The Stateless Rohingya Blog

File photo shows Rohingya Muslims in an Internally Displaced Persons camp. An Iranian parliamentary delegation will set off for Myanmar on Sunday to assess the situation of the Rohingya Muslims and meet with the Southeast Asian country’s officials. “The representatives of Iran’s Foreign Ministry, Imam Khomeini Relief Committee and the Iranian Red Crescent Society will accompany the lawmakers in this visit,” Deputy Chairman of the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee Mansour Haqiqatpour said on Saturday. Earlier this month, Iran's 24-ton consignment of humanitarian aid to ethnic Rohingya Muslims arrived in Myanmar.

Rohingya people perennially leave their homes and families in Burma and Bangladesh where they face extreme discrimination and are denied citizenship. (Photo: Reuters) By   SAMANTHA MICHAELS / THE IRRAWADDY RANGOON–Thousands of people have fled from Burma’s restive Arakan State and neighboring Bangladesh in the first week of this month alone, the UN refugee agency reported, warning that the plight of displaced persons in the region continues to grow more severe. More than 2,000 people left the region on smugglers’ boats in the first week of the year, most likely to other countries in Southeast Asia, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a news briefing on Friday in Geneva.

Sourc  UNHCR January 11, 2013 This is a summary of what was said by UNHCR spokesperson Adrian Edwards – to whom quoted text may be attributed – at the press briefing, on 11 January 2013, at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. Growing numbers of people are risking their lives on smugglers' boats in the Bay of Bengal following the recent violence in Myanmar's Rakhine state and as frustration mounts over the lack of imminent solutions to their plight.

Rohingya minority children look out through a window of a bus after they were rescued by Thai authorities in Songkhla province, southern Thailand on Friday, Jan. 11, 2013. Nearly 700 boat people from Myanmar's beleaguered Rohingya minority were rescued from alleged human traffickers in two separate raids near Thailand’s southern border, Thai authorities said Friday. (AP Photo/Sumeth Panpetch) Thai authorities said Friday that about 700 people from Myanmar's beleaguered Rohingya minority who had entered Thailand illegally were found in two separate raids in the country's south and that they would be sent back to Myanmar. Police and government officials found 307 Rohingya asylum seekers during a search Friday at a warehouse in Sadao district in Songkhla province, police Maj. Col. Thanusin Duangkaewngam said. On Thursday, nearly 400 Rohingya were found in a raid in the same district.

Fears grow of US human trafficking downgrade Authorities have pledged to look after the 704 Rohingya migrants rounded up in two raids. The promise comes amid growing concerns that Thailand could face a downgrade on a US human trafficking watch list and risk sanctions by the US. Immigration officers and police yesterday found a second group of 307 Rohingya migrants including more than a dozen children in a warehouse on the border with Malaysia.

Nowhere to go: Burmese refugees in Delhi. Photo: S. Subramanium Source The Hindu:  January 11, 2013 Refugees from Myanmar refuse to return to the country citing violence and discrimination National League of Democracy chairperson Aung San Suu Kyi’s return to active politics in May last year after over two decades of incarceration had raised the hopes of the hundreds of Burmese refugees in India. They had also rejoiced during her six-day visit to the Capital last November. Yet the refugees, especially the Rohingya Muslims, are not willing to go back to their home country citing continuing violence against them and would instead prefer to obtain refugee status in India.

                                          Anti-Rohingya rally kutupalong,Ukhiya photo 2010 Teknaf, Bangladesh: A group of locals including Member Mohamed Ali of Upazila Phorishat (UP) – village admin member- are protesting against the INGOs who are working in the Nayapara camp, said a schoolteacher from the Nayapara camp. “ They protested against the INGOs because some local staffs were expelled from their jobs from INGOs on January 8. But, INGOs are trying to recruit some refugees to replace against the local posts.”