The Stateless Rohingya Blog

By Avax News April 20, 2014 Rohingya refugees unload fish from a boat in the Shamalapur Rohingya refugee settlement in Chittagong district. (Photo by Getty Images/Stringer)  People push a boat to land in the Shamalapur Rohingya refugee settlement in Chittagong district. (Photo by Getty Images/Stringer)  60 year old Mukluhammad, 25 year old Zahad Hossain, and 45 year old Dilchar build a roof on their new home in the Shamalapur Rohingya refugee settlement in Chittagong district. (Photo by Getty Images/Stringer)  Rajama sits in the doorway of her home in the Shamalapur Rohingya refugee settlement in Chittagong district, Bangladesh. She fled to Bangladesh from the Dhuachopara village in the Rachidhong district of Myanmar. The Chakma people came during prayer time in a giant mob and started burning houses and burning people alive. (Photo by Getty Images/Stringer)  32 year old Mahada Khatum repairs a fishing net outside her home in the Sham...

No clean drinking water for Rohingyas in IDP camps  in Pauktaw. They have to rely on muddy water as seen in the pic. By M.S. Anwar April 20, 2014  No clean drinking water for Rohingyas in IDP camps in Pauktaw. They have to rely on muddy water as seen in the picture for their daily usgae. Pauktaw, Arakan- Internally displaced Rohingyas in Pauktaw camps have been facing acute drinking water crisis for a month. Consequently, IDP at the camps are infected by various kinds of spreadable diseases. “About 4036 internally displaced people in the camps of Annauk-Raing village, Pauktaw township, are facing severe drinking water crisis. This is summer and extremely hot. They have no clean and sanitized drinking water. The crisis became worse after the expulsion of INGOs and aid workers last month. They have to drink dirty and muddy water. Therefore, Diarrhea, Jaundice, Hepathitis C, Dehydration and other kinds of diseases are widespread amongst the people in the c...

By Emanuel Stoakes VICE News April 18, 2014 It’s been an abysmal year so far for  Myanmar ’s heavily-persecuted Rohingya ethnic minority. In mid-January, an alleged massacre of up to 40 people near the town of Maungdaw in the country’s western Rakhine state shook the community. Then the government of Myanmar — formerly Burma — officially denied the report, despite evidence to the contrary. In February, one of the largest providers of essential medical support in the country, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), was expelled from Rakhine after stating that it had treated 22 victims of the massacre-that-wasn’t. Consequently, there were 150 preventable deaths — 20 of those from women in labor — and almost 750,000 people “deprived of most medical services,” according to estimates  cited by the New York Times  in mid-March. The government, which operates from Naypyidaw, Myanmar’s capital city, attempted to justify the expulsion by charging that MSF had shown “bi...

The European Rohingya Council (ERC), a Netherlands-based NGO, has requested the people and government of Bangladesh to play a key role in finding out a ‘just and lasting’ solution to the longstanding Rohingya problem in the interest of Bangladesh and ‘persecuted’ Rohingya people.  The organisation requested Bangladesh government to continue sheltering Rohingya refugees on humanitarian grounds until a congenial atmosphere is created for their safe return to their homeland. “Please help us, save us. We want peace and we want to go back to our homeland,” Media and Information Secretary of ERC Mohamed Ibrahim told reporters at a press conference at the Dhaka Reporters Unity (DRU). He appreciated government’s initiatives to resolve the crisis and said Rohingya refugees would get rid of sufferings if Bangladesh takes serious steps with its neighbors.  “We’re grateful to the people and government of Bangladesh for sheltering a large number of our people for a long time o...

A Scene of Kyauktaw Jetty (Photo: Narinjara) By Shafiee April 19, 2014 Rvisiontv.com Kyauktaw, Arakan state- A 9-year-old Rohingya child was falsely accused of stoning a Rakhine bus on pilgrimage to Mahamuni Buddha temple in Kyauktaw township at 7AM on 18th April 2014. Rakhine extremists extorted Kyat 0.25 million from his parents to resolve the case. “Around 7AM yesterday (i.e. on 18th April 2014), a group of Rakhine pilgrims on a bus was passing by a Rohingya village called PaikThay Auksu Ywa Thit (Poktoli, Zailla Fara). They were coming from Sittwe for pilgrimage to Mahamuni Temple in Kyauktaw township. As they were passing by, they suddenly started shouting out. They accused a 9-year-old Rohingya child (playing with his other two younger brothers by the village) of stoning their bus and breaking its glass. The child and his brothers affirmed that he didn’t stone the bus. So, we think they (the Rakhines on the bus) might deliberately did the scene to creat...

Samantha Power, the United State’s ambassador to the United Nations, speaks during an U.N. Security Council emergency meeting, in this April 13, 2014 photo, at United Nations headquarters. (AP) By Reuters April 17, 2014 UNITED NATIONS: U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power on Thursday urged the Myanmar government to intervene in Rakhine State to stop violence between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims and ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid. At least 237 have been killed in religious violence in Myanmar since June 2012 and more than 140,000 displaced, many of them stateless Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State, one of Myanmar's poorest regions that is home to 1 million Rohingya. U.N. officials have warned that the violence poses a serious threat to the country's dramatic economic and political reforms as it emerges from a half century of military rule. "We continue to support Burma's reforms, but are greatly concerned...

By   Religion & Ethics News Weekly April 19, 2014 LUCKY SEVERSON , correspondent: Violence in Myanmar, also known as Burma. Rohingya Muslims being burned out of their villages and driven out of their country by mobs of Buddhists, which sometimes include monks. PHIL ROBERTSON : The police stood aside, the army stood aside. SEVERSON : Phil Robertson is with the Asia division of Human Rights Watch. ROBERTSON  (Deputy Director, Asia Division, Human Rights Watch): Entire areas were burned down. I mean we had satellite photographs before and after showing the damage—that people were being shot and killed, people being disappeared. We uncovered mass graves from that period of time. You know, it was a slaughter. KO AUNG : They get out like 4,000, 5,000 people, and then they surrounded the village; they attack the Muslim. SEVERSON : Ko Aung, a made-up name, is a Rohingya refugee who still has family in Myanmar, so he is afraid to be identified. ...