Tag: Rohingya

Rejected Rohingya boat sighted off Indonesia coast: official

JAKARTA, Nov 18, 2023 (AFP) – A boat carrying Rohingya refugees that was forced back to sea earlier this week was sighted Saturday several miles off the coast of Indonesia’s westernmost region, according to a local commander. The group of around 250 people from the persecuted Myanmar minority arrived off Aceh province on Thursday, but residents told them not to land. The boat travelled to another location in Aceh where a second group of residents […]

About 250 Rohingya refugees in Indonesia sent back to sea

About 250 Rohingya refugees in an overcrowded wooden boat have been turned away from western Indonesia and sent back to sea, residents said Friday. The group of around 250 from the persecuted Myanmar minority arrived off the coast of Aceh province on Thursday but angry locals told them not to land the boat. Some refugees then swam ashore and collapsed with exhaustion on the beach. After they were forced to return to the decrepit boat, […]

Nearly 200 Rohingya refugees land in Indonesia: official

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia, Nov 14, 2023 (AFP) – Nearly 200 Rohingya refugees, including many women and children, landed in Indonesia’s westernmost province on Tuesday, a local official said, the largest contingent of the persecuted Myanmar minority to arrive in months. Thousands of the mostly Muslim Rohingya risk their lives each year on long and expensive sea journeys, often in flimsy boats, to try to reach Malaysia or Indonesia. The group of 196 landed Tuesday morning […]

UN says Myanmar junta halts humanitarian access to cyclone survivors

BANGKOK, June 9, 2023 (AFP) – Myanmar’s junta has suspended travel authorisations for aid workers trying to reach hundreds of thousands of people in the cyclone-ravaged Rakhine state, the UN’s humanitarian affairs office said Friday. Cyclone Mocha brought lashing rain and winds of 195 kilometres per hour (120 miles per hour) to Myanmar and neighbouring Bangladesh last month, killing at least 148 people in Myanmar. The cyclone destroyed homes and brought a storm surge to […]

UN court rejects Myanmar challenge to genocide case

  The Hague, Netherlands | AFP by Danny KEMP The UN’s highest court ruled on Friday that a landmark case accusing military-ruled Myanmar of genocide against minority Rohingya Muslims can go ahead. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague threw out all of Myanmar’s objections to a case filed by the west African nation of The Gambia in 2019. The decision paves the way for full hearings at the court on allegations over […]

Nearly 60 Rohingya found abandoned on Thai island: police

Fifty-nine Rohingya people have been discovered on a Thai island, saying they were abandoned by traffickers en route to Malaysia, a senior police officer said Sunday. The group — among them five children — were found on Koh Dong island in the southern Satun province on Saturday, said lieutenant general Surachet Hakpan. Each year, thousands of the mostly Muslim minority Rohingya people, heavily persecuted in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, risk their lives in months-long expensive journeys to […]

Pres. Duterte calls on ASEAN to help Myanmar attain peace; says PHL ready to accept Myanmar refugees

  (Eagle News) — President Rodrigo Duterte urged member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to help Myanmar in resolving its domestic issues, and expressed the country’s commitment to accept refugees from Myanmar. The 76-year old Philippine leader, participated in his last ASEAN Summit, and said that the ASEAN should collectively address the Myanmar issue “as a responsible community”. “The lack of progress in Myanmar has put ASEAN’s credibility into question. How […]

Bangladesh begins Covid-19 vaccinations for Rohingya refugees

KUTUPALONG Bangladesh (AFP) — Bangladesh on Tuesday began vaccinating Rohingya refugees living in congested camps as the impoverished South Asian nation battles a record surge in coronavirus cases, officials said. Health officials say 2,600 Covid-19 cases and 29 deaths have been recorded in the camps housing some 850,000 Rohingya but many experts say this is likely a gross underestimate. The initial inoculation phase will see around 48,000 refugees aged over 55 get Chinese-made Sinopharm shots […]

20 dead, 300,000 stranded in flood-hit Bangladesh region

  COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh (AFP) — Monsoon floods and landslides have cut off more than 300,000 people in villages across southeast Bangladesh and killed at least 20 people including six Rohingya refugees, officials said Friday. The region along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border where nearly one million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar are in camps has been battered by torrential rain since Monday. “The floods have stranded some 306,000 people in Cox’s Bazar district. At least 70 villages […]

Bangladesh locks down Rohingya camps after virus spike

COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh (AFP) — Bangladesh authorities on Thursday imposed a lockdown in five Rohingya refugee camps in the country’s southeast after a spike in coronavirus cases in recent days, officials said. The restrictions barred gatherings and movement between camps, which are home to more than 100,000 Rohingya refugees, Bangladesh’s deputy refugee commissioner Shamsud Douza told AFP. “We imposed the restrictions from today after sudden spikes in coronavirus cases in the five camps,” he said, […]

Huge blaze at Rohingya camp in Bangladesh kills 15, leaves 400 missing

by Suzauddin Rubel COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh (AFP) — Fifteen people have died and 400 are missing after a huge fire destroyed the shanty homes of tens of thousands of Rohingya in the world’s biggest refugee settlement in Bangladesh, the UN said Tuesday. Nearly one million of the persecuted Muslim minority — many of whom escaped a 2017 military crackdown in Myanmar that UN investigators concluded was executed with “genocidal intent” — live in squalid conditions […]

News channels blocked as Myanmar’s Suu Kyi, President Win Myint, other ministers detained

  News channels have been cut off in Myanmar and internet connection were severely disrupted on Monday, Feb. 1, as the nation’s State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi and Myanmar President Win Myint, had been “detained” in the capital Naypyidaw. Along with Suu Kyi and President Win Myint, the chief minister of Karen state and several other regional ministers were also held, according to party sources, on the very day when the new parliament was […]