The Stateless Rohingya Blog

Jakarta Post: April, 16, 2013 TANGERANG: The police of Mauk district, Tangerang regency, detained on Monday 16 migrants from Myanmar who were hiding on an offshore floating fish trap. Chief Insp. Suhendar said that local fishermen filed a police report after discovering the migrants on the fish trap earlier in the day. “We are collecting data on the migrants. We will hand them over to the immigration office for processing,” Suhendar said. Khalid Husain, 27, one of the migrants, said they had traveled from Myanmar on a vessel heading for Australia via Malaysia and Indonesia. “We are so scared of the ongoing political conflict that has claimed many lives,” he said, adding that each of them had paid the equivalent of Rp 3 million (US$309) to an agent who promised to help them enter Australia to seek asylum. Indonesia has sheltered many migrants from the Rohingya ethnic group in Myanmar. The Rohingya, who are not recognized as a minority group by the Myanmar

Unregistered Kutupalong refugee camp in raining   Kutupalong, Bangladesh: A sudden rain gusted up Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh on April 16 at 3:30 pm, according to Anwar from Refugee camp. “The sudden rain gusted up the camp upside down, most of shacks from unregistered camp were destroyed and refugee are now facing very difficult to stay inside the shacks as heavy rain fell in the camp.” “I fixed the roof of my shack in the summer as prepare for coming raining season, but the sudden rain gusted up and blew up my roof from shack. How I manage again to fix it, it is very expenses to collect woods, bamboos and plastics,” said Amina Begum, a widow from the camp. The sudden rain gusted the Kutupalong Refugee camp – registered and unregistered – are facing same problem – the roofs – but unregistered camp is more effect than registered. The registered camp’s sheds are repairing by the government of Bangladesh and UNHCR, but the unregistered are not able to repair

A UNHCR member of staff discusses accommodation with colleagues and displaced people at the Ohn Taw Gyi IDP camp near Sittwe, capital of Rakhine state  © UNHCR/P.Behan IRIN News: April 16, 2013 BANGKOK, 16 April 2013 (IRIN) - Ongoing tensions between Buddhist and Muslim communities in Myanmar's western Rakhine State have created a threatening environment for aid workers, hindering assistance to more than127,000 displaced persons.  “Access to IDPs [internally displaced persons] is being seriously hampered by ongoing intimidation [of aid workers] by some members of the local community,” noted the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Yangon.  Humanitarian organizations, including medical NGO Médecins Sans Frontières, report aid staff have faced accusations by the local Rakhine community - who are mostly Buddhist - that their assistance favours the Muslim Rohingya minority.  The majority of the displaced are Rohingya, but there are al

Rohingya Genocide 1942 - Present  (part of The Darkness Visible series) Thousands of the Muslim Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh have not been registered and have received little assistance. A woman sits on the side of the road with her grandchild at the old Tal Camp near Teknaf. The government has since relocated the camp residents to a safer and less congested area.  © UNHCR/G.Constantine. Alders Ledge: April 15, 2013 How long should the a people have to suffer before the world decides to act? How often do they have to be killed in senseless pogroms and orgies of violence? Why do they have to grow-up in a culture of oppression and fear? Why do they have to raise their children without food or education? When will the cycle of neglect and abuse end? Since the days of British colonialism in Myanmar the Rohingya people have been been subject to systemic racism in the governments that have come and gone over the years. The British gave them just enough to keep them a