The Stateless Rohingya Blog

Sky News Australia‎  July 9,2013 Few ethnic groups would have as strong a claim to Australian assistance than the oppressed Rohingya minority of Myanmar, but the solution isn't to resettle them in Australia, Foreign Minister Bob Carr says. Senator Carr said the Rohingya, some 800,000 stateless Muslim settlers originally from Bangladesh, were by any test enormously oppressed, suffering routine discrimination and violence. 'If you look at all the people suffering in our region, there would be few who'd have a stronger claim than the Rohingya to our assistance,' he told Sky News. Senator Carr said Australia provided significant aid to the Rohingya people. But he said they would not be resettled in Australia. 'No, we rule that out. We say that in line with the United Nations High Commission on Refugee priorities, we need a durable solution within Myanmar. We haven't got the capacity to take asylum seekers from Myanmar,' he said. ...

Sky News   June 16, 2013 Burma's transition to democracy has been threatened by serious ethnic violence between Buddhists and Muslims. Hundreds of Muslim families have taken shelter in a heavily guarded Buddhist monastery after two days of violence in the northern Burma city of Lashio. About 1,200 Muslims were taken to Mansu Monastery after Buddhist mobs attacked and burned Muslim homes. The unrest in Lashio, a city about 700 km (430 miles) from Burma's commercial capital of Rangoon, shows how far anti-Muslim violence has spread in the Buddhist-dominated country as it emerges from decades of hardline military rule. One man was killed and five people wounded in Wednesday's clashes, authorities said.