The Stateless Rohingya Blog

Maungdaw, Arakan State:   The Burmese Vice-president, Sai Mauk Kham, along with arms forces advisory officer and deputy Defense Chief of staff were arrive with two helicopters in Alay Than Kyaw , Maungdaw south at about 10:00am , according to a member of village administration office.

Maungdaw, Arakan State:  Three persons from World foods Program (WFP) – one Burmese and two westerner including one woman went to Maung Nama village by a car and inquiring the villagers whether the villagers have foods, medicines on August 2,at about 1:00pm, said a villager from Maung Nama. “We have no foods, no medicines and have been starving; even there is no Banana trees and arum in nearby villages and inside village.”

Fourteen Myanmarese  Rohingya  Muslim  asylum seekers , en route to Australia, were in the custody of Kupang Immigration officials after being evacuated from a hotel in a Kupang suburb on Thursday night. “There are 12 males, two females and two babies. They were on their way to Australia to seek asylum. They stayed in Medan, North Sumatra,  before  coming to Kupang,” Kupang Immigration office head Silvester Sililaba said on Friday.

Kutupalong, Bangladesh:  Rohingya refugees – staying in Kutupalong makeshift camp and Lada  refugee camp- are facing difficulty of healthcare  after Bangladesh government barred to stop the activities of three INGOs, working on Rohingya refugee camps, said a refugee from Kutupalong makeshift camp.

Protesters hold banners outside the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Rangoon on Aug 3, 2012. (Photo: The Irrawaddy) Burmese Vice-President Sai Mauk Kham traveled to the predominantly Muslim township of Maungdaw in northern Arakan State on Friday amid growing international criticism of the government’s handling of recent communal conflicts between Arakanese Buddhists and Muslim Rohingyas.

Rohingyas eat food distributed by Border Guards of Bangladesh after being arrested while trying to get into Bangladesh. (Photo: Reuters) WASHINGTON, D.C. — A prominent national Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization called on the governments of Burma and Bangladesh on Thursday to seek protection for  Rohingya  Muslims in Burma. The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in a letter urged Burmese President Thein Sein to urgently take steps to end  human  rights violations against the Rohingya in the wake of a fresh wave of communal strife that began in early June.

The Burmese government, at the highest levels, continues to assert that the  Rohingya ethnic group living in northwestern Burma has no claim to citizenship rights. “They are not included among our more than 130 ethnic races,” Myanmar Immigration Minister Thein Htay told a Rangoon press conference this week. Since 1982, the government has classified an estimated 750,000 Rohingyas living in its western Rakhine State as stateless Bengali Muslims from neighbouring Bangladesh, leaving them vulnerable to persecution, discrimination and abuse.