Ethnic cleansing of Rohingyas

[Matirpola]

So sad, there are more than 50 muslim countries why cant they take thses people and rehahilitate them.

We should stop discussing humanitarian issues in terms of religion.

If a massive earthquake struck Bhutan (God forbid), the entire world should come forward to offer help not only Buddhist countries!!


By the way we have taken more than 500,000 refugees. I don't think a poor country like us can support anymore!

 

[Tamilnadu]

We should stop discussing humanitarian issues in terms of religion.

If a massive earthquake struck Bhutan (God forbid), the entire world should come forward to offer help not only Buddhist countries!!

The humanitarian issue we are facing is because of the religion,dont you think.if these people are rehabilitated in muslims countries this wont happend to then again the future ,but they are moved to non muslim cointries there is every chance they might have to face a similar crisis in future....you are true everyone should work together,all can contribute for their rehabilitation.

 

[Matirpola]

The humanitarian issue we are facing is because of the religion,dont you think.

No I don't think so.

There are other Muslim groups, like Kaman, that have been recognized as minorities and granted citizenship. They are fully Muslims - but look Mongoloid like Burmese people.

It's more about race than religion.

 

[Tamilnadu]

No I don't think so.

There are other Muslim groups, like Kaman, that have been recognized as minorities and granted citizenship. They are fully Muslims - but look Mongoloid like Burmese people.

It's more about race than religion.

So what best can be done then to help them.

 

[Matirpola]

So what best can be done then to help them.

Sanction by UN, or at least by US + China + India.

OIC (an organization as useless as SAARC) could try as well - but I don't think Burma cares because they are used to being economically and politically isolated from the most of the world.

 

[Species]

Rape, torture and child murder alleged in new UN report into Rakhine State

By Ben Westcott, CNN
Updated 6:58 PM ET, Sat February 4, 2017

(CNN)Myanmar's security forces are waging a brutal campaign of murder, rape and torture in Rakhine State, a new UN report released on Friday has alleged.

Eyewitness statements in the report detail "unprecedented" levels of violence, include burning people alive, raping girls as young as 11 and cutting children's throats.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said in a statement the report indicates "very likely commission of crimes against humanity."

Aye Aye Soe, a spokeswoman for the Myanmar government, said the government has seen the report and is "very concerned about the allegations"

"The Investigation Commission headed by the Vice President will look into it. If evidences of the violations are found we will definitely take action on them," she told CNN via email.
Soe said she would respond to CNN with more details at a later date.

A United Nations team in Bangladesh interviewed about 220 Rohingya Muslims who had fled Rakhine State after the outbreak of violence for the report.

There have been numerous allegations of human rights abuses in Rakhine State in recent months, but CNN has been unable to verify them, due to the Myanmar government's tight travel restrictions.

The United Nations estimates about 69,000 people have fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh since the violence began.

Mother burned to death 'before my eyes'

Out of the 220 people interviewed, the report said 65% had witnessed killings, while just under half had personally had a family member murdered.

A woman from Kyet Yoe Pyin village alleged her 5-year-old daughter was killed when she tried to stop attackers from raping her mother.

"She was screaming, one of the men took out a long knife and killed her by slitting her throat," the report says.

A young girl told interviewers soldiers killed her father, then raped her mother before locking her inside the family's house and burning it down. "All this happened before my eyes," she said.

More than half of the 101 women interviewed by the UN reported either rape or sexual assault before fleeing Rakhine State -- the youngest was 11 years old.

Sixty-four percent of those interviewed reporting burning or destruction of property while 37% said their own property had been stolen or looted.

There were also allegations of torture, including beating and sexual humiliation.

Fleeting glimpses emerge

Up until now only fleeting glimpses of the situation inside the Rakhine State have emerged.

A Rohingya refugee who lost his 16-month-old son Mohammed fleeing Myanmar told CNN they had left after the military attacked their village, burning his grandfather and grandmother alive.

"We couldn't stay in our house. We fled and went into hiding in the jungle," he said.

The Myanmar government has repeatedly denied claims of human rights abuses, saying they are carrying out "clearance operations" against suspects who attacked Myanmar border guards in October 2016.

Myanmar's government is still limiting access for aid agencies and journalists to the area.
Former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, who is part of a Myanmar-government commission into the Rakhine State, has said he is "deeply concerned" about the violence.

Rohingya Muslims, a stateless minority recognized by neither Myanmar nor neighboring Bangladesh, have expressed their disappointment with State Councilor Aung San Suu Kyi, who they'd hoped would help them after decades of discrimination.

CNN's Sandi Sidhu contributed to this report

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/03/asia/rohingya-united-nations-report/

 

[Species]

Hundreds likely killed in Myanmar’s Rohingya crackdown: UN
By
AFP
Myanmar's military crackdown on Rohingya Muslims has likely killed hundreds of people, with children slaughtered and women gang-raped in a campaign that may amount to ethnic cleansing, the UN said Friday.

Soldiers have fired on civilians from helicopters while bands of troops have gone door-to-door in northern Rakhine state, terrorizing Rohingya and torching their homes, according to a report from the United Nations human rights office.

It was "very likely" that crimes against humanity have been committed in Myanmar, said the report, echoing previous UN accusations.

Rights office researchers interviewed 204 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, where nearly 70,000 people have fled during the four-month crisis.

The Rohingya Muslims are loathed by many among Myanmar's Buddhist majority and have faced persecution for years.

Violence has surged since the October 9 attacks on border guard posts that Myanmar and independent experts say was carried out by foreign-backed militants.

Myanmar's military launched "area clearance operations" the next day, which the UN report said "have likely resulted in several hundred deaths".

Myanmar's government spokesman Zaw Htay called the allegations "extremely serious" and said an existing Rohingya-focused commission led by Vice President U Myint Swe would investigate the UN claims.

- 'Unprecedented' violence -
While anti-Rohingya unrest has flared in the past, notably in 2012, a UN investigator who travelled to Bangladesh, Ilona Alexander, told reporters in Geneva that the current level of violence was "unprecedented".

"An eight-month-old baby was reportedly killed while his mother was gang-raped by five security officers," the rights office said in a statement, citing witnesses.

Three children aged six or younger were "slaughtered with knives" and a five-year-old girl's throat was cut after she tried to protect her mother from rape, according to the report.

The UN said the alleged atrocities in Rakhine had been committed by the security services and armed civilians collaborating with the military and police.

But the most gruesome accusations, including rape and other sexual violence, were made against the army, UN investigators said.

"What kind of hatred could make a man stab a baby crying out for his mother’s milk," UN rights chief Zeid bin Ra’ad Zeid al-Hussein said in a statement.

A full 47 percent of those interviewed by the UN said they had a family member who had been killed in the operation, while 43 percent reported being raped.

"Now is the worst it has ever been," the report quoted on unnamed witness as saying.

- Ethnic cleansing? -
Rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva that "the kind of systematic and widespread violations that we have documented could be described as ethnic cleansing", but noted that was not a legally defined offence provable in court.

Myanmar refuses to recognise the Rohingya as one of the country's ethnic minorities, instead describing them as Bengalis -- or illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh -- even though many have lived in Myanmar for generations.

Witnesses told the UN they had been taunted while they were beaten and mocked over the failure of "Allah" to help.

Myanmar's probe led by the vice president has denied that the security forces had carried out a genocidal campaign against the Rohingya.

The government, led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, has said the allegations are invented and has resisted mounting international pressure to protect the minority.

But the UN's Zeid, who has previously urged Myanmar to act, hit back again on Friday demanding that impunity for such serious crimes had to stop.

"The Government of Myanmar must immediately halt these grave human rights violations against its own people, instead of continuing to deny they have occurred," he said.

- See more at: http://www.mizzima.com/news-domestic/hundreds-likely-killed-myanmar’s-rohingya-crackdown-un#sthash.4MfM99uL.dpuf

 

[Species]

Myanmar commanders should be punished for rape of Rohingya: Human Rights Watch
By Simon Lewis | YANGON

Human Rights Watch on Monday called for Myanmar to punish army and police commanders if they allowed troops to rape and sexually assault women and girls of the Rohingya Muslim minority.

The New York-based campaign group said it had documented rape, gang rape and other sexual violence against girls as young as 13 in interviews with some of the 69,000 Rohingya Muslims who have fled to Bangladesh since Myanmar security forces responded to attacks on border posts four months ago.

"The sexual violence did not appear to be random or opportunistic, but part of a coordinated and systematic attack against Rohingya, in part because of their ethnicity and religion," a Human Rights Watch (HRW) news release said.

Reuters was unable to contact a Myanmar government spokesman to respond to the allegations.

An estimated 1.1 million Rohingya live in the western state of Rakhine, but have their movements and access to services restricted. Rohingyas are barred from citizenship in Myanmar, where many call them "Bengalis" to suggest they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

Independent journalists and observers have been barred from visiting the army's operation zone in northern Rakhine since the Oct. 9 attacks that killed nine border police.

The government has so far dismissed most claims that soldiers raped, beat, killed and arbitrarily detained civilians while burning down villages, insisting instead that a lawful operation is underway against a group of armed Rohingya insurgents.

The HRW report comes just days after United Nations investigators said Myanmar's security forces had "very likely" committed crimes against humanity, posing a dilemma for de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner took charge of most civilian affairs in April after a historic transition from full military rule, but soldiers retain a quarter of seats in parliament and control ministries related to security.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein said on Friday that Suu Kyi had promised to investigate the U.N.'s allegations.

HRW said it had gathered evidence on 28 separate sexual assaults, including interviews with nine women who said they were raped or gang raped at gunpoint by security forces during the army's so-called "clearance operations" in northern Rakhine.

The women and other witnesses said the perpetrators were Myanmar army troops or border police, who they identified by their uniforms, kerchiefs, arm bands and patches, HRW said.

“These horrific attacks on Rohingya women and girls by security forces add a new and brutal chapter to the Burmese military’s long and sickening history of sexual violence against women,” said HRW senior emergencies researcher Priyanka Motaparthy.

“Military and police commanders should be held responsible for these crimes if they did not do everything in their power to stop them or punish those involved.”

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-idUSKBN15L0E4

 

[Species]

Myanmar crackdown has allegedly killed 1,000 Rohingya: UN officials

More than 1,000 Rohingya Muslims have allegedly been killed in Myanmar amid the army's intensified crackdown on members of the minority group, two senior United Nations officials have disclosed the horrifying fact.

The officials, dealing with Rohingya refugees fleeing violence in Myanmar, said on Wednesday that the death toll from the carnage had been far greater than previously reported.

The officials said the world had yet to fully grasp the dimensions of the human tragedy that had been unfolding in Rakhine, a Muslim-dominated state in northwestern Myanmar, which has seen tens of thousands flee to neighboring Bangladesh as a result of the army crackdown.

"The talk until now has been of hundreds of deaths. This is probably an underestimation, we could be looking at thousands," said one of the officials, citing information his agency had gathered from refugees in Bangladesh camps over the past four months.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the weight of the testimony gathered from the refugees could verify conclusions that the death toll had already exceeded 1,000.

Officials in Myanmar’s government insist that fewer than 100 have been killed since the army began an operation against residents of Rakhine in October. The operation was launched after the military claimed that Rohingya militants had attacked police border posts and killed several officers.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) earlier indicated that mass killings and gang rape had happened in Rakhine in recent months, saying that could have amounted to crimes against humanity.

The OHCHR cited evidence from refugees as well as satellite imagery showing destruction of villages.

A second UN official, also operating for an agency in Bangladesh, said on Wednesday that the OHCHR report on the situation, which was based on interviews with 220 people, was only "the tip of the iceberg."

A separate, internal UN analysis, which has reportedly used a larger sample size, has revealed that more than 350 people from a single village have either been killed or remain unaccounted for after the army crackdown.

Myanmar's presidential spokesman, Zaw Htay, said on Wednesday that the death of more than a thousand, as claimed by UN officials, should be checked on the ground.

"Their number is much greater than our figure,” said the official, without elaborating.

Myanmar denies citizenship to more than 1.1 million Rohingya living in the country, with Buddhist officials still insisting that members of the community all illegally crossed the border from Bangladesh over the past decades.

Rights groups and governments have repeatedly challenged the claim as historic documents show that Muslims have had historic roots in Myanmar.

The UN says about 69,000 people have escaped from Rakhine into Bangladesh since the violence began last year.

http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2017/02/08/509683/Myanmar-crackdown-Rohingya

 

[Species]

Burma: Rohingya children 'beheaded and burned alive' as refugees continue to flood into Bangladesh to escape violence

Rohingya children have been beheaded and civilians burned alive, according to witness testimony amid claims that Burma's military and paramilitary forces are committing "genocide" or a "pogrom" against the Muslim minority in the country’s western Rakhine state.

Around 60,000 refugees are believed to have fled over the country’s western border into Bangladesh in a just a week following a clampdown on Rohingya militants.

The British Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, called for the violence to end, saying the treatment of the Rohingya was “besmirching the reputation of Burma”, also known as Myanmar, and appealing to Aung San Suu Kyi to act.

Turkey's President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has gone much further, accusing Burma's forces of genocide and saying those who turned a blind eye to events were complicit.

Observers believe the number of displaced people is likely to increase. The Burmese military said 400 militants had been killed in clashes with their forces.

Pope Francis defends right of Burma's Rohingya Muslims to 'live their faith'
Civilians who escaped gave horrific accounts of violence and destruction by Burmese soldiers and other armed groups.

A man named as Abdul Rahman, 41, said he had survived a five-hour attack on Chut Pyin village.

He told Fortifiy Rights, a charity working in the area, that a group of Rohingya men had been rounded up and detained in a bamboo hut, which was then set on fire.

"My brother was killed, [Burmese soldiers] burned him with the group,” he said.

“We found [my other family members] in the fields. They had marks on their bodies from bullets and some had cuts.

"My two nephews, their heads were off. One was six years old and the other was nine years old. My sister-in-law was shot with a gun.”

Another man from the same village, named as Sultan Ahmed, 27, told the charity: “Some people were beheaded, and many were cut. We were in the house hiding when [armed residents from a neighbouring village] were beheading people.

"When we saw that, we just ran out the back of the house.”

Survivors from other villages in the region also described seeing people being beheaded or having their throats cut.

“We can’t stress enough the urgency of the situation,” said Matthew Smith, head of Fortify Rights.

“The Myanmar authorities are failing to protect civilians and save lives. International pressure is critically needed.”

Satellite imagery released by Human Rights Watch (HRW) showed 700 buildings burned down in another Rohingya village, Chein Khar Li.

“This new satellite imagery shows the total destruction of a Muslim village, and prompts serious concerns that the level of devastation in northern Rakhine State may be far worse than originally thought,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director for HRW.

“Yet this is only one of 17 sites that we’ve located where burnings have taken place. Independent monitors are needed on the ground to urgently uncover what’s going on.”

The Burmese government has denied access to the affected areas to journalists and observers.

On Saturday, Mr Johnson, appealed to Aung San Suu Kyi, the former dissident who won the Nobel Peace Prize and is now the country's State Counsellor, to intervene.

“Aung Sang Suu Kyi is rightly regarded as one of the most inspiring figures of our age but the treatment of the Rohingya is alas besmirching the reputation of Burma. She faces huge challenges in modernising her country," he said.

“I hope she can now use all her remarkable qualities to unite her country, to stop the violence and to end the prejudice that afflicts both Muslims and other communities in Rakhine.

“It is vital that she receives the support of the Burmese military, and that her attempts at peacemaking are not frustrated. She and all in Burma will have our full support in this.”

Ms Suu Kyi has been silent on the extreme violence reported within her country and has faced mounting criticism from observers.

The Tatmadaw, Burma's military, and paramilitary groups began the operation when the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (Arsa) attacked security outposts in Rakhine on 25 August.

Arsa claim to fight for Rohingya people but have also been accused of preventing civilians from leaving the conflict zones.

Francis Wade, the author of a book about violence against the Rohingya, said on Twitter: “What's happening in Myanmar can be dressed up as counter-insurgency campaign, but in design and purpose, it's a pogrom and has popular support.”

There are around a million Muslim Rohingya people in Burma but they have faced years of mistreatment at the hands of the government, which does not recognise them at citizens. They also face widespread discrimination from Buddhist majority population and are often referred to as Bengalis, alluding to a common myth that they are illegal immigrants.

Earlier, Mr Erdogan said there was a “genocide” occurring in Rakhine.

"Those who close their eyes to this genocide perpetuated under the cover of democracy are its collaborators," Mr Erdogan said.

Turkey has offered to assist Bangladesh financially if it accommodated more refugees, but the south Asian country, which is already home to 400,000 displaced Rohingya, has been reluctant to allow more in.

See more at - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...urned-alive-refugees-bangladesh-a7926521.html

 

[Keel]

Why no UN peace corp intervention？