The Stateless Rohingya Blog

A Muslim man from Win Kite village looks from behind the fence which residents built to protect their village from mob attacks, May 2, 2013. REUTERS/Minzayar Jared Ferrie Reuters : May 3, 2013 Three Muslim men peered over a bamboo fence built recently to fortify their village in central Myanmar. They gazed across dry rice paddies towards a nearby Buddhist community, looking for rising dust, a sign of an approaching mob. It was a false alarm. But a day earlier, on Wednesday, about 100 Buddhists armed with sticks had gathered outside the fence, threatening to burn the village and kill them, said the villagers of Win Kite, about a two-hour drive from Myanmar's largest city, Yangon. Police foiled that attack. But Muslims were taking no chances after four days of mob violence led by Buddhist monks in Meikhtila in March killed 44 people, mostly Muslims, and touched off a wave of unrest in central Myanmar that threatens to derail the country's nascent economic a

Photos created by Kalle Bergbom : IPS News Agency May 03, 2013 BANGKOK, May 3 2013 (IPS) - Rendered the nowhere people in their own homeland, thousands of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar are fleeing inhuman living conditions, lack of humanitarian aid and rising sectarian tensions in their country. And the very state that is supposed to protect them now stands accused of ‘ethnic cleansing’. The Muslim Rohingyas and Rakhine Buddhists have had a history of conflict dating back to World War II. The latest round, however, was ignited in June 2012 when 10 Rohingya Muslims were killed by ethnic Arakanese, followingthe rape of a 28-year-old Arakanese woman. It sparked off a cycle of violence in which an estimated 200 non-Rohingya Muslims, Rohingya and ethnic Arakanese have been killed and more than 125,000 displaced. The horror peaked in October last year when security forces assisted ethnic Arakanese in razing villages in nine of the 21 townships in Arakan, in western Mya

Described by the UN as being amongst the most persecuted people in the world, over 80,000 Rohingyan people have been left without shelter and protection from the recent violence in Myanmar. Photo Muslim AID Press TV: May 03, 2013 The United States has eased another set of sanctions against Myanmar despite the ongoing persecution of the Rohingya Muslim community. The Obama administration made the announcement on Thursday, calling for an ease of restrictions on many of Myanmar’s military rulers, their business partners and immediate families. Last year, Washington lifted a set of sanctions against Myanmar that limited trade between the two countries, including removing Myanmar’s President Thein Sein from the list of banned officials. “Since 2011, the civilian-led Government of Burma has takenimportant steps toward significant social, political, and economic reform that demonstrate substantial progress on areas of concern,” the US Department of State said. Myanm

Nyan Win the National League of Democracy spokesperson Photo: @AFP As advocates condemn "ethnic cleansing" of the Rohingya, officials say no such group exists. YANGON, Myanmar — From the depths of obscurity, Myanmar’s highly beleaguered Muslim Rohingya ethnicity has become something of a global cause célèbre. The United Nations deems the roughly 1 million population group one of the world’s “most persecuted” minorities. In a report last week, Human Right Watch deployed some of the most potent language at its disposal in describing their mistreatment: “ethnic cleansing” and “crimes against humanity.” The online pro-Rohingya call to arms #RohingyaNOW was, for a brief blip in March, Twitter’s highest-trending phrase. Even US President Barack Obama, in his first and only visit to Myanmar last November, urged the nation to accept that Rohingya “hold within themselves the same dignity as you do.” But these are lofty expectations from a nation in which the gov