

The image shows a shop at a Rohingya camp in Cox's Bazar. Photo: SK Sharifuddin Ahad/Dhaka Tribune

While the Bangladesh government, foreigners, and development partners are sympathetic towards the Rohingya community living in the world’s largest refugee camps at Ukhiya and Teknaf in Cox’s Bazar, their involvement in various crimes involving drugs, arms, and human trafficking has been commonplace since the biggest exodus in history in 2017.

Village locals raise hygiene, safety concerns over rising Rohingya population

NEW
Straits Times
By OMAR AHMAD - March 11, 2024 

The presence of a large group of Rohingyas in Kampung Kangkar Tebrau in Johor Baru has caused concern and anxiety among more than 200 families of the village. -NSTP/OMAR AHMAD

 

JOHOR BARU: The presence of a large group of Rohingyas in Kampung Kangkar Tebrau here has caused concern and anxiety among more than 200 families of the village, which is located in the middle of the city.

What is the future for the Rohingya in Arakan State?

DVB
By CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS
Guest contributor
Pacifist Farooq
March 11, 2024

Since the resumption of fighting between the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army (AA) on Nov. 13 after a year-long unofficial ceasefire, the Rohingya community has become more vulnerable than ever, compounding the already alarming humanitarian catastrophe in the region.

The Rohingya in Cox’s Bazar: 45 Years On

The Irrawaddy
by Tony Waters and R.J. Aung
March 6, 2024

Rohingya refugees wait to receive supplies of rice, water and cooking oil at the Kutupalong refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar. /AFP

A month after the prime minister of Bangladesh raised concerns about the possibility of Rohingya repatriation, UNHCR representatives in Myanmar met with the junta’s education minister on February 7 to discuss repatriation. Meanwhile, Bangladeshi officials are reluctant to act in any way that might be perceived as taking sides between the junta and the ethnic Arakan Army; Bangladesh has perhaps started to understand there is a new sheriff in Rakhine, just across the Naf River.

Death, abuse and torture: traffickers hold fleeing Rohingya to ransom for up to £3,000 a time

The Guardian
Kaamil Ahmed and Verena Hölzl in Cox's Bazar
Tue 5 Mar 2024 

People trapped in the world’s largest refugee camp hope to seek new lives elsewhere despite threats facing them as they attempt to leave Bangladesh 

An overloaded boat holding about 250 Rohingya refugees in Ulee Madon, Aceh province, Indonesia, 16 November 2023.   Photograph: Amanda Jufrian/AFP/Getty Images

Even as dehydration was getting to their passengers, the traffickers using boats to carry hundreds of Rohingya away from refugee camps in Bangladesh thrust phones into their hands and demanded they ask their relatives for money.