The Stateless Rohingya Blog

Rohingya boat people are heading south to Malaysia in record numbers Photo by Royal Thai Navy Malaysia has accepted 40 shipwreck survivors from Burma who were in limbo for several days after being denied entry to Singapore. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees says the 40 men are believed to be minority Muslim Rohingya refugees from Rakhine state.

        Prof. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu speaks at a press conference in Jeddah on Tuesday. Organization of Islamic Cooperation Secretary-General Professor Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu said yesterday that he would soon visit Myanmar as the head of a high-level delegation including OIC foreign ministers as part of efforts to stop the attacks against Rohingya Muslims. Addressing a press conference, he said the visit came in response to an invitation he received from Myanmar President Thein Sein. “We have not canceled our pre-planned visit to Myanmar but it was postponed due to insecure conditions in the country,” he told Arab News.

COX’S BAZAR, 17 December 2012 (IRIN) - Some 40,000 undocumented Rohingya refugees are being adversely affected by a government ban four months ago on NGOs working at two makeshift sites in southeastern Bangladesh.  “If we get some rice, we eat. Otherwise, we don’t eat,” Anowara Begum, an undocumented Rohingya refugee and 40-year-old mother-of-four at the Leda makeshift camp outside Nayapara, one of two makeshift sites outside two official government camps for Rohingya refugees told IRIN.  

Large mosque in Alel Than Kyaw, Maungdaw Township Photo Credit: Nora Rowley Maungdaw, Arakan State:  A Rohingya shopkeeper was arrested by police of Aley Than Kyaw police station yesterday for opening his shop in the market, said a local trader. “He was arrested from the market of Aley Than Kyaw while he was going to his home at noon for having lunch after closing his shop.”

The Baxter report on Indian population in British occupied Burma notes, “The tracing of the growth of the Indian population through the series of census reports is a matter of some complexity. It was not until the sixth census, that of 1921, that a racial classification of the population was attempted. In previous censuses the population was classified by religion only.” It continues, “It is assumed in the following tables that the Indian population at the time of the first census in 1872 is the sum of the Hindu and Mohamedan populations as recorded in the census of that year. There is little objection to assuming that all the Hindus were Indian but it is not so true to assume that all the Mohamedans were Indian. There was an Arakanese Muslim community settled so long in Akyab District that it had for all intents and purposes to be regarded as an indigenous race.

Still from video shows Rohingya being forced to work on the Bangladesh-Burma border fence in 2010 (The Arakan Project) On 8th Dec 2012, Nasakas from sentry camp of Kyar Gaung Taung village tract are renovating a road between Yekey Chaung Kwarsone and Kyar Gaung Taung using Rohingyas, force labours including 32 under 18 year old boys from Kyaw Gaung Taung.

Source  The Indian Express: External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid’s maiden visit to Myanmar is proving to be a subtle balancing act that seeks to deliver a clear message to the ruling military regime that regardless of the glowing welcome pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi got in New Delhi last month, India will press ahead with engaging Naypyitaw’s government of the day.