Bangladesh seeks unity, concerted efforts from int’l community to resolve Rohingya crisis

Dhaka Tribune
UNB
Published: March 22, 2023 

Dhaka Tribune

 

 

Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen has underscored the urgent need for unity and concerted efforts from the international community to resolve the Rohingya crisis, in the true spirit of responsibility and burden sharing.

He urged the UN Secretary General's Special Envoy on Myanmar, Noeleen Heyzer, to enhance her engagements with Myanmar authorities as well as other stakeholders to improve the conditions in Rakhine so that the Rohingyas can return to their homes without delay.

UN must resist Myanmar junta’s plan for Rohingya refugees

The Frontier Post
Dr. Azeem Ibrahim
2023,March 23,

 

The refugee crisis in Bangladesh, caused by the genocide in Myanmar, has been acute for many years. Hundreds of thousands of displaced people, most of them with nothing but themselves, are confined to 34 refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar. They are poor, they are often hungry and malnourished, and crime and violent misery thrive among them. Most have been there for almost six years, since the 2017 expulsion of the Rohingya from their homes and villages in Rakhine State by the Myanmar military. Their problem is a long-standing one, complicated by the 2021 coup in Myanmar and the multifaceted civil war that has been fought there ever since.

 

FM calls to resolve Rohingya crisis in true spirit of burden sharing

dailyobserver

Published : Wednesday, 22 March, 2023

Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen at a bilateral meeting with UN Secretary General's Special Envoy on Myanmar Noeleen Heyzer held on Tuesday at the Permanent Mission of Bangladesh to the UN in New York
 C

 Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen has underscored the need for unity and concerted efforts of the international community to resolve the Rohingya crisis in all its dimensions, in the true spirit of responsibility and burden sharing.

He made the suggestion at a bilateral meeting with UN Secretary General's Special Envoy on Myanmar Noeleen Heyzer held on Tuesday at the Permanent Mission of Bangladesh to the UN in New York, according to a press release received in Dhaka on Wednesday (March 22, 2023).

The worsening situation in Myanmar means conditions for the voluntary, safe, dignified, and sustainable return of the Rohingya are not in place: UK Statement at the UN

GOV.UK
Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
and Fergus Eckersley, UK Political Coordinator at the UN
Published16 March 2023

Statement by Political Coordinator Fergus Eckersley at the UN General Assembly debate on Myanmar 

Thank you Mr. President, and the UN Special Envoy for the very sobering briefing.

Mr. President, it has now been over two years since the military’s coup. Since then, over 3,100 people have been killed by the military regime. Over 20,000 people have been arbitrarily detained and over 17 million are in need of humanitarian assistance.

Concerns mount over UN food aid cut for Rohingya in Bangladesh

Aljazeera
7 Mar 2023

The UN and the Bangladesh government call for more international aid to help the refugees as they face a ‘difficult year’.

Rohingya refugees wait to receive food supplies at a World Food Programme (WFP) distribution centre in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh [File: Alkis Konstantinidis/Reuters]

Concerns are mounting over the World Food Programme’s (WFP) decision to slash food support for the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh due to a funding crisis.

On March 1, the WFP, citing a $125m donation shortfall, cut the monthly food vouchers for the refugees from $12 to $10 per person, warning further cuts were “imminent” without an immediate cash injection.

Will the UN’s plea to help Rohingya refugees be answered?

Aljazeera
By Inside Story
Published On 7 Mar 2023

.

 

The UN is appealing to global powers to help Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.

The United Nations is appealing for nearly $900m to help Rohingya refugees who have fled to Bangladesh from their native Myanmar.

So, how will the international community respond?

And can the Rohingya ever hope for an end to the stateless limbo they’re trapped in?

UN probing origin of Rohingya boat in Indonesia

Dhaka Tribune

Agencies
December 27, 2022

They landed there after at least 20 reportedly died after weeks adrift in the Indian Ocean.

A policeman stands guard next to a group of Rohingya refugees waiting to be transferred to a temporary shelter following their arrival by boat in Krueng Raya, Indonesia's Aceh province on December 25, 2022 AFP

The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) is seeking information about the voyage of nearly 200 Rohingya Muslim refugees who landed on an Indonesian beach this week, and warned yesterday that there will likely be more, reports UNB citing AP. They landed there after at least 20 reportedly died after weeks adrift in the Indian Ocean.

Dozens of Rohingya rescued from stricken vessel after weeks adrift at sea, but fears grow for those still aboard

CNN
By Rhea Mogul, CNN
Mon December 26, 2022

Indonesian military personnel inspect a wooden boat used to carry Rohingya refugees after it landed on Indra Patra beach in Ladong village, Aceh province, Indonesia, Sunday, December 25, 2022.

( CNN )After spending more than a month adrift on a stricken boat without food or water, dozens of starving Rohingya have been rescued in Indonesia, the United Nations refugee agency said Sunday, offering a glimmer of hope for the persecuted group who fled their refugee camps last month in search of a better life.

Babar Baloch, an Asia spokesperson for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), said 58 people believed to be from the boat were rescued in Aceh, though fears remain for the lives of an estimated 130 more – including many women and children – who are still stranded aboard the vessel.

“Some indications suggest local Indonesian fishermen may have done the rescue,” said Baloch. “We still are worried about (the remaining persons’) lives. Hoping they would be rescued soon.” 

At least 180 Rohingya feared dead - U.N. refugee agency

REUTERS
December 25, 2022 

A logo is pictured on a banner at the UNHCR headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland June 13, 2018. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse

NEW DELHI, Dec 25 (Reuters) - At least 180 ethnic Rohingya stranded at sea for weeks after leaving Bangladesh in November are feared dead, as their rickety boat is thought to have sunk this month, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said.

Citing unconfirmed reports, the agency said the "unseaworthy" boat probably sank after it went missing in the sea.

"Relatives have lost contact," the UNHCR wrote on Twitter on Saturday. "Those last in touch presume all are dead."

154 Rohingya drifting in Andaman Sea rescued, handed to Myanmar authorities

AA

SM Najmus Saki
DHAKA, Bangladesh
10.12.2022

Rohingya rights group worries about fate of rescued Rohingya in hands of Myanmar junta

A group of Rohingya, who had been drifting in a boat on the Andaman Sea along the Thailand coast, were rescued by a Vietnamese oil service vessel and handed to the Myanmar military government.

The boat was floating in Thai territory.

The Thai Navy went to examine the boat but did not help its occupants with food for people who had been starving for days.

Relatives of the victims received a message that they were rescued by the Vietnamese, according to a Rohingya rights group.

UN says Myanmar military uses death penalty to ‘crush’ opposition

Aljazeera
3 Dec 2022

UN rights chief Volker Turk said that more than 130 opponents of Myanmar’s military regime have been sentenced to death.

Myanmar soldiers stand on military vehicles during a parade to commemorate the 77th Armed Forces Day in Naypyidaw, Myanmar, in March 2022 [File Nyein Chan Naing/EPA]

Myanmar’s military government is using capital punishment as a tool to crush opposition to its rule and has sentenced more than 130 opponents of the regime to death since February 2021, a senior United Nations official said.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said on Friday that at least seven university students were sentenced to death behind closed doors on Wednesday, and there are reports that as many as four more youth activists were also sentenced on Thursday. 

Rohingya NGO claims Myanmar military defying UN court on Rohingya genocide

mizzima

03 December 2022

Rohingya refugees walk along a makeshift camp in Kutubpalang, Ukhiya Cox Bazar district, Bangladesh, 24 August 2022. Photo: EPA

The Rohingya continue to face a genocide that puts their very survival at risk, the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK (BROUK) said in a new report released 2 November.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered provisional measures to prevent ongoing genocide against the Rohingya minority in Myanmar. However, a new report by the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK exposes how the Burmese military and other organisations are ignoring the provisional measures and that genocide is ongoing. It is the responsibility of the United Nations Security Council to uphold the ruling of the UN court, but it is failing to do so.

UN adopts Rohingya resolution by consensus

USA NEWS
November 16, 2022 

USANewsOnline.Com, New York : Today 16 November the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly adopted the annual resolution on the situation of human rights of Rohingya Muslims and other minorities in Myanmar by consensus. The resolution, jointly tabled by the member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the European Union (EU), was cosponsored by 109 countries, the highest number of countries since 2017. 

The primary focus of the resolution was the human rights situation of the Rohingya Muslims and other minorities in Myanmar, including in the context of current political developments. It called upon Myanmar to address the root causes of the Rohingya crisis and create conducive environment in Rakhine to facilitate voluntary, safe and dignified return of the Rohingyas to their homeland in Myanmar. The resolution also called upon Myanmar to cooperate fully with the Special Envoy of the Secretary General on Myanmar and all the human rights mechanisms of the UN. The resolution recognized the important role of the regional countries and the regional organizations, such as ASEAN in addressing the political and humanitarian crisis in Myanmar, and in this regard called for swift implementation of ASEAN’s 5-point consensus. The resolution noted the ongoing justice and accountability processes and welcomed the developments in the case against Myanmar in the International Court of Justice and the investigation by the Prosecution of the International Criminal Court.

Third Committee Approves Six Draft Resolutions, Including Texts on Human Rights in Iran, Myanmar, Syria, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Crimea

United Nation
General Assembly
Third Committee

Seventy-seventh Session,

52nd & 53rd Meetings (AM & PM)

GA/SHC/4369

16 November 2022

The Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) approved six draft resolutions today, five of which focused on country-specific situations, while the last drew attention to the rising number of refugees and displaced persons in Africa.

A draft resolution on the human rights situation in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol — approved by a recorded vote of 78 in favour to 14 against, with 79 abstentions — would have the Assembly condemn the ongoing temporary occupation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, as well as its unprovoked aggression against Ukraine.

Bangladesh urges UN to highlight Myanmar’s crimes against Rohingyas

Dhaka Tribune 

Tribune Desk
October 21, 2022

Facebook/Kazi Nabil Ahmed

Bangladesh has requested the United Nations (UN) Department of Global Communications (DGC) to play a strong role in raising awareness about Myanmar's brutal crimes against Rohingya.

Kazi Nabil, a member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, highlighted Bangladesh’s position at the United Nations Conference Room 4 on Friday.

Speaking on the Rohingya issue, he said: "I request the United Nations DGC to play a strong role in raising awareness about the brutal crimes committed against the Rohingya in Myanmar.

ကမ္ဘာ့ကုလသမဂ္ဂဆိုတာ ဘယ်လိုအဖွဲ့စည်းမျိုးလဲ။

Unicode
ကမ္ဘာ့ကုလသမဂ္ဂအဖွဲ့စည်း (United Nations) ပေါ်ပေါက်ခဲ့တဲ့ အကြောင်းရင်း နဲ့ အဖွဲစည််းရဲ့အခြေခံ အချက် အလက်လေးတွေကို ပြန်လည်မျှဝေ ပေးချင်ပါတယ်။ကမ္ဘာ‌ေပါ်မှာ လူအသေအပျောက် အမ်ားဆုံး နဲ့ ပစ္စည်း ဥစ္စာ ဆုံးရှုံးမှု အများဆုံး စစ်ပွဲကြီးနှစ်ခု ဖြစ်ပွားခဲ့ပါတယ်။ ၁၉၁၄-၁၉၁၈ ကာလတွင်းမှာ ပထမကမ္ဘာစစ် ဖြစ်ပွားခဲ့ပြီး၊ ဆယ်စုနှစ် နှစ်ခုပတ်၀န်းကျင်အကြာ ၁၉၃၉-၁၉၄၅ ကာလတွေကိုတော့ ဒုတိယကမ္ဘာစစ်ကလွှမ်းမိုးခဲ့ပါတယ်။

ပထမကမ္ဘာစစ်ကြီးအပြီးမှာတော့ နောက်ထပ်ယခုလိုစစ်ပွဲမျိူး‌ေတွထပ်မဖြစ်အောင်ဆိုပြီး အမေရိကန်နိုင်ငံ သမ္မတ Woodrow Wilson ဦးဆောင်မှုနဲ့ နိုင်ငံပေါင်းချုပ်အသင်းကြီး (League of Nations ) ကို ၁၉၂၀ ခုနှစ်၊ ဇန်ဝါရီ ၁၀ ရက်နေ့ ဆွစ်ဇာလန်နိုင်ငံ ဂျီနီဗာ မြို့မှာ ကနဦး အဖွဲ့၀င် ၄၂ နိုင်ငံနဲ့ စတင်ဖွဲ့စည်းခဲ့ပါတယ်။ သို့ပေမယ့် လွှတ်တော်၏ အမေရိကန်အဖွဲ့၀င်ခြင်း အစီစဥ်ကို ကန့်ကွက်မှုကြောင့် နိုင်ငံပေါင်းချုပ်အသင်းကြီးဟာ ကမ္ဘာ့နိုင်ငံရေးမှာ ထိရောက်မှုအားနည်းခဲ့ရပါတယ်။

In Myanmar, Grief and Fury After an Attack on a School

The New York Times  

By Sui-Lee Wee
Sept. 23, 2022

 Eleven children died when soldiers fired on the school, where they said rebels had taken cover. “This is a war crime,” said a U.N. expert.

Damage from the Sept. 16 attack on a school in Let Yet Kone village, in the Sagaing region of central Myanmar. Credit...Social Media, via Reuters

 

 It was the noon hour, and children were playing outside the school, squeezing in their last few minutes of fun before lessons began. Suddenly, there came the roar of helicopters overhead.

Bhone Tayza, 7, looked up. His cousin shouted at him to run, and both of them dashed to hide in a hole in the trunk of a tamarind tree. Then Bhone Tayza remembered he had left his school bag in his classroom and ran back to get it. Soldiers started firing rockets.

Bangladesh spends $1.22 bn a year for 1.2 mn Rohingyas: PM

The Daily Star

UNB, New York

Thu Sep 22, 2022

Photo: PID

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today (September 22, 2022) called upon the international community to take five actions to resolve the prolonged Rohingya crisis, including political and financial support to them.

She made the call at a high-level side event on the Rohingya crisis held at Lotte Palace New York Hotel.

Focusing on the second action, Sheikh Hasina asked the world community to intervene in the proceedings before the International Court of Justice, International Criminal Court and national courts, including supporting the Gambia in the ICJ, in order to enforce international law and to strengthen the fight against human rights violations in Myanmar.

UN-appointed expert says better sanctions on Myanmar needed

The Washington Post

By David Rising | AP
September 22, 2022

FILE - A school bag lies next to dried blood stains on the floor of a middle school in Let Yet Kone village in Tabayin township in the Sagaing region of Myanmar on Saturday, Sept. 17, 2022, the day after an air strike hit the school. A United Nations-appointed human rights expert called Thursday for governments and companies to coordinate efforts to cut off the military-led government of Myanmar from its revenue and weapons sources, saying life in the Southeastern Asian nation has become a “living hell” for many since the generals seized power last year. (AP Photo, File) (Uncredited/AP

BANGKOK — A United Nations-appointed human rights expert called Thursday for governments and companies to coordinate efforts to cut off the military-led government of Myanmar from its sources of revenue and weapons, saying life in the Southeastern Asian nation has become a “living hell” for many since the generals seized power last year.

Tom Andrews, in Geneva to deliver his annual report on Myanmar to the U.N. Human Rights Council, told reporters that while many countries have been imposing sanctions on individuals, military entities, financial institutions and energy companies, what is needed is “coordinated action.”

PM seeks UN role in Rohingya repatriation

NEWAGE 

Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha, New York
Sep 21,2022

UN high commissioner for refugees Filippo Grandi pays a courtesy call on Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina at the bilateral meeting room of Lotte New York Palace hotel on Wednesday. -- BSS photo 

 

Prime minister Sheikh Hasina on Tuesday (New York time) reiterated her call to the international community and the United Nations to play intensified role in solving the Rohingya crisis by repatriating the forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals to their motherland.

The prime minister made this call while UN high commissioner for refugees Filippo Grandi paid a courtesy call on her at the bilateral meeting room of Lotte New York Palace hotel.