The Stateless Rohingya Blog

Noon Na Ha Photo:  Contributor/IRIN   IRIN News June 13, 2013 SITTWE  - One year after Myanmar's worst sectarian violence in decades, tension between the Buddhist ethnic Rakhine and Muslim Rohingya  communities  in the country's western Rakhine State remains high.  An estimated 140,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs), mainly Rohingya Muslims, are spread across some 80 camps and makeshift sites, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). Many more who were not directly affected by the violence have lost their livelihoods as a result of movement restrictions imposed by the authorities.  IRIN visited the Rakhine State capital, Sittwe, scene of much of the violence, to ask members of both communities about the prospects for peace and reconciliation.  Noon Na Ha, 35, Rohingya* IDP at Thea Chaung camp  "Sure I would like to return to my village, but don't know if that is possible. My house was destroyed in the violence and I lost everything. Sin

The boat people being interviewed in a police jail in January Photo by phuketwan.com By Alan Morison and Chutima Sidasathian  Phuket_Wan June 13, 2013 PHUKET: Fresh allegations are being made that the Royal Thai Navy intercepted Rohingya boatpeople off Phuket, brutally beat them and sold them on to human traffickers. The alarming claims are being made in reports tonight on the national ABC radio, television and online network across Australia. Bangkok-based reporter Zoe Daniel says she talked in Malaysia to Rohingya men who showed her scars they said were inflicted by Thai Navy sailors and traffickers in Thailand. Asked about the allegations tonight, Vice Admiral Tharathorn Khajitsuwan, the Commander of Thai Navy Three, which patrols the Andaman Sea coast, said he could not talk about Rohingya issues. He rang off. Strongest of the fresh allegations comes from a man named Zafar Ahmad who told the ABC that the Thai navy had played a role in ''push