The Stateless Rohingya Blog

Date 01 April 2014 YANGON -- UNFPA , the United Nations Population Fund, is deeply concerned about the Myanmar Government’s decision not to allow census respondents who wish to self-identify their ethnicity as Rohingya to do so. In its agreement with the United Nations on the 2014 census, the Government made a commitment to conduct the exercise in accordance with international census standards and human rights principles. It explicitly agreed with the condition that each person would be able to declare what ethnicity they belong to, including those who wish to record their identity as of mixed ethnicity. Those not identifying with one of the listed ethnic categories would be able to declare their ethnicity and have their response recorded by the enumerator. Just before the start of the census, however, senior officials announced that people who wish to define their ethnicity as Rohingya will not be able to do so.  UNFPA is deeply concerned about this departure from internat

By Sindhi Khan 1 st  April 2014 Rvisiontv.com Maungdaw, Arakan-  A Myanmar military battalion commander is squeezing money from the villagers of Thit-Taw-Nar-Kwa-Sun and Razar Bill (Nan-Ra-Raing) in region 2, northern Maungdaw, for saving a home belongs to a Rohingya from getting torched by a group of extremist Buddhists. “Around 8:00PM on 28 th  March 2014, a Mro Buddhist group sneaked into the eastern part of the village of Thit-Taw-Nar-Kwa-Sun in Region 2, northern Maungdaw. Then, they tried to torch a home belongs to Shahkhit Ali (son of) Amir Nur Mohammed (Age 32). As he shouted out for help, his co-villagers and the people from the nearby village, Razar Bill (Nan-Ra-Raing), came together for rescue and drove the Mro Buddhists group away. Upon that, G.E. group (Military Engineers), responsible for constructing roads along the border, informed the nearby Military Battalion. Around 100 military personnel arrived at the village soon only to scold Rohingya villagers and con

File photo: Damaged materials are scattered on the floor at a NGO office after an attack in Sittwe, Rakhine state, western Myanmar. (AFP/Soe Than Win) By ROBIN McDOWELL Associated Press April 01, 2014 International relief organizations forced to flee western Myanmar after being targeted by Buddhist mobs say it will be almost impossible to return without strong diplomatic pressure on the government to depoliticize the distribution of aid: Until then, they say, the lives of more than 140,000 Rohingya Muslims in overcrowded, dirty camps will be at even greater risk. In the next two weeks food stocks will run out and at least 20,000 people will be without clean water, according to humanitarian aid workers who gathered with colleagues in the country's main city of Yangon on Monday to discuss the spiraling crisis. The heath situation is even more dire, they said, with almost no life-saving services such as emergency hospital referrals. "It's not that we do

By KPN April 01, 2014 Maungdaw, Arakan State:  Security forces- Army and Hluntin- had tortured severely for claiming their ethnicity as Rohingya today at Phaung see (Taunggul) under Tamanthar village tract, according to an elder from the village ( declaim to say the name for security reason). The census processing group –enumerators, supervisor, Army and Hlunti- entered the village at 8:00am and the security forces called all the villagers to gather in front of school without conducting the census by visiting house by house according to the rule of census, the elder said. The Army officer from security forces – station near the village and belong to Battalion number 536 – asked the villagers what they want to write in their ethnicity in the census forms. All the villagers said they want Rohingya as their ethnicity in the column race with number of 914, then the officer pulled out two Rohingya and asked again their ethnicity where they replied same before. The secu

By Mohamed Ibrahim  Burma Times 31 March 2014 As the persecution of Rohingya Muslims gets worse in the remote Western corner of Myanmar, it will soon become impossible for the international community, especially neighbouring countries to ignore the crisis. Only Bangladesh however shares a border with the restive Rakhine (Arakan) province and the country has been the first point of escape for Muslim refugees fleeing from the sectarian violence since independence. But Bangladesh has historically been unwilling to get involved in the affairs of Myanmar. As the situation in Arakan becomes worse than any time in history and the government and Rakhine groups target the complete extermination of Rohingyas and possibly other Muslim communities of the Arakan, Bangladesh will be forced to play a more prominent role. The presence of nearly half a million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh have long been a sore point for the Bangladesh government and civil society. Bangladesh says that