The Stateless Rohingya Blog

By The Daily Star August 27, 2014 A five-member Myanmar delegation arrives here today for talks over issues concerning Bangladesh, including repatriation of Rohingyas, stopping Yaba smuggling, establishing a border liaison office to fast track dispute resolution, and holding regular security dialogues. The delegation, headed by Deputy Foreign Minister Thant Kyaw and accompanied by two officials from the embassy in Dhaka, is likely to raise allegations of armed insurgents in yellow fatigues operating in the neighbouring country from Bangladesh, stated sources. Foreign Secretary Shahidul Haque will lead the 10-member Bangladesh side at the foreign secretary-level 8th Foreign Office Consultation (FOC) on August 31, informed diplomatic sources. The delegation will afterwards call on Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali in the afternoon. It will also go on a visit to Sylhet tomorrow. Talks will also centre around human trafficking and security, economic issues inclu...

By MYARF  Rvision TV August 28, 2014 Buthidaung, Arakan State: The Myanmar Military arbitrarily arrested and severely tortured an innocent Rohingya at Paya-pyin-aung-pyaa’ village in Buthidaung Township for Ransom, say the reliable sources.Buthidaung The military arrested the Rohingya man last Friday night upon a false complaint against him by the village administrator who is Rakhine extremist named Maung Chan Thar. “Noor Ali (son of) U Islam (of age 25) is a local of Paya-pyin-aung-pyaa village in Buthidaung Township. The village administrator, Maung Chan Thar, arbitrarily accused Noor Ali of abusing him (the administrator) on August 22. Then, he beat him up. Even yet, on August 24, the village administrator complaint to the military of Battalion 263 (based in Nyaung Chaung village) that Noor Ali had abused him. Around 10:00PM of the same day, the military raided Noor Ali’s house and arrested him. He was detained and severely in the military detention. Then, the milit...

Rohingya Muslims pass time near their shelter at a refugee camp outside Sittwe, on June 4, 2014. Over 140,000 people, mostly Rohingya, have been living in sprawling, squalid displacement camps in Rakhine following two bouts of violence in 2012. REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun    By  Thin Lei Win Thomson Reuters August 27, 2014 There was a time when ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and stateless Rohingya Muslims in western Myanmar lived and worked together. They were once neighbours, albeit uneasy ones, sharing a tense but relatively stable existence. Then in June 2012, religious clashes between the two groups drove them apart and forced 140,000 people - mostly Rohingya - from their homes. When I first met the displaced Rohingya in May 2013 in makeshift camps outside the Rakhine capital Sittwe, I thought their displacement would be temporary, the conflict somehow eventually resolved. But when I went again two months ago, I was struck by how these camps – home to two-thi...

Photos created by kalle.bergbom By Wa Lone Myanmar Times August 25, 2014,  Two years after inter-communal violence first broke out in Rakhine State more than 310,000 people are still in need of humanitarian assistance there, says the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Pierre Péron, public information and advocacy officer at UNOCHA, said those in need included both Muslim and ethnic Rakhine residents. The number of international humanitarian staff in Rakhine State decreased sharply after attacks on UN and NGO facilities in March following accusations that they favoured Muslims. Most of the 300-plus staff from NGOs and INGOs who were temporarily relocated following the attacks have returned to Sittwe. But Médecins Sans Frontières-Holland, which previously had more than 500 staff in Rakhine, has not been able to resume its activities since they were suspended by the government in February, despite being invited to do so last ...

Special Adviser for Myanmar Vijay Nambiar. UN Photo/Paulo Filgueiras By UN News August 25, 2014 The United Nations Special Adviser for Myanmar today wrapped up a visit to the country during which he visited Rakhine state to see first-hand the progress made to provide aid to local communities, as well as actions being taken to address underlying causes of recent violence. This was the eighth visit to Myanmar in the past year for Vijay Nambiar, who took part as an observer at a meeting on national reconciliation between the Government and ethnic armed groups – the first of its kind held in the country. “On behalf of the Secretary-General, Mr. Nambiar called on all involved to take a leap of faith and to set aside all narrow agendas in the common interest of peace and a unified Myanmar,” UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric. Several waves of clashes between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims, the first of which occurred in June 2012, have affected hundreds...

By MYARF & M.S. Anwar 1:00AM (Myanmar Time), Monday, August 25, 2014 Maungdaw, Arakan State ׀   Rvisiontv.com The Myanmar Border Guard Police (BGP) opened fire at a Rohingya farmer in southern Maungdaw last Saturday night as they failed to arrest two other bypassing Rohingyas for ransom, hence causing the poor man’s death, say the locals of Maungdaw. The victim is identified to be U Abdul Hoaque (son of) U Mohammed Jalil and a father of two children. He hailed from Zaydi Pyin hamlet of Kyauk Pandu village tract, southern Maungdaw Abdul Hoque (Age 35) was deliberately killed by Myanmar’s Border Guard Police “U Abdul Hoque, a farmer, owned few acres of agricultural lands. It was around 9:30PM on August 23 that he was going to another part of the village to hire some farmers so as to cultivate paddy on his lands the next day. There were two more people, unknown to him, bypassing him and along the village street at the same time. The Border Guard Police (BGP) ca...

By Fakhruddin Ahmed The Daily Star August 25, 2014   ROHINGYA crisis has been weighing on the world's conscience for decades.  The UN Human Rights Council lists Myanmar's 800, 000 Rohingya Muslims among the world's most persecuted minorities.  Residents of Myanmar for over 600 years, Rohingyas have been stripped of their Myanmar citizenship.    Oppression and expulsion have been repeatedly perpetrated on them by Myanmar's Buddhist majority for centuries.  An estimated 300,000 Rohingyas languish in Bangladeshi and Thai refugee camps. Rohingya villages have been cordoned off, and many Rohungyas have been confined to concentration camps.  Humanitarian agencies such as Doctors without Borders have been barred from entering and treating patients in those camps. Rohingyas are perishing while the world looks away. Rohingya is an Indo-European Rohingya language; the words Rohingya means a resident of the state of Arakan.  Myanmar ...