The Stateless Rohingya Blog

A Rohingya woman cries after her apprehension on Phuket Photo by phuketwan.com By Chutima Sidasathian Phuket_Wan May 16, 2013 PHUKET: A group of senior national officials has been checking on conditions in which Rohingya boatpeople are being detained in Thailand. Member of Parliament Samas Nalulem, who is also a member of the Border Affairs Commission, visited the women and children being held in a Phuket family refuge yesterday. It's believed the Phuket visit is just one of several to refuges and Immigration detention centres where about 2000 Rohingya men, women and children are being held throughout Thailand. Three women and 17 children are being held on Phuket at the family centre together with a group of men in detention in cells at Phuket Immigration in Phuket City. Teenage boys have absconded from the Phuket family centre and from a larger family centre in Phang Nga, the province north of Phuket, where 72 women and children remain. According

An Internally displaced Rohingya woman holds her baby outside her tent waiting to leave a camp for displaced Rohingya people in Sittwe, northwestern Rakhine State, Myanmar, Thursday, May 16, 2013. Members of the displaced Rohingya minority started to evacuate for safer shelters ahead of the arrival of Cyclone Mahasen. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe) Irrawaddy News: May 16, 2013 SITTWE, Arakan State—Tropical Cyclone Mahasen missed western Burma’s Arakan State on Thursday afternoon, bringing relief to tens of thousands of internally displaced Rohingyas living in camps near the coast. An official at the Department of Meteorology and Hydrology said the cyclone had made landfall at the Chittagong coast in central Bangladesh at 3:30 pm. “In Bangladesh, the cyclone caused winds of 100 KPH (60 MPH). In Myanmar there were some rains and on the Arakan coast there were high waves,” he said. In northern Arakan State, at Maungdaw Township, waves of 2-meter (6-feet) were recorded