The Stateless Rohingya Blog

A final resting place ends long and cruel treatment for five Rohingya By Chutima Sidasathian and Alan Morison PhuketWan February 12, 2014 PHUKET: Five boatpeople, victims of Thailand's traffickers, were buried in a Songkhla village yesterday while others continue to suffer disease and cramped conditions in secret jungle ''animal pens'' or official confinement. Local Muslim authorities say that deaths from diseases and severe conditions are likely to continue until Thailand's government recognises that thousands of Rohingya, being smuggled through Thailand, should be accorded basic human rights. ''The men we buried today were aged 16 to 40,'' said Isma-Aen Mat-Adam, of the Rohingya Help Network in Thailand. ''All of them died after being 'rescued' from the secret jungle traffickers' camps. Hospitals could not save them ''These deaths show how bad the conditions are in the jungle camps a

Photo Credit: A K Rockefeler By   NouseUK February 11, 2014 Marie Poupinel discusses recent developments in Myanmar and there impact on the Rohingya people In South-East Asia, an area notoriously known for its Golden Triangle of opium-producing countries, trafficking through the porous frontiers of Myanmar, Thailand and Bangladesh isn’t solely confined to batteries of drugs, but extends to flesh. The market of human trafficking is a deep-rooted, complex and resilient commerce, the nexus of its illicit activities tying up the triad in a history of abuse, spilling over to the ring of peripheral neighbours such as India, Malaysia and Nepal. Forced labor and sex exploitation in the global pattern of trafficking of an estimated 22 million peoples (UN Drugs and Crime Report 2012) constitutes South-East Asia’s most daunting human rights challenge. The bane of such prevalent human rights violations was recently put into relief when Thai p

A woman from the Rohingya Muslim village of Du Chee Yar Tan, in Maungdaw Township, shows reporters a damaged house. (Photo: Sanay Lin / The Irrawaddy) By   Lawi Weng & Sanay Lin Irrawaddy News February 11, 2014 DU CHEE YAR TAN, Maungdaw Township — Zuu Lar Har is living in deep distress as she has been waiting more than three weeks for her 18-year-old daughter Zuu Kai to turn up. The 60-year-old Muslim resident of Du Chee Yar Tan village in Maungdaw Township, Arakan State, said she feared for the life of Zuu Kai after she disappeared during the tumultuous events of Jan. 13, when, according to accounts of local villagers, an Arakanese Buddhist mob violently raided the village. Zuu Lar Har said her daughter had been sick and bed-ridden when the alleged attack took place, and as the Muslim villagers fled Zuu Kai went missing. “I thought my daughter had come along with the family, but later I found she hadn’t,” Zuu Lar Har said. “I do not know whether she is

Buthidaung highway,  Photo by HK.Arkani By KPN  February 11, 2014 Buthidaung, Arakan State:  Two Rohingya men were killed and injured 20 others, of whom some were critical situation, while going to Nahong, Naha from Taung Bazar after crossing the Kalama Taung (Mountain) near Bangladesh border on February 9, by a truck, said  Nunu ( not real name) from Taung Bazar.   “On that day, in the morning, after loading 30 Rohingya people by a truck from Taung Bazar of Buthidaung Township were going to Bangladesh border nearby Nahong, Nahong from Burma side. There are many army camps and also GE members have been working for erecting barbed wire pillars along the Burma-Bangladesh border.” GE (Construction Engineering Battalion) members need Laborers to work in pillars erecting in border areas, so that they can recruit workers from Buthidaung Township, especially from Taung Bazar, Paungdaw Pyin and Maung Nama village tracts (Buthidaung east). The recruiting 30 workers were from Kh