The Stateless Rohingya Blog

Lt. General Thein Htay is pictured at the Myanmar International Convention Center in Naypyidaw on August 20, 2011 (AFP/File, Soe Than Win) AFP July 2, 2013 WASHINGTON — The United States placed a Myanmar general on its sanctions blacklist Tuesday for arms deals with North Korea that violated the UN Security Council embargo on buying weapons from Pyongyang. Weeks after a landmark visit to Washington by Myanmar President Thein Sein celebrated the thaw in bilateral relations, the US Treasury named Lt. General Thein Htay, the head of Myanmar's Directorate of Defense Industries, for the sanctions. The Treasury said the general was involved in buying North Korean military goods despite his government's support of the Security Council ban. It said he acted on behalf of the Directorate of Defense Industries, a Myanmar military agency that was placed on the US sanctions blacklist in July 2012 for arms deals with North Korea. The Treasury stressed in a statem

Photo  United Nations Refugee Agency - Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh B y Kailash Sarkar DhakaTribune July 2, 2013 There are around 30,000 registered Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh Left with limited choices because of their ‘statelessness’, many Rohingyas living in the country have chosen to live outside the law by paving the way for a section of people on both sides of the Bangladesh-Myanmar border to reap rich illegal dividends. They are getting increasingly involved with various criminal activities, including cross-border trading of drugs and firearms, helping them to be smuggled in and out of the country. A number of Rohingyas assuming the identities of Bangladeshis, with doctored passports and documentations, are also going abroad, especially to the Middle East. According to sources, unscrupulous officials at the passports and immigration departments and recruiting agencies, and their local agents in Cox’s Bazar, ‘help’ Rohingyas move out of the countr

Salima Nora Ahmad, a 25-year-old Rohingya woman who rejoined her husband, who left Burma six years earlier, in Malaysia. When she left Burma in April 2011, she was convinced her life as a Rohingya would not be worth living if she stayed.  Green Left Weekly By Lee Yu Kyung Jani Alam, a 25-year-old, is walking slow and painfully. Having slightly swollen feet, this “exercise” is the only treatment available from 60-year-old traditional doctor, Guramia Saiyid. Both Alam and Saiyad are stateless refugees from the Rohingya ethnic minority from Arakan state in western Burma. They now live in Malaysia. Saiyad has lived in the country for 11 years, while Alam has arrived four months ago. “In the past months, dozens of refugees arrived almost every day,” said 41-year-old Jamar Udin, a neighbor and also a Rohingya. Udin said many of the newly arrived have difficulty walking due to a lack of exercise. Fleeing by boat It was last November that Udin got on the bo