Category Archives: Rohingya

Rohingya being forcibly conscripted in battle between Myanmar and rebels

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Myanmar military has conscripted 1,000 Rohingya men and boys since February, with fears some are being used as human shields, according to NGOs

For more than four hours Abdullah* waited in the darkness as soldiers marched 30 of his neighbours from their homes in the Myanmar border state of Rakhine and forced them by gunpoint to join him on the truck that would take them all to a military base.

By the morning they were standing in front of a military commander ordering them to fight with the army against a local rebel group – some of the 1,000 Rohingya people the Myanmar military has conscripted since February, according to Human Rights Watch.

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Dozens of Rohingya refugees rescued from overturned boat in Indian Ocean

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Soaked survivors clung to hull overnight before being taken to safety by Indonesian rescue team

Dozens of Rohingya refugees have been rescued from the Indian Ocean off the coast of Indonesia after spending the night balanced on the hull of their overturned boat.

Seventy-five people were pulled from the stricken vessel, which was spotted on Thursday by an Indonesian search and rescue ship.

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‘I can ride the bus. I can walk the streets’: the joy of freedom for Rohingya resettled in the US

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A diplomatic breakthrough has allowed 62 refugees to start a new life in America. Yet a million still remain in fear and poverty in the Bangladeshi camps

After 23 hours on his first international flight, it was only after stepping off the plane in the United States that Nurul Haque finally felt the relief of escaping the refugee camps of Bangladesh, where he was born.

Haque was among the first Rohingya refugees allowed to leave Bangladesh in more than a decade. The 62 people who have flown to the US since late last year might be few, but resettlement has given them hope of opportunity and security that was denied them in Bangladesh.

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Fears grow for hundreds of Rohingya refugees adrift for two weeks

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UN warns of possible tragedy unless people are rescued from two boats on Andaman Sea

About 400 Rohingya refugees have been adrift in two boats on the Andaman Sea for about two weeks, according to the United Nations, which called on regional governments to help rescue them.

The number of Rohingya Muslims fleeing by boats in a seasonal exodus – usually from squalid, overcrowded refugee camps in Bangladesh – has been rising since last year due to cuts to food rations and an increase in gang violence.

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Myanmar’s military commanders responsible for rape and torture – war crimes report

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Security Force Monitor finds 64% of senior army officers led units allegedly committing killings, rapes, torture and disappearances

New research into alleged war crimes in Myanmar has concluded that the majority of senior commanders in the Myanmar military, many of whom hold powerful political positions in the country, were responsible for crimes including rape, torture, killings and forced disappearances carried out by units under their command between 2011 and 2023.

The research, by the Security Force Monitor (SFM), a project run by Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute, states that 64% – 51 of 79 – of all Myanmar’s senior military commanders are responsible for war crimes. It claims that the most serious perpetrator of human rights violations is Gen Mya Tun Oo, Myanmar’s deputy prime minister, former defence minister and a member of the ruling military council.

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At least 17 people dead after boat carrying Rohingya refugees capsizes off coast of Myanmar

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Search for survivors continues in latest tragedy as persecuted Muslims make perilous sea journeys in search of better lives

At least 17 people have drowned and 33 are missing after a boat carrying Rohingya refugees from Myanmar to Malaysia capsized on Monday.

The bodies of 10 women and seven men have been recovered after being washed up on the coast of Myanmar, said Bya Latt, a spokesperson for the rescue group Shwe Yaung Matta Foundation. Eight people who were rescued are being held at a local police station, Latt said.

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Baby dies after teargas fired at Rohingya trying to escape Indian detention centre

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Child’s death follows hunger strike at Jammu & Kashmir jail amid increasing hostility towards 40,000 refugees ahead of elections

A five-month-old girl has died after Indian forces fired teargas at Rohingya refugees trying to escape a detention centre where they have been held for more than two years.

Videos – sent to Rohingya activists by detainees at Hiranagar jail, now operating as a holding centre – appear to show women and men amid clouds of teargas. About 270 Rohingya detainees at the centre, in the Indian-administered territory of Jammu & Kashmir, have been on hunger strike since April over their detention.

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Stateless Rohingya could soon be the ‘new Palestinians’, top UN official warns

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Special rapporteur Olivier De Shutter calls for action on neglected crisis after finding ‘absolutely terrible’ conditions on visit to Cox’s Bazar camps in Bangladesh

Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh are at risk of becoming “the new Palestinians”, according to a UN head, who said they are trapped in a protracted and increasingly neglected crisis.

Olivier De Schutter, UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, said the almost 1 million people living in overcrowded camps in Cox’s Bazar should be given the right to work in their host country of Bangladesh, and that forcing them to rely on dwindling international support was not sustainable.

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Cyclone Mocha threatens world’s largest refugee camp on Myanmar-Bangladesh border

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Predicted to make landfall on Sunday, preparations are under way for a partial evacuation of the camp in Cox’s Bazar

Tropical cyclone Mocha intensified to become “very dangerous”, the World Meteorological Organisation has said, warning of violent winds, floods and possible landslides in Bangladesh which could hit the world’s biggest refugee camp in Cox’s bazar.

Cyclone Mocha is predicted to make landfall on Sunday near the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, according to India’s meteorological office, packing winds of up to 175km/h (108mph).

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Huge fire at Rohingya refugee camp leaves thousands without shelter

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Fears of future blazes after health, learning and religious facilities also destroyed in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh

An estimated 12,000 Rohingya have been left without shelter after a fire tore through part of a cramped refugee camp in southern Bangladesh on Sunday, destroying health centres, learning facilities and mosques.

The fire broke out at Camp 11 of Cox’s Bazar refugee camp, which is home to more than 1 million Rohingya refugees, including 700,000 who fled their home country, Myanmar, after a brutal military crackdown in 2017.

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UN warns of ‘unconscionable’ cuts to Rohingya food rations as donations fall

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World Food Programme calls for urgent $125m injection after being forced into axing supplies into Bangladesh refugee camps by 17%

The UN has been forced to cut food rations for Rohingya refugees by 17% and has warned of “unconscionable” further cuts in April as a result of dwindling international donations.

The World Food Programme (WFP) said it needs $125m (£104m) urgently to avoid the further cuts.

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Sea ‘a graveyard’ as number of Rohingya fleeing Bangladesh by boat soars

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UN figures show number of those attempting to escape horrendous conditions in refugee camps increased from 700 in 2021 to over 3,500 in 2022

The number of Rohingya refugees taking dangerous sea journeys in the hope of reaching Malaysia or Indonesia has surged by 360%, the UN has announced after hundreds of refugees were left stranded at the end of last year.

Rohingya in Bangladesh refugee camps have warned that human smugglers have ramped up operations and are constantly searching for people to fill boats from Myanmar and Bangladesh headed for Malaysia, where people believe they can live more freely.

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More than 100 Rohingya refugees jailed for trying to flee Myanmar camps

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Children among those arrested last month as they waited for transport to take them to Malaysia

More than 110 Rohingya have been sentenced to prison by a military-backed court in Myanmar for attempting to escape refugee camps without the proper paperwork.

The group, which include 12 children, was arrested last month on the shores of the Ayeyarwady region as they waited for two motorboats they hoped would facilitate the start of their journey to Malaysia.

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Rohingya refugees bet lives on boat crossings despite rising death toll

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Woman recounts suffering on perilous journeys taken to escape oppression in Myanmar and squalid Bangladesh camps

Hatemon Nesa recalled hugging her young daughter tightly as the cramped, broken-down boat they were sitting on drifted aimlessly. They had set off on 25 November from the squalid Cox’s Bazar refugee camp in Bangladesh, where they had lived since 2017, when a brutal crackdown by Myanmar’s military forced more than 700,000 Rohingya to flee over the border.

The 27-year-old, like many other Rohingya refugees, was hoping for a better life in Malaysia. But about 10 days into the journey the boat’s engine stopped working and food and water supplies began to run out.

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About 180 Rohingya refugees feared dead after boat goes missing

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Contact lost for weeks with vessel that left camps in Bangladesh and was crossing Andaman Sea bound for Malaysia

About 180 Rohingya refugees are feared to have died after their boat went missing in the Andaman Sea, making 2022 one of the deadliest years for the refugees trying to flee the camps in Bangladesh.

In a statement on Sunday, the United Nations said it was concerned that a boat carrying the refugees, which had left the camps in the Bangladeshi city of Cox’s Bazar on 2 December bound for Malaysia, had sunk with no survivors, which would make it one of the worst disasters for Rohingya sea crossings this year.

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Activists appeal for rescue of Rohingya refugees stranded at sea in leaking boat

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Vessel thought to have embarked from Bangladesh is reportedly near Malaysia with 160 people onboard who have no food or water

Activists have called for urgent assistance to rescue 160 Rohingya refugees, including young children, who they say are stranded at sea on a damaged boat and have been without food or water for days.

The boat, which activists say is near Malaysian waters, is believed to have left on 25 November from Bangladesh, where almost 1 million Rohingya live in squalid and cramped refugee camps.

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World has left Bangladesh to shelter 1m Rohingya refugees alone, says minister

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Shahriar Alam criticises international community for doing ‘absolutely nothing’ to press Myanmar’s junta to guarantee a safe return

The world has done “absolutely nothing” to ensure safety in Myanmar for its persecuted Rohingya minority, said Bangladesh’s foreign minister, complaining that his country is sheltering more than 1 million refugees without support.

Foreign minister Shahriar Alam told the Guardian financial support for the Rohingya has decreased each year and there has been no real progress towards repatriation in the five years since more than 700,000 fled massacres by Myanmar’s military. That wave, in August 2017, joined approximately 300,000 people that had already fled Myanmar because of previous security crackdowns.

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UK’s former Myanmar ambassador arrested in Yangon, report says

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Vicky Bowman and Burmese husband Htein Lin detained and charged with immigration offences

Myanmar’s military junta has detained Britain’s former ambassador to the country, as well as her husband, a prominent artist, in Yangon.

Vicky Bowman and Htein Lin, a renowned painter and former political prisoner, were arrested in Yangon on Wednesday and charged with immigration offences, Reuters reports. They were taken to Insein prison, a notorious facility where many political prisoners are held.

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Rohingya crisis: plight of Myanmar’s displaced people explained in 30 seconds

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One million Rohingya remain in Bangladesh refugee camps and the persecuted group has little hope of returning to Myanmar

It has been five years since Myanmar’s military launched a campaign of massacres that killed about 7,000 Rohingya in a single month and compelled 700,000 to flee for the Bangladeshi border.

Since the first major military operation against the Rohingya minority in 1978, which forced out 200,000, the Rohingya have been collectively stripped of their citizenship and targeted by increasing violence and discrimination that culminated in the “clearance operations” that began on 25 August 2017. Those operations were years in the planning, according to military documents uncovered by the Commission for International Justice and Accountability and sent to the international criminal court.

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Genocide case against Myanmar over Rohingya atrocities cleared to proceed

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UN’s international court of justice rejects arguments advanced by military junta over crackdowns against Muslim minority group

The United Nations’ highest court has rejected Myanmar’s attempts to halt a case accusing it of genocide against the country’s Rohingya minority, paving the way for evidence of atrocities to be heard.

The international court of justice rejected all preliminary objections raised by Myanmar, which is now ruled by a military junta, at a hearing on Friday.

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