The Stateless Rohingya Blog

In this photo taken Jan.1, 2013, Rohingya refugees sit in a boat as they are intercepted by Thai authorities off the sea in Phuket, southern Thailand. (AP Photo) YANGON, Myanmar (AP) A growing sense of desperation is fueling a mass exodus of Rohingya Muslims from western Myanmar, with at least 8,000 members of the long-persecuted minority fleeing by boat in the last two weeks, according to residents and a leading expert. Chris Lewa, director of the nonprofit Rohingya advocacy group Arakan Project, said an average of 900 people per day have been piling into cargo ships parked off Rakhine state since Oct. 15. Myanmar, a predominantly Buddhist nation of 50 million, has an estimated 1.3 million Rohingya. Though many of their families arrived from neighboring Bangladesh generations ago, almost all have been denied Myanmar citizenship. In the last two years, attacks by Buddhist mobs have left hundreds dead and 140,000 trapped in camps, and have undermined Myanmar's transi...

In this June 25, 2014 photo, Rohingya refugees beg for alms at Dar Paing main street, north of Sittwe, Rakhine State, Myanmar. Most Rohingya have lived under apartheid-like conditions in northern Rakhine for decades, with limited access to adequate health care, education and jobs, as well as restrictions on travel and the right to practice their faith. (AP Photo/ Gemunu Amarasinghe)  By Robin McDowell Associated Press October 8, 2014 Authorities sealed off villages for months in Myanmar's only Muslim-majority region and in some cases beat and arrested people who refused to register with immigration officials, residents and activists say, in what may be the most aggressive effort yet to compel Rohingya to identify themselves as migrants from neighboring Bangladesh. Immigration officials, border guards and members of the illegal-alien task force in the northern tip of Rakhine state — home to 90 percent of the country's 1.3 million Rohingya — said they were simp...

By Associated Press May 09, 2014 WASHINGTON: The US House of Representatives has called on Myanmar to end persecution of Rohingya Muslims and other minorities, in the stiffest congressional criticism yet of the nation’s reformist government. The House approved the resolution late Wednesday after debating the plight of the 140,000 Rohingyas displaced during clashes with majority Buddhists in western Myanmar. Lawmakers of both parties were strongly critical of the Myanmar government. Republican Rep. Ed Royce accused Myanmar of systematically denying the Rohingya basic of human rights, while subjecting them to “unspeakable abuses.” Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern said Rohingya were now dying of preventable causes because severe restrictions and attacks had forced humanitarian groups out of the region. The resolution does not sanction Myanmar, which denies discriminating against Muslims. Meanwhile, Myanmar deported an Australian journalist working for the ne...

In this Nov. 28, 2013 photo, a boat which was intended to carry fleeing Rohingya Muslims until doubts arose about its seaworthiness, is docked at a lagoon near the The' Chaung refugee camp on the outskirts of Sittwe, Myanmar. Although the United Nations considers the Rohingya to be among the most persecuted groups on earth, nearby countries easily reachable by boat have been implementing policies and practices to ensure that Rohingya refugees don't wash up on their shores. (AP Photo/Kaung Htet)THE ASSOCIATED PRESS By   Associated Press April 26, 2014 SITTWE, Myanmar  – The two children stood on the beach, torn between land and sea. They couldn't go back to their tiny Muslim village in Myanmar's northwest Rakhine because it had been burned down by an angry Buddhist mob. In the chaos, they became separated from their family and gave up hope of finding them alive after seven months of searching. The only way was forward. Hungry and scared, Mohamad ...

NLD's Patron Win Tin Meeting Monk Shi Wirathu. By Aye Aye Win  Associated Press April 21, 2014 YANGON, MYANMAR — Win Tin, a prominent journalist who became Myanmar's longest-serving political prisoner after challenging military rule by co-founding the National League for Democracy, died Monday, He was 85. He had been hospitalized with respiratory problems since March 12 and died at Yangon General Hospital. A former newspaper editor, Win Tin was a close ai de to opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, another founder in 1988 of the pro-democracy party. In 1989, she was put under house arrest and Win Tin was sent to prison for his political activities. His sentence was extended twice for various reasons, the second time for writing a letter to the United Nations. Colleagues and admirers paid tribute to the feisty writer and activist, with Suu Kyi sending a handwritten note for his funeral service which was also posted on her Facebook page in her capacity...

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...

Photo By Gemunu Amarasinghe/AP  By  Associated Press   March 12, 2014 THE' CHAUNG, Myanmar —  Noor Jahan  rocked slowly on the floor, trying to steady her weak body. Her chest heaved and her eyes closed with each raspy breath. She could no longer eat or speak, throwing up even spoonfuls of tea. Two years ago, she would have left her upscale home — one of the nicest in the community — and gone to a hospital to get tests and medicine for her failing liver and kidneys. But that was before Buddhist mobs torched and pillaged her neighborhood, forcing thousands of ethnic Rohingya like herself to flee to a hot, desert-like patch of land on the outskirts of town. She was then stuck in a dirt-floor bamboo hut about a quarter-mile from the sea. She and others from the Muslim minority group have been forced to live segregated behind security checkpoints and cannot leave, except for medical emergencies. Often not even then. Living conditions in The' Cha...