The Stateless Rohingya Blog

Maungdaw, Arakan: An election was held at Ward No.4 of Maungdaw Town on December 18; without inviting any Rohingya though there is 1/3 of Population is Rohingya community, according to a local who preferred not to be named.  “The election was held by U Kyi San, the Township Administration officer with permission of U Aung Myint Soe, the District Administration officer of Maungdaw District. The District officer ordered the Township officer not to call any Rohingya to take part in the election.”

Rohingya refugees at the Pauktaw camp in west Burma. Photograph: Kate Hodal for the Guardian Muslim group languishes in makeshift homes with no work, no schools and no citizenship rights from Burmese government The helicopter cuts a sharp arc away from the sea and sweeps over pagoda-topped hills and dusty farmland until a mass of dirty white tents comes into view. Soon throngs of people can be seen coming out of their makeshift homes and rushing towards the airfield, until they resemble a human fence, snaking five-deep around the camp. There are mothers in pastel hijabs, men in T-shirts and longyis, and naked children clutching on to grandparents, jostling for space among puddles and dust, held back by guards with rifles.

Myanmar soldiers patrol in a street at a village in Sittwe, capital of Rakhine state in western Myanmar on June 14. (AP Photo) Maungdaw, Arakan State:  Burmese soldiers extorted money from village sentry men on December 18, over the allegation that they had broken the law of sentry post, according to a local businessman preferring not to be named.   A section of soldiers from Labaw Zaar army camp of Nasaka area No. 6 of Maungdaw north went to the Labaw Zaar village of Maungdaw Township and allegedly blamed the sentry men while paying sentry duty at the sentry posts and then brought to its camp where they were detained. 

Sittwe:  If it weren’t for the flattened gaps in the standing rows of houses, Sittwe would seem like any typical Burmese city, with its decadent colonial façades. But the isolated blocks, leveled to the ground, are the price to pay for the apparent quiet: A brutal urban war begun last June that emptied the city of the Muslim Rohingya people -- if you don’t count the 7,000 confined to a ghetto surrounded by barbed wire. Another 100,000 displaced residents live in dusty camps on the outskirts of Sittwe and the rest, in this western part of Burma or Myanmar, in totally indignant conditions.  

A UN official calls on leaders in Burma’s Rakhine state to accept ethnic differences for peace. Vijay Nambiar (C) arrives at the airport in Sittwe, capital of Rakhine state, June 14, 2012.AFP Source by RFA ’  The U.N.’s special advisor on Burma on Wednesday visited refugee camps for those displaced by communal violence in restive Rakhine state, stressing the need to ensure the safety of Muslim Rohingyas who rights groups say bore the brunt of the violence. Vijay Nambiar, Special Advisor to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, traveled to camps in Rakhine’s towns Buthidaung and Maungdaw and capital Sittwe together with the Burmese Minister of Immigration and Population Khin Ye, according to a community leader.