New Delhi: Making pavements as their homes, over 500 hundred Myanmar nationals, among them women and children, have camped for the past 12 days near the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office here, demanding a refugee status.
By Alan Morison and Chutima Sidasathian PHUKET: Concern is mounting that the increasing signs of openness in Burma actually could mean harsher repression for the stateless Rohingya, and more boatpeople on the Andaman Sea off Phuket in coming ''sailing seasons''.
Amnesty International (AI) on Thursday said Burma’s military is committing crimes against humanity in ethnic conflict zones, where ongoing fighting has overshadowed sweeping political changes. The rights group also said that authorities had blocked humanitarian aid from reaching tens of thousands of desperate refugees in conflict areas and said soldiers had sexually assaulted civilians.
An Indonesian navy officer counts Rohingya refugees at a naval base on Sabang island in 2009 after the refugees were found floating at sea on a wooden boat. (PHOTO: Reuters) Eighty-five Rohingya boatpeople who were picked up by Mon fishermen in the Andaman Sea have been landed at Aim Dein village in Ye Township, Mon State. “They were at sea for two weeks,” said a local Mon woman had who voluntarily taken food and water to the destitute people. “Then they had engine problems during a storm and could go no further.”