Tag: Rohingya

Rohingya crisis a year on: refugees going nowhere as cash crunch looms

  by Aidan Jones / with Hla-Hla Htay in Maungdaw Agence France-Presse COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh (AFP) — With a repatriation plan in tatters and funding evaporating for a million refugees with ever-growing needs, Rohingya Muslims who fled Myanmar to Bangladesh face a grim future one year after the latest eruption of a decades-old conflict. Raids by Rohingya militants on August 25 last year across Myanmar’s Rakhine state spurred an army crackdown which the United Nations has […]

UN chief hears of ‘unimaginable’ atrocities as he visits Rohingya camps

KUTUPALONG, Bangladesh (AFP) — UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he heard “unimaginable” accounts of atrocities during a visit Monday to vast camps in Bangladesh that are home to a million Rohingya refugees who fled violence in Myanmar. Guterres described the situation for the persecuted Muslim minority as “a humanitarian and human rights nightmare,” as he prepared to tour makeshift shelters crammed with people who escaped a huge Myanmar army operation last year that the UN […]

Myanmar military leaders guilty of ‘crimes against humanity’: Amnesty

  NEW YORK, United States (AFP) — Myanmar’s military chief and other top brass have been accused by Amnesty International of crimes against humanity for overseeing a “systematic” attack against Rohingya Muslims, according to a report by the rights group Wednesday calling for prosecution at the International Criminal Court. More than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims were forced to flee Rakhine state after a military crackdown that the United Nations has said amounts to “ethnic cleansing”. Myanmar’s […]

Myanmar sacks top general involved in Rohingya crackdown

  YANGON, Myanmar (AFP) — Myanmar’s military said it sacked a top general who was named in fresh EU sanctions against security officials accused of serious rights violations in the Rohingya crisis, including killings and sexual violence. Myanmar is accused of waging a crackdown in Rakhine state that forced 700,000 to flee that the UN and major western powers have said amounts to “ethnic cleansing”. Its leaders have come under fire for taking little punitive action […]

Rohingya will be safe in areas ‘designated’ for them: Myanmar army chief

YANGON, Myanmar (AFP) — Rohingya refugees who return to Myanmar will be safe as long as they stay in the model villages built for them, the country’s army chief has said, renewing fears they will be kept in settlements indefinitely. Some 700,000 Rohingya Muslims fled Buddhist-majority Myanmar to Bangladesh after the military launched a brutal crackdown on insurgents in August that the US and the UN have called ethnic cleansing. Myanmar and Bangladesh agreed to […]

Scepticism as Myanmar announces return of first Rohingya family

by Athens Zaw Zaw with Sam Jahan in Dhaka © Agence France-Presse YANGON, Myanmar (AFP) — Myanmar’s government said it has repatriated the first family of Rohingya refugees, among the 700,000 who fled a brutal crackdown, but the move was slammed by rights groups as a publicity stunt which ignored warnings over the security of returnees. The stateless Muslim minority has been massing in squalid refugee camps across the border in Bangladesh since the Myanmar army […]

Myanmar says ICC lacks jurisdiction to probe Rohingya crisis

YANGON, Myanmar (AFP) — Myanmar has expressed “serious concern” over an attempt at the International Criminal Court to open a probe into mass deportations of Rohingya Muslims, dismissing the claims and saying the court has no jurisdiction. Some 700,000 people from the stateless Muslim minority fled Myanmar’s Rakhine state to Bangladesh following Rohingya insurgent attacks on border guard posts in August last year. Myanmar says it was defending itself from the rebel Arakan Rohingya Salvation […]

Duterte apologizes to Myanmar’s Suu Kyi over genocide remark

(Eagle News) — President Rodrigo Duterte on Friday, April 13, issued a public apology to Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi Friday, a week after describing the military crackdown on the country’s Rohingya minority as a “genocide.” “I will apologize to you, but if you have noticed, my statement was almost a satire,” Duterte told a pre-dawn news conference in Davao on Friday. He said his original comments were intended as a dig at European countries […]

‘Emergency’ malnutrition in Rohingya refugee kids: study

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Malnutrition and anemia far exceed internationally established emergency levels among ethnic minority Rohingya children who have fled to refugee camps in Bangladesh, US researchers warned on Tuesday. A total of 269 children aged between six months and five years were examined in the Kutupalong refugee camp in October 2017, said researchers at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Nearly 700,000 Rohingya, a stateless Muslim minority, have fled […]

ICC prosecutor seeks to open Rohingya deportations probe

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AFP) — The chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court has asked judges to rule whether she can open a probe into the mass deportations of the Rohingya people from Myanmar. Hundreds of thousands of the stateless Muslim minority have fled Myanmar’s northern Rakhine state in recent months to escape a bloody military crackdown. The violence has left a trail of torched villages in its wake, amid allegations of murder and rape […]

UK’s Johnson meets Myanmar’s Suu Kyi on Rohingya crisis

NAYPYIDAW, Myanmar (AFP) — Britain’s foreign minister Boris Johnson met with Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar’s capital on Sunday to press for action on the Rohingya crisis, as the country faces mounting pressure to punish troops accused of atrocities against the Muslim minority. Johnson spoke with the embattled Myanmar leader, whose reputation among the international community has plunged over her handling of the crisis, in Naypyidaw while on a four-day tour in Asia. The meeting followed […]

Eight countries push UN to take up Myanmar Rohingya crisis

UNITED NATIONS, United States (AFP) — Britain, France, the United States and five other countries asked the UN Security Council on Wednesday to discuss the fate of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees driven from Myanmar, diplomats said. The council will hold a meeting on Tuesday to hear UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi report on the crisis sparked by an army crackdown in Myanmar’s Rakhine state in August. Sweden, Poland, the Netherlands, Kazakhstan and Equatorial […]