The Stateless Rohingya Blog

Two displaced boys in Rakhine state play in a river. Daily life is still a struggle for communities like theirs and some people risk their lives at sea in their search for safety and stability.© UNHCR/S.Kelly UNHCR (press release) November 1, 2013 YANGON, Myanmar, November 1 (UNHCR) – The UN refugee agency has received worrying reports that more people are setting out to sea on smugglers' boats from the Bay of Bengal in search of a better life free from persecution. "This could signal the start of the annual sailing season – a deadly time when thousands of desperate people from Myanmar's Rakhine state risk their lives on rickety boats to find safety and stability elsewhere," a UNHCR spokesman said Friday. According to UNHCR's sources, more than 1,500 people boarded boats in northern Rakhine state and headed into the Bay of Bengal over the course of four days last week. "There have been reports of passengers drowning off the coast of R...

MYARF Report  |  Written by M.S. Anwar October 30, 2013 rvisiontv.com Maung Daw, Arakan:   A t around 12:15AM on 30 th  October 2013,  some unknown people torched  the market of Bawli Bazaar (Kyein Chaung), northern Maung Daw. More than four hundred shops belonged to Muslim Rohingyas were set ablaze. A local of Kyein Chaung reported the whole account of the blaze of the shops as follow. “At around 12:15AM, the fire started from the roof of an electronic accessories shop at the north-eastern corner of the bawli bazaar market located nearby Kyein-Chaung monastery and Rakhine neighborhoods. More than four hundred shops belonged to Muslim Rohingyas were set ablaze, whereas more than eighty shops turned into ashes. Rohingya shop-owners (at the market) lost more than Kyat 1,500 millions worth of goods and other stuffs as the consequence of the blaze.” “The fire started from the roof, not from within the electronic shop. Some Rakhines had earlier b...

KPN October 29, 2013 Maungdaw, Arakan State:  Surveillance police officer hijacked a Rohingya in front of public from village market on September 27, said Hashim (not real name) from Myoma Khayoungdan village, Maungdaw.  Surveillance police officer U Toe Toe from Maungdaw police station arrested Anwer - a shopkeeper from Myoma Khayoungdan village market – with so called arrested warrant of 2012 for involvement of riot, said Hashim. The surveillance police officer asked Anwer to follow to police station for investigation, but the police officer kept him at his home not in the Maungdaw police station, said an aide of police not to mention his name. The police officer asked Anwer to pay 500000 kyats for release, otherwise he will send Anwer to police station for further investigation where he will be tortured, said the aide. When relative of Anwer visited to Maungdaw police station, they didn’t find Anwer in the custody and onduty officer said no case was...

A group of six foreign ministers and OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu will visit Myanmar.  World Bulletin  October 29, 2013 A group of six foreign ministers and  OIC  Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu will visit Myanmar in a bid to take up the violence targeting Muslims residing in this country in two weeks. Ihsanoglu told AA following a special session held at UN Security Council that they will visit Myanmar to make an emphasis on  Rohingya Muslims ’ right of citizenship in their own country. Ihsanoglu said  Rohingya Muslims  were not regarded as the citizens of Myanmar (Burma) with a decision in 1982 and the second basic problem was related to their right to live.  OIC  Secretary General also said that he has been in contact with US President Barack Obama, EU High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton regarding the Myanmar issue since the first day he came into...

Bangladesh border guards push back Rohingya Muslims as they try to cross the Naf into Bangladesh in Teknaf. photo 2012  KPN October 28, 2013  Maungdaw, Arakan State: Burmese border police- Hluntin- arrested 31 Malaysia bound voyagers and more than 10 people died while the voyagers’ boat crashed and sank after attacking rock in the Naf river mouth –Bay of Bengal- near Shilkhali (Kyauk Chaung) on October 26, at about 10:00pm, said Eliyas ( not real name) from Maungdaw south.  A local boat tried to transfer more than 150 people to a mother boat which anchored on the Bay of Bengal, crashed and sank at the Naf river mouth while the boat was returning to the Burma coast for missing the mother boat. The mother boat is collecting voyagers from northern Arakan –Maungdaw, Buthidaung and Rathedaung – and Bangladesh with their agents. The agents mostly preferred Maungdaw south for transferring voyagers to mother boat as the Burmese border police open the door for Mal...

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: bbc_complaints_website@bbc.co.uk Date: 7 October 2013 22:53 Subject: BBC Complaints - Case number CAS-2274826-2NBV1N To: XXX Dear Ms XXX Reference CAS-2274826-2NBV1N Thank you for getting in touch and please accept our sincerest apologies for our delay in responding to your concerns about the edition of ‘Beyond Belief’ broadcast on 19th August. The BBC takes all complaints seriously and so we passed them on to producer Liz Leonard who said: “Whilst the programme did refer to the Burmese Rohingyas, they were not its focus. Its purpose was to examine Buddhism and non-violence, using the example of what is happening in Myanmar. Until the very end of the first half, the discussion in the opening part of the programme was solely about whether violence is permitted in Buddhism generally. I would not agree that the discussion on the violence in the second half was ‘racist’ or ‘Islamophobic’ against Rohingyas. ...

FILE - Ethnic Rohingya refugees from Burma wave as they are transported by a wooden boat to a temporary shelter in Krueng Raya in Aceh Besar. Steve Herman  Voice of America October 28, 2013 BANGKOK — Activists in Southeast Asia say thousands of people are fleeing Bangladesh and Burma by sea, resuming a seasonal migration that has seen many head south in recent years. Nearly all are attempting to illegally enter Malaysia via Thailand. Monitors along the Burma-Bangladesh border estimate that 17,000 people have already left the area since August, mostly on big boats. The information comes from the non-governmental organization, the Arakan Project. Chris Lewa is the director of the research-based humanitarian group concerned with the plight of the stateless Rohingya, a minority Muslim ethnic group in the region. “Just in the last week or so we have nearly 4,000 people who are on the move. We are particularly concerned that this season, I would say from no...