The Stateless Rohingya Blog

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...

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 ROBIN McDOWELL AP News January 25th, 2014 YANGON, Myanmar — The United Nations has confirmed that at least 48 Muslims appear to have been killed when Buddhist mobs attacked a village in an isolated corner of western Myanmar, violence that has been vehemently denied by the government since it was first reported by The Associated Press just over a week ago. Presidential spokesman Ye Htut said he “strongly objects” to the U.N. claims and called its information and figures “totally wrong.” A statement issued Friday by Myanmar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said accounts of the events issued by news organizations and international agencies were “based on unjustified conclusions drawing from unverified information,” and would lead to misunderstandings among ethnic communities in the area. It cautioned journalists and diplomats that “releasing unverified information” was tantamount to interfering in Myanmar’s internal affairs. The United States said it was “dee...

By ROBIN McDOWELL Associated Press November 24, 2013 BA GONE NAR, Myanmar (AP) —  Noor Jaan  lifted her black Islamic veil and recalled the last time she saw her husband. He was among more than 600 Rohingya Muslim men thrown in jail in this remote corner of Myanmar during a ruthless security crackdown that followed sectarian violence, and among one in 10 who didn't make it out alive. Jaan said that when she visited the jail, the cells were crammed with men, hands chained behind their backs, several stripped naked. Many showed signs of torture. Her husband,  Mohammad Yasim , was doubled over, vomiting blood, his hip bone shattered. "We were all crying so loudly the walls of the prison could have collapsed," the 40-year-old widow said. "They killed him soon after that," she said of her husband. Her account was corroborated by her father, her 10-year-old son and a neighbor. "Other prisoners told us soldiers took his corpse and threw i...

At Kawng Dok Ka camp near Sittwe, Rohingya mother Amina Katu, 25, cradles her five-day-old baby, who had not yet been given a name. (Photo: Vincenzo Floramo / The Irrawaddy) By ROBIN McDOWELL  Associated Press October 15, 2013 MAUNGDAW, Myanmar (AP) — The 10-year-old struggles up the hill, carrying buckets filled with rocks. Though he tries to keep a brave face in front of his friends, his eyes brim with tears. Every inch of his body aches, he says, and he feels sick and dizzy from the weight. "I hate it," whispers Anwar Sardad. He has to help support his family, but he wishes there was a way other than working for the government construction agency. He adds, "I wouldn't have to live this life if I wasn't a Muslim." The lives of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya children like Anwar are growing more hopeless in Myanmar, even as the predominantly Buddhist nation of 60 million wins praise for ending decades of dictatorship. --- ED...