(also see:
Current Affairs Summary )

• 2018 Jan. 1 - Monday - New Year's Day
  -------------

• 2018 Jan. 2 - Tuesday

  • 10 Conflicts to Watch in 2018:
      #3. The Rohingya Crisis:
        Myanmar and Bangladesh
        - The International Crisis Group (ICG)

• 2018 Jan. 3 - Wednesday

  • Disease Outbreaks Plague Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh
    - VOA - Voice of America
    (U.S. propaganda radio)
    
    

• 2018 Jan. 4 - Thursday
  ----------

• 2018 Jan. 5 - Friday

  • Rohingya camp expecting 50,000 babies.
      Almost 50,000 babies are expected to be born at the Cox's Bazar Rohingya refugee camp in 2018.
        - Deutsche Presse Agentur
          / News.com.au (Australia) (same topic at:
                  Australia Broadcasting Corp. )

  • 90% Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh under-nourished: UN
      A new UN study says that over 90 percent of the recent Rohingya refugee arrivals in Bangladesh are under-nourished -- despite receiving emergency food assistance.
        - The Indian Express (India)

  • Trafficked to India, Rohingya
    look for place to call home.
        - Thomson Reuters Foundation / ReliefWeb.int

  • Rohingya insurgents launch ambush
    in Myanmar's Rakhine,
    three hurt - army
        - Reuters / Channel NewsAsia (Singapore)
    (also at:
        - Reuters / U.S. News
        - Reuters / Times of India )
    • Rohingya Muslim insurgents ambushed a vehicle in western Myanmar's Rakhine State on Friday, wounding three people, including two members of the security forces, the military said.
    • "A vehicle ... was attacked by 20 insurgents from the mountain using homemade mines and small arms," the government said. The military said there were about 10 attackers.
    • Since their August raids, the shadowy, poorly armed ARSA has launched few (if any) attacks.
    • There was no immediate claim of responsibility by ARSA.
    (update at:
        - Reuters News Service )

• 2018 Jan. 6 - Saturday

  • Insurgents attack Myanmar soldiers in Rakhine, injuring 6.
      Officials said... Myanmar soldiers were injured in an insurgent attack [by Rohingya rebels of ARSA] in northern Rakhine state (where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh, since the army launched a crackdown in August following militant attacks on police posts).
        - Associated Press / Fox News

• 2018 Jan. 7 - Sunday

  • Rohingya rebels say
    'no option' but to fight
    after ambush on Myanmar army
        - The Guardian (U.K.) /
          Reuters & Agence France-Presse
    • On Sunday the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) claimed responsibility for an ambush on Myanmar security forces that left several wounded, in northern Rakhine state (northern Maungdaw township) -- the first attack in weeks in a region gutted by violence.
    • Friday morning, the army reported that “about 10” Rohingya militants ambushed a car with handmade mines and gunfire, wounding two officers and their driver.
    • Rakhine was plunged into turmoil last August when a series of insurgent raids [by ARSA] (which left at least a dozen security forces dead, and 50 ARSA militants) prompted a military backlash so brutal the United Nations says it likely amounts to ethnic cleansing of the Muslim Rohingya minority.
    • Since their August raids, the shadowy, poorly armed ARSA has launched few (if any) attacks.
    • The militants claimed responsibility for the ambush in a rare post from an official Twitter account on Sunday. The statement did not provide any more details about the attack.
    • "ARSA has … no other option but to combat ‘Burmese state-sponsored terrorism’ against the Rohingya population, for the purpose of defending, salvaging and protecting the Rohingya community," ARSA said, in statement "signed" by its leader, Ata Ullah.
    (same topic at:
        - Reuters News Service
        - BBC News
        - New York Times
        - Kyodo News / Bangkok Post )

• 2018 Jan. 8 - Monday

  • Bangladesh court upholds ban on Rohingya marriage
      A Bangladesh court upheld a government ruling banning marriage between Bangladeshi citizens and refugees from Myanmar's Rohingya minority.
      Marriages with Rohingya were banned, in 2014, to try to prevent hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees, living in Bangladesh, from seeking a back door to citizenship.
        - Agence France-Presse
            / Channel NewsAsia (Singapore) (Singapore) (same topic at:
        - BBC News
        - Daily Star (Bangladesh) )

• 2018 Jan. 9 - Tuesday

  • Amid troop build-up in
    Rohingya's home state,
    UN appeals to Myanmar
    for peaceful solution
        - UN News (United Nations)
      Major fighting in Myanmar’s troubled Rakhine state has so far been avoided, following clashes between armed separatists and national security forces who are increasing troop numbers there, a top UN humanitarian official, there, said on Wednesday. ...

  • Rohingya children trapped in 'appalling' conditions in Myanmar's Rakhine state – UNICEF
      While the eyes of the world are on Myanmar's northern Rakhine and [refugee camps in] Cox's Bazaar, Bangladesh, more than 60,000 Rohingya children remain nearly forgotten, trapped in appalling camps in central Rakhine, where their shelters teeter on stilts above garbage and excrement, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) reported Tuesday.
        - United Nations News Centre
    • “Partners have identified about 20 children separated from their families during the violence but estimate the total number to be at least 100 – most of whom are in parts of northern Rakhine state that they still cannot access,”
    • Marixie Mercado, UNICEF spokesperson:
      • Prior to 25 August (when the most recent outbreak of violence occurred), UNICEF had been treating 4,800 children suffering from severe acute malnutrition; these children are no longer receiving this life-saving treatment.
      • “All 12 of the outpatient therapeutic treatment centres run by our partners are closed -- because they were either looted, destroyed or staff can't access them.”
      • “Rohingya children need a political solution to the issue of legal identity and citizenship. In the interim they need to be recognized first and foremost as children,"
      • the Convention on the Rights of the Child guarantees rights to health, education and opportunities to learn and grow to all children, irrespective of their ethnicity or status or the circumstances in which they find themselves.
      • the Annan Commission [a report led by the former UN Secretary-General on the situation in Rakhine state] has provided a roadmap for a durable political solution so all children's rights can be protected in a sustainable, open and fair manner in the longer term.

  • Reuters journalists covering Rohingya crisis
    to appear in court in Myanmar.
      The two reporters had been investigating violence in Rakhine, from where hundreds of thousands of Muslim refugees have fled.
        - Reuters / The Guardian (U.K.)
    • Two Reuters journalists detained in Myanmar are due to appear in court on Wednesday, when prosecutors could request that charges be filed against them over an accusation they broke the country’s Official Secrets Act.
    • The reporters were detained on 12 December after they had been invited to meet police officers over dinner.
    • The reporters have told relatives that:
      • ...they were arrested almost immediately after being handed some documents at a restaurant by two policemen they had not met before.
    • Myanmar's ministry of information:
      • ...has cited the police as saying the reporters were “arrested for possessing important and secret government documents related to Rakhine state and security forces”.
      • ...says they “illegally acquired information with the intention to share it with foreign media”
      • ...says they face charges under the British colonial-era Official Secrets Act (maximum prison sentence: 14 years).
    • Government officials from some of the world’s major nations, including the United States, Britain and Canada, as well as top United Nations officials, have called for their release.
    • Former US president Bill Clinton, in a Twitter post on Monday, said:
      • “A free press is critical to a free society – the detention of journalists anywhere is unacceptable. ”
      • “The Reuters journalists being held in Myanmar should be released immediately”
      • (Clinton was US president in the 1990s when the US pressed Myanmar’s military rulers to release democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi from years of house arrest; she is now Myanmar's civilian leader, and has made no comment on the reporters' arrest).
    • Amnesty International, in a statement, calling for the immediate release of the reporters, and for freedom of speech to be respected:
      • “These arrests have not happened in a vacuum -- but come as authorities are increasingly restricting independent media,”
      • “Journalists and media outlets -- in particular those who report on sensitive topics -- are living with the constant fear of harassment, intimidation or arrest.  This clampdown on freedom of speech must end.”
    

  • Press freedom fears grow
    in Suu Kyi’s Myanmar
    as Reuters journalists
    Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo
    face trial over secrecy laws.
        - Associated Press /
            South China Morning Post

    ---

• 2018 Jan. 10 - Wednesday

  SPECIAL NOTE:
  Wednesday, January 10, 2018:

  MYANMAR MILITARY ADMITS TO
  A SINGLE MASS-MURDER

  Myanmar's military, today, January 10, 2018, admitted for the first time that some of its soldiers had participated in a mass-murder during their recent "clearance operations" against Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state.

  These 10 Rohingya villagers were photographed by a Rakhine Buddhist villager shortly before they were ordered into a mass grave, where they were shot by Myanmar soliders, and some stabbed to death by Rakhine Buddhist villagers. © 2017 SkyNews

  The military reported that a few soldiers confessed to shooting 10 captive Rohingya men (whom it called "Bengali terrorists"), in the Rakhine community of Inn Din, on September 1-2, 2017.

  (Two reporters investigating this story were recently arrested by Myanmar authorities -- and, today, charged with stealing state secrets.)

  Until today, Myanmar's military had long denied any wrongdoing in the widespread violence they initiated in August (as "clearance operations" against "terrorists") -- which resulted in the killing of hundreds (independent analysts say "thousands") of Myanmar's Rohingya people -- and driving most of the one-million Rohingya out of Myanmar -- in what the United Nations, the U.S. State Department and other international authorities have called "ethnic cleansing."

  Yesterday (Jan. 9), two Reuters News Service reporters were criminally charged by Myanmar authorities, apparently for their efforts to uncover the truth about a mass grave found at Inn Din in December.

  The charges against the reporters sparked outrage among international leaders and media, and triggered increased media interest in the Inn Din massacre story.

  On the following day, today (Jan.10), the Myanmar military acknowledged that the mass grave at Inn Din contained the bodies of ten Rohingya (whom they called "Bengali terrorists," implying that the Rohingya are illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh).

  A military official acknowledged that Rakhine villagers and the Myanmar government soliders had murdered the men -- shooting them as they stood in the mass grave -- in revenge for the Rohingya mens' alleged attacking of Buddhist Rakhines and threatening the Rakhine village.

  Ironically, the Myanmar general who issued this finding, was the same one who led the official "investigation," by the Myanmar military, into the widespread allegations of atrocitiies by the military in their "clearance operations" -- an "investigation" which, in mid-November, resulted in the general's blanket exoneration of the Myanmar army, denying all wrongdoing (at the same time that the general who led the attacks was being suddenly and mysteriously replaced and relocated ).

  Each of these various details, and more, are to be found in the stories linked in this summary, above, and (in most cases) in one or more of the articles cited below, for today (Jan.10). However, unfortunately, no one article provides all of these details -- so corroboration of this summary may require reading multiple articles. Hence, the current articles are listed separately, below. ~RCN editor

  These 10 Rohingya villagers were photographed by a Rakhine Buddhist villager shortly before they were ordered into a mass grave, where they were shot by Myanmar soliders, and some stabbed to death by Rakhine Buddhist villagers. © 2017 SkyNews

  ---

  • Myanmar military admits to murder of 10 Rohingya Muslims
      In rare admission, army said action would be taken against soldiers and villagers who stabbed and shot captive men
        - Reuters / The Guardian (U.K.)

    (more details at:

    • Myanmar's military admits to role in killing of 10 Rohingya Muslims found in mass grave.
        Myanmar's military has acknowledged that its security forces and Buddhist villagers killed 10 Rohingya Muslims whose bodies were found in a mass grave in a village in troubled Rakhine state.
          - Associated Press /
            Australian Broadcasting Corp.

    • In a first, Burmese military admits
      that soldiers killed Rohingya
      found in mass grave
          - Washington Post

    • Myanmar army admits killings
          - BBC
      • Myanmar's army has admitted for the first time its soldiers were involved in the killing of Rohingya Muslims in recent violence in Rakhine state.

      • These 10 Rohingya villagers were photographed by a Rakhine Buddhist villager shortly before they were ordered into a mass grave, where they were shot by Myanmar soliders, and some stabbed to death by Rakhine Buddhist villagers. © 2017 SkyNews

        It said an inquiry had found that four members of the security forces were involved in the killing of 10 people in Inn Din village near Maungdaw.
      • The report said the four had helped villagers carry out a revenge attack on what it called "Bengali terrorists".
      • In November, the military exonerated itself of blame in the recent violence, and flat out denied killing any Rohingya people, burning villages, raping women and girls, or stealing possessions... despite all the evidence of atrocities in Rakhine.
      • UN human rights investigator Yanghee Lee had been due to visit Myanmar this month but was banned in December after the government accused her of not being "impartial and objective".
      • Lee said the decision to block her suggested "something terribly awful" was happening in Rakhine.

    • Myanmar security forces responsible
      for killing of 10 Muslims,
      admits Army chief.
        Military makes first admission of wrongdoing since launching 'clearance operation' against ethnic minority that has displaced 650,000 people.
          - The Independent (U.K.)

    • Myanmar: Soldiers, villagers
      killed Rohingya in mass grave
          - Associated Press / Fox News

    • Myanmar Military’s mass grave admission
      exposes extrajudicial killings of Rohingya.
          - Amnesty International
      • “This grisly admission is a sharp departure from the army’s policy of blanket denial of any wrongdoing.”
      • “However, it is only the tip of the iceberg and warrants serious independent investigation into what other atrocities were committed amid the ethnic cleansing campaign that has forced out more than 655,000 Rohingya from Rakhine State since last August.”
      ~James Gomez, Regional Director for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, Amnesty International.

    ---

  • Myanmar Prosecutors Seek
    State Secrets Charges
    Against Detained Reuters Journalists.
        - TIME Magazine
    (same topic at:
        - Reuters News Service
          (whose reporters were charged)
        - New York Times
        - The Guardian (U.K)
            (and press agencies)
        - Associated Press
            / Washington Post
        - Associated Press
            / ABC News
        - Associated Press
            / Fox News - Business )

  • EU raises concerns
    with Myanmar's Suu Kyi
    over detention of Reuters reporters.
        - Reuters /
            Toronto Globe & Mail (Canada)

    ---

  • Rakhine ambush could mark new phase for Rohingya insurgency.
        - CNN (Cable News Network)

    ---

• 2018 Jan. 11 - Thursday

  • Myanmar admission that
    soldiers killed Rohingya
    'an important step': U.S. envoy
        - Reuters News Service

• 2018 Jan. 12 - Friday
  ------------------

• 2018 Jan. 13 - Saturday

  • These 10 Rohingya villagers were photographed by a Rakhine Buddhist villager shortly before they were ordered into a mass grave, where they were shot by Myanmar soliders, and some stabbed to death by Rakhine Buddhist villagers. © 2017 SkyNews

    Rohingya insurgents say
    10 found in Myanmar grave
    were 'innocent civilians.'
      Myanmar's military said earlier this week its soldiers had killed 10 captured Muslim 'terrorists.'
        - CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corp.)

• 2018 Jan. 14 - Sunday
  
  -------------
  

• 2018 Jan. 15 - Monday

  • Crisis continues for Rohingya Muslims
    languishing in refugee camp.
        - CBS News

  • Myanmar says camps for Rohingya
    will be ready next week.
        - Associated Press / ABC News

• 2018 Jan. 16 - Tuesday

  • China accused of self-interest by
    blocking moves to stop violent persecution
    of minority ethnic group
    in neighbouring Myanmar.
      Inside the Rohingya refugee camps, traumatised exiles ask why the world won’t call the humanitarian crisis ‘genocide’
        - Post Magazine -
    - South China Morning Post

  • MPs criticise UK over Myanmar's treatment of Rohingya.
        - The Guardian (U.K.)

  • Burma and Bangladesh agree to
    return hundreds of thousands of Rohingya
    within two years,
    despite warnings over camps
        - London Daily Telegraph (U.K.)
    (same topic at:
    - NPR (National Public Radio)
    - Australian Broadcasting Corp.
    - Channel NewsAsia (Singapore)
    - The Daily Star (Bangladesh)
    - The Guardian (U.K.) )

  • Bangladesh: Returning Rohingya to Myanmar
    illegal and premature.
        - Amnesty International
    • “With memories of rape, killing and torture still fresh in the minds of Rohingya refugees, plans for their return to Myanmar are alarmingly premature. The timeframe announced today was made without any consultation with the Rohingya themselves, and offers no assurances that people will be able to return voluntarily.
    • “The most recent campaign of violence against the Rohingya was preceded by years of entrenched discrimination and abuse and for most of the 650,000 refugees who fled Myanmar last year, returning so soon will be a terrifying prospect.
    • "The obfuscation and denials of the Myanmar authorities give no reason to hope that the rights of returning Rohingya would be protected, or that the reasons for their original flight no longer exist.
    • “The Rohingya have an absolute right to return to and reside in Myanmar, but there must be no rush to return people to a system of apartheid. Any forcible returns would be a violation of international law.
    • “Rohingya refugees are entitled to continue to seek asylum in Bangladesh and the government should focus on exploring all options to ensure continued international protection for this community.
    • "Returns cannot be safe or dignified until there is a fundamental change in Myanmar, including accountability for crimes against humanity and an end to the apartheid system.”
    ~ James Gomez, Regional Director for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, Amnesty International

  • Rohingya Refugees Must Be
    Informed, Consulted
    on Returns to Myanmar: U.N.
     
        - Reuters / U.S. News

  • Myanmar army enjoys popularity surge
    amid Rohingya crackdown
      An institution once despised, it has seen its popularity surge -- alongside a rise in nationalism that has accompanied their crackdown on Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state, in western Myanmar, leaving thousands dead and more than 650,000 displaced.
      While most of the outside world is appalled by what U.N. and U.S. officials have called "ethnic cleansing" -- which has grown into Asia's worst refugee crisis in decades -- many in Myanmar support it. They see the Rohingya as illegal migrants from Bangladesh, and a threat to national security. They bristle at international condemnation of rights abuses.
        - Associated Press / Fox News

  • What elephant attacks tell us
    about the state of
    the Rohingya crisis in Bangladesh.
        - Public Radio International

• 2018 Jan. 17 - Wednesday

  • UN chief and rights groups
    raise concerns over Rohingya deal
        - The Guardian (U.K.)
      First group of refugees to be sent back to Myanmar next week but critics say details are unclear.
    • Bangladesh state media reported on Wednesday that the first batch of Rohingya would be sent back to Myanmar next week.
    • Rights groups said it remained unclear whether refugees would be forced to return against their will.
    • Under Tuesday’s agreement, the refugees will be moved from five camps near the Bangladesh border to two reception centres on the Myanmar side. From there they will be taken to temporary accommodation at a 124-acre camp near Maungdaw township.
    • More than 100,000 people are already living in camps for internally displaced people inside Myanmar -- many in conditions UN agencies have described as "appalling."
    • Myanmar’s minister for social welfare, Win Myat Aye:
      • Those who have been moved out of the [earlier Myanmar] camps have been resettled in places “where they will have job opportunities.”
    • UN secretary general, António Guterres:
      • The repatriation deal finalised on Tuesday also needs to clarify whether Rohingya will be permitted to return to their homes, or forced to live in specially built camps.
      • “The worst would be to move these people from camps in Bangladesh to camps in Myanmar.”
      • The deal included no role for the UN refugee agency, making it “[difficult to] guarantee that the operation abides by international standards”.
    • Save the Children Australia chief executive, Paul Ronalds:
      • Tuesday’s agreement was “still very sketchy” and did not address the conditions the Rohingya would face on their return.
      • “If the Rohingya are to return to Myanmar, it is critical for them to feel assured that their protection will be assured and they will not be subject to the oppression and violence they lived under for decades.”
      • The “minimum conditions” for any deal needed to include the provision of basic rights to the Rohingya such as:
        • citizenship,
        • freedom of movement
        • unimpeded access to jobs.
    • Amnesty International:
      • Plans to return the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh are “alarmingly premature”.
      • “The Rohingya have an absolute right to return to and reside in Myanmar but there must be no rush to return people to a system of apartheid. Any forcible returns would be a violation of international law,”
        ~James Gomez, a regional director for A.I..
    • The top UN envoy for human rights in Myanmar, Yanghee Lee (recently banned from Myanmar), said Wednesday:
      • She will continue her work from Thailand and Cox’s Bazaar in southern Bangladesh, where most Rohingya are living in aid camps.
      • “By not giving me access to Myanmar and by refusing to cooperate with the mandate, my task is made that much more difficult -- but I will continue to obtain first-hand accounts from victims and witnesses of human rights violations by all means possible."

• 2018 Jan. 18 - Thursday

  • Myanmar finalizes
    Rohingya repatriation preparations
    as doubts mount
        - Reuters News Service

• 2018 Jan. 19 - Friday

  • Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh
    protest repatriation move.
        - Times of India
    • Hundreds of Rohingya refugees staged protests in Bangladesh against plans to send them back to Myanmar, where a military crackdown last year sparked a mass exodus.
    • The refugees chanted slogans and held banners demanding citizenship and guarantees of security before they return to their home state of Rakhine in Myanmar.
    • The protest came ahead of a visit by UN special rapporteur Yanghee Lee to the camps in southeastern Bangladesh where around a million of the Muslim minority are now living.
    • Mohibullah, a refugee and former teacher:
      "We want...
      • "safe zones in Arakan (Rakhine) before repatriation;
      • "a UN peacekeeping force in Arakan;
      • "fundamental rights and citizenship;
      • "life guarantees."
      (same topic at:
          - Reuters /
            Toronto Globe & Mail (Canada) )

  • More Rohingya flee to Bangladesh
    despite repatriation deal.
      More than 100 Rohingya have entered Bangladesh in the past two days, according to Mohammed Mikaruzzaman, a top official in Bangladesh's Ukhiya sub-district, where the refugees are living in sprawling camps.
        - Associated Press / ABC News
    (same topic, less info, at:
        - Associated Press / Fox News )

  • Retired Myanmar general:
    'Myanmar Buddhists do not hate Muslims;
      majority of Rohingyas remain in the country.'
        - Channel NewsAsia (Singapore)

• 2018 Jan. 20 - Saturday
  ---------------

• 2018 Jan. 21 - Sunday

  • The Refugees Who Don't Want To Go Home ... Yet
        - National Public Radio

• 2018 Jan. 22 - Monday

  • Rohingya Muslims' repatriation to Myanmar postponed.
      Delay comes amid fears that members of abused minority will be coerced into leaving Bangladesh.
        - The Guardian (U.K.)
    (more details at:
        - Australian Broadcasting Corp.
        - Agence France-Presse
          / Channel NewsAsia (Singapore) )

• 2018 Jan. 23 - Tuesday

  • Conditions in Myanmar
    not yet suitable
    for Rohingya refugees
    to return safely
    – UN agency
        - United Nations News Centre
    (same topic at:
        - Associated Press / U.S. News )
    Two months after Myanmar and Bangladesh agreed on a plan for the refugees’ voluntary return to their homes, the United Nations warned on Tuesday that:
    • The necessary safeguards for Rohingyas to return to Myanmar are absent.
    • There are ongoing restrictions on access for:
      • aid agencies,
      • the media,
      • other independent observers;
    • Also vital is the full implementation of the recommendations of the Rakhine Advisory Commission [a panel led by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan], including the call for:
      • peace and security for all communities in Myanmar’s Rakhine state,
      • inter-communal dialogue,
      • freedom of movement,
      • access to livelihoods,
      • achieving solutions for the legal and citizenship status of Muslim communities.

  • 'We will not go':
    Rohingya fear repatriation
    to Myanmar
        - CNN (Cable News Network)
    • Myanmar and Bangladesh appear to be at odds over when exactly repatriation will start. Myanmar said Wednesday that it had been ready to accept refugees on Tuesday, and wanted to know why Bangladesh had delayed it.
    • On Saturday, some refugees organized small protests in the camps, holding signs with a list of demands they want guaranteed before they will consider returning.
    • The demands of the refugees include assurances of an end to the violence in Myanmar, and guarantees on their safety and security. They also demand official recognition of the Rohingya as an ethnicity in Myanmar, which was denied in the 1982 Burma Citizenship Law
    • The protests were timed for the visit of Yanghee Lee, the UN's Special Rapporteur on Human Rights for Myanmar, who is currently on a visit to Cox's Bazar in an effort to try to fulfill her assignment to Myanmar after she was refused access to the country.
    • UN refugee agency (UNHCR) Head of Operations in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, Kevin Allen:
      • "Any return has to be voluntary, it has to occur in conditions of safety and dignity, and it has to be sustainable. ... To ensure that this happens, there is a lot of work that needs to occur."
      • UNHCR was not involved in forming the repatriation deal between the two countries, and it is now "critical" that the two sides bring the agency into the conversation to ensure a safe and proper process.

• 2018 Jan. 24 - Wednesday

  • Refugees more than once,
    Rohingya fear return to Myanmar
      "They have been killing Muslims for a long time now. ... We run and come to Bangladesh. Then we go back. We come back to Bangladesh, and go back again. They continue the killings."
    ~two-time refugee Mohammad Younus.
        - Associated Press / ABC News

  • U.N. calls on Myanmar
    for unhindered access
    to Rohingya camps
        - Reuters News Service
    • UNICEF (United Nations Childrens' Fund) Deputy Executive Director Justin Forsyth :
      • “Until the safety and wellbeing of any child returning to Myanmar can be guaranteed, talk of repatriation is premature.”
    • UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) office:
      • “There are continued restrictions on access for aid agencies, the media and other independent observers [in Myanmar].”
      • Calls on Myanmar “to allow the necessary unhindered humanitarian access in Rakhine State and create conditions for a genuine and lasting solution.”

  • U.S. Adviser Rebukes Aung San Suu Kyi:
    ‘I Don’t Want to Be Part of a Whitewash’
        - New York Times
    (same topic, other details, at:
        - CNBC
        - BBC News
        - Los Angeles Times
        - Australian Broadcasting Corp.
    Also see Jan.25-26 followups:
    
    • editorial by Amb. Richardson:
      "Three steps Myanmar should take
        to turn the Rohingya disaster around"
          - Washington Post
    • VOA Interview:
      "Former Envoy Richardson
        on Rohingya Crisis"
          - VOA (Voice of America -
            U.S. propaganda radio)
    • "Myanmar pushes back after U.S. diplomat
        leaves Rohingya advisory panel."
          - CBC News (Canada)

  • US criticizes Russia
    for arming Myanmar
    amid Rohingya crisis
        - AP / Fox News
      The United States criticized Russia on Wednesday for approving sales of fighter jets to Myanmar's military despite its deadly operations against Rohingya Muslims -- warning that Moscow's actions could make the situation worse.
      Russian defense officials used a visit to Myanmar, this week, to announce a deal to deliver six Su-30 fighter jets to the country's military. The Russian officials said Myanmar is also interested in buying Russian navy ships and land weapons. ...

• 2018 Jan. 25 - Thursday

  • How Aung San Suu Kyi sees
    the Rohingya crisis
    (NOTE: This article provides little insight into her views, but recounts in detail her actions, and inactions, on this issue over several years. ~RH)
        - BBC

  • Myanmar pushes back
    after U.S. diplomat
    leaves Rohingya advisory panel.
    Bill Richardson says he quit panel;
    Myanmar says he was dropped.
        - CBC News (Canada)

  • Three steps Myanmar should take
    to turn the Rohingya disaster around
      (Opinion by Amb. Bill Richardson)
        - Washington Post

• 2018 Jan. 26 - Friday

  • VOA Interview:
    Former Envoy Richardson
    on Rohingya Crisis
        - VOA (Voice of America -
          U.S. propaganda radio)

  • Rohingya say rights guarantees
    key to Myanmar return
      Refugees in Bangladesh camps say there can be no returns without questions of citizenship, rights and restitution being addressed first.
        - UNHCR - United Nations

  • Philippines President tells Suu Kyi
    rights activists are 'just a noisy bunch'
        - The Indian Express
    (more details at:
        - Philippine Daily Inquirer )

• 2018 Jan. 27 - Saturday

  • Rare Disease Finds Fertile Ground
    In Rohingya Refugee Camps.
      Diphtheria Is Rare These Days
      — But Not In The
      Rohingya Refugee Camps
      In Bangladesh.
        - NPR (National Public Radio)

    

  • Nightmares of Rohingya kids
      Traumatised refugee children,
      witnessing murder, rape and torture,
      fear return to Myanmar.
        - The Daily Star (Bangladesh)

  • For Myanmar's Army,
    Ethnic Bloodletting Is Key
    to Power and Riches.
    A quick history of the
    Burmese Army: The Tatmadaw
        - New York Times

  • Safe but Stuck — Life Inside
    a Rohingya Refugee Camp
        - The Irrawaddy (Myanmar/Burma)

  • Indonesian president in Bangladesh
    to discuss Rohingya
      (Indonesia is Southeast Asia's largest country,
        and the world's largest mainly-Muslim nation)
        - Associated Press
          / Fox News

• 2018 Jan. 28 - Sunday

  • Rohingya who fled ethnic cleansing
    face effects of trauma.
    (VIDEO and TEXT, including victim interviews)
        - PBS News Hour

• 2018 Jan. 29 - Monday
  ---------------

• 2018 Jan. 30 - Tuesday
  ---------------

• 2018 Jan. 31 - Wednesday

  • A Burma-Bangladesh deal
    to repatriate Rohingya refugees
    leads to fears of new dangers
        - Washington Post

  • Displaced Rohingya children
    left in limbo
    by refugee crisis.
        - The Guardian (U.K.)

  ---

• 2018 Feb. 1 - Thursday

  • AP finds Rohingya mass graves
    in Myanmar
    in latest evidence of
    what U.N. says
    amounts to 'genocide.'
      Myanmar has cut off access to Gu Dar Pyin, so it's unclear just how many people died in the attack, August 27th, but satellite images obtained by the Associated Press from DigitalGlobe -- along with dated cellphone video of homes reduced to ash -- reveal a village that has been wiped out.
      Community leaders in the refugee camps have compiled a list of 75 dead so far, and villagers estimate the toll could be as high as 400, based on testimony from relatives and the bodies they've seen in the graves and strewn about the area.
      Almost every villager interviewed by the AP saw three large mass graves at Gu Dar Pyin's northern entrance, near the main road, where witnesses say soldiers herded and killed most of the Rohingya. A handful of witnesses confirmed two other big graves near a hillside cemetery, not too far away from a school where more than 100 soldiers were stationed after the massacre. Villagers also saw other, smaller graves scattered around the village.
      In the videos of the graves obtained by the AP, dating to 13 days after the killing began, blue-green puddles of acid sludge surround corpses without heads and torsos that jut into the air. Skeletal hands seem to claw at the ground.
      Survivors said that the soldiers carefully planned the Aug. 27 attack, and then deliberately tried to hide what they had done. They came to the slaughter armed not only with rifles, knives, rocket launchers and grenades, but also with shovels to dig pits and acid to burn away faces and hands so that the bodies could not be identified. [August 25th,] two days before the attack, villagers say, soldiers were seen buying 12 large containers of acid at a nearby village's market.
      The killing began around noon, when more than 200 soldiers swept into Gu Dar Pyin from the direction of a Buddhist village to the south, firing their weapons.
      Buddhist villagers then moved through Gu Dar Pyin in a sort of mopping-up operation, using knives to cut the throats of the injured, survivors said, and working with soldiers to throw small children and the elderly into the fires.
      "People were screaming, crying, pleading for their lives, but the soldiers just shot continuously," said Mohammad Rayes, 23, a schoolteacher who climbed a tree and watched.
      "There were so many bodies in so many different places," said Mohammad Lalmia, 20, a farmer whose family owned a pond that became the largest of the mass graves. "They couldn't hide all the death."
      A large number of the survivors carry scars from bullet wounds, including a 3-year-old boy and his grandmother.
        - Associated Press / CBS News
    (same topic, more details, at:
        - Associated Press official site
        - Associated Press / ABC News
        - Associated Press /
          Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
        - Los Angeles Times
        - SBS News (Australia)
        - London Daily Telegraph (U.K.)
        - NPR (National Public Radio) audio )

  • Myanmar government denies
    AP report of Rohingya mass graves
        - Associated Press
          / ABC News

  • The Rohingya Suffer Real Horrors;
    So Why Are Some of Their Stories Untrue?
        - New York Times

  • United Nations official says
    Rohingya crisis has
    ‘hallmarks of genocide'
      The U.N. special envoy on human rights in Myanmar says the military’s violent operations against Rohingya Muslims bear “the hallmarks of a genocide.”
      Yanghee Lee told reporters Thursday in Seoul, where she is based, that she couldn’t make a definitive declaration about genocide until a credible international tribunal or court had weighed the evidence but “we are seeing signs and it is building up to that.”
      Responding to a question about an Associated Press report that details a massacre and at least five mass graves in the Myanmar village of Gu Dar Pyin, Lee said that while she didn’t have specific details on the village, “you can see it’s a pattern” that has emerged in the Rohingya persecution.
        - Associated Press
          / USA Today

  • Petrol bomb hits Suu Kyi's house
    in Myanmar; no injuries.
        - AP / Fox News

  • Rohingya refugees on the
    Bangladesh-Myanmar border
    – in pictures
        - The Guardian (U.K.)

  • Photos: The Plight of the Rohingya
        - U.S. News

• 2018 Feb. 2 - Friday

  • Rohingya crisis hits trade with Myanmar
        - The Daily Star (Bangladesh)

  • Bangladesh Tightens Security
    in Rohingya Camps
        - The Irrawaddy (Myanmar)

  • Ahead of monsoon season,
    UN supports Bangladesh's efforts
    to protect Rohingya camps
    from flooding.
        - United Nations
    (same topic at: UNHCR )

• 2018 Feb. 3 - Saturday
  --------------------

• 2018 Feb. 4 - Sunday

  • China using Rohingya crisis
    to influence Myanmar:
    ~Japan envoy
      Envoy says China thwarts Japan's efforts at peacemaking in Myanmar, as U.S. sanctions force Myanmar to turn toward China. Prominent former Indian diplomats, and others, concurr.
        - Hindustan Times

• 2018 Feb. 5 - Monday

  • UN says Rohingya crisis
    could endanger regional security
        - Associated Press / ABC News
    (also at:
        - Associated Press / Fox News
        - Associated Press / Hindustan Times (India)
        - Agence France-Presse /
          Straits Times (Singapore) )
    • The U.N.'s human rights chief, Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, warned Monday that Myanmar's persecution of the Rohingya Muslim minority has the potential to spark regional conflict.
    • He reiterated... that acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing may have occurred in the campaign of violence against Rohingya that sparked an exodus of nearly 700,000 people to neighboring Bangladesh.
    • Zeid, in a speech to a rights conference at Indonesia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs:
      • "Myanmar faces a very serious crisis with a potentially severe impact on the security of the region."
      • "It is sometimes said that today's human rights violations will become tomorrow's conflicts... If the Rohingya crisis were to spark a broader conflict based on religious identities, the ensuing disputes could be a cause for great alarm."

  • Swiss president says Rohingya return
    must be voluntary
        - Associated Press
          / Seattle Times
    (more details at: Associated Press
          / Raleigh (N.Car.) News-Observer )

• 2018 Feb. 6 - Tuesday

  • Myanmar government denies AP report
    of Rohingya mass graves
        - Associated Press (AP)

  • Myanmar Is Widening Its Crackdown
    on Reporters Covering the Rohingya Crisis
        - TIME Magazine

• 2018 Feb. 7 - Wednesday

  • Myanmar army
    ‘continuing to force Rohingya
     out of the country’
    through rape and starvation
    says Amnesty.
      The Burmese military is still pushing the Rohingya minority out of their homes through forced starvation, the fear of abduction, and the looting of their property, according to new evidence from Amnesty International.
        - London Daily Telegraph (U.K.)
        -
    • Aid agencies documented thousands of refugees crossing over the border during December and January, squeezing into the already-overcrowded refugee camp in Bangladesh.
    • Amnesty International's Interviews of new arrivals from Myanmar's Buthidaung township, in Rakhine state, revealed that most had fled their homes out of hunger, after being denied access to their rice fields and markets.
    • One of the poorest states in Burma, Rakhine was already suffering from high malnutrition rates even before the military launched a savage campaign of arson, rape and killing.
    • Others fled because girls and young women were being abducted by soldiers, fearing they would be forced into sexual slavery.
    • Some new refugees spoke of how they had been robbed of all their valuables and abused at military checkpoints even as they left their homes behind.
    • Amnesty International senior crisis advisor, Matthew Wells:
      • The extent of the ongoing attacks has laid bare why plans for organised repatriation are “woefully premature.”
      • An arms embargo, and targeted sanctions against Burma, are urgently needed to apply pressure to the military to stop the ethnic cleansing.
      • “Since the beginning of the crisis, the international community’s response to the atrocities against the Rohingya population has been weak and ineffective, failing to grasp the severity of the situation.”
    (see official statement of
      Amnesty International at:
    "Myanmar: Fresh evidence of
      ongoing ethnic cleansing,
      as military starves,
      abducts and robs Rohingya"
    (same topic at:
        - Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) in:
    "Military silently starving and abducting Rohingya,  Amnesty finds.")

    

  • Rohingya girls targeted
    by child traffickers
    at Bangladesh border crossings.
        - Australian Broadcasting Corp.

  • VIDEO:
    Rohingya Refugees Say Hunger
    Used As Weapon
        - Associated Press on YouTube

• 2018 Feb. 8 - Thursday

  • Rohingya refugees say
    government-imposed starvation
    "crueler" than killing
        - CBS News

  • A Young Rohingya Mom:
    Pregnant, Stateless, Living In Limbo
        - NPR (National Public Radio)

  • Myanmar's Rohingya Refugees
    Face Protests in Bangladesh
        - Wall Street Journal

    These 10 Rohingya villagers were photographed by a Rakhine Buddhist villager shortly before they were ordered into a mass grave, where they were shot by Myanmar soliders, and some stabbed to death by Rakhine Buddhist villagers, as the Rohingya homes were burnt to the ground. © 2017 SkyNews

  • How Myanmar forces burned, looted
    and killed in a remote village.
        - Reuters News Service
    On Sept. 2, Buddhist villagers and Myanmar troops killed 10 Rohingya men in Myanmar's restive Rakhine state. Reuters uncovered the massacre and has pieced together how it unfolded. During the reporting of this article, two Reuters journalists were arrested by Myanmar police.
    (more details at:
    Myanmar forces and Buddhist villagers torched Rohingya homes, then killed. (Reuters) )
    (same topic at: BBC )

• 2018 Feb. 9 - Friday

  

  • These journalists were jailed
    for investigating atrocities in Burma.
    This is what they found.
        - Washington Post
    
      The news agency claims the journalists uncovered evidence, including photos, that police ordered villagers to assist in the killing, dismemberment and burial of 10 Rohingya Muslims — eight men and two teenage boys — in a mass grave. Video and photos have emerged, including video of the men bound and kneeling, held by soldiers.
      The police's official account says the men attacked them, but the Reuters's reporting contradicts that claim. The reporters are being charged with stealing state secrets, which their agency says are in connection with this discovery. Myanmar has admitted the killings occured, but says they were "necessary."

  • Bound together, shot to death:
    Myanmar massacre report
    prompts calls for independent probe
        - Reuters / Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
    • Reuters report marked 1st time soldiers and paramilitary police have been implicated by testimony.
    • Most shot by military. At least two hacked to death by Buddhist villagers. Some "still making noises" while being buried.
    • On Friday, the UN described the details of the report as "alarming."
    • "This once more attests to the need for a full and thorough investigation by the authorities of all violence in Rakhine State and attacks on the various communities there" ~UN spokesperson Farhan Haq.

  • Cardinal: Rohingya Faced
    'Elements of Ethnic Cleansing'
        - Associated Press / US News
      Myanmar's Catholic cardinal says it's likely Rohingya Muslim refugees in Bangladesh won't ever go home -- citing security fears, continued discrimination and economic necessity -- adding that "the elements of ethnic cleansing" are now apparent.

  • ITV News uncovers
    Myanmar's shameful atrocities
    extend beyond the Rohingya
    with charred bodies
    in oppressed Shan State.
        - ITV News (U.K.)
      ITV has been shown evidence of another ethnic minority being persecuted in Myanmar (Burma).
      A long way from the Rohingya's attacked homeland -- Rakhine State in Myanmar -- is Shan State, a long-oppressed rebel enclave in Myanmar's northeast. Shan people also accuse the Burmese Army of rape, murder and forced relocation. ITV cameras filmed the charred remains of people torched in their villages in 2016.
      Shan state's leader, Lt. Gen. Yawd Serk, told ITV News: "The Burmese army used the same tactic they used in Rakhine state."
      Lt Gen Serk's people have essentially been in a state of civil war for years but, unlike the Rohingya, have their own standing army to defend them.

• 2018 Feb. 10 - Saturday

  • UN Security Council must halt
    disastrous march of Myanmar’s
    ethnic cleansing of Rohingya.
        - Amnesty International

  • Rohingya must be allowed
    to return to their homes,
    warns Boris Johnson.
        - London Daily Telegraph (U.K.)
    (same topic at: BBC )

  • [British foreign minister] Boris Johnson attacks 'horrendous' Rohingya conditions.
        - Sky News (U.K.)

• 2018 Feb. 11 - Sunday

  • Quarter of a Million Rohingya
    Face a Choice:
    Saudi Jail or
    a Massacre in Myanmar.
        - Ha'aretz (Israel)
      At least 250,000 of the Muslim minority are thought to live in the kingdom, often after an arduous journey through Bangladesh.
      (Also links to related articles...
    • U.S. Jewish group urge fresh Myanmar sanctions over Rohingya violence.
    • Essay: Israel must stop arming Myanmar while it commits ethnic cleansing.
    • From Aung San Suu Kyi to Arafat: How some Nobel Peace Prize winners turn to violence.)

  • [British foreign minister] Boris Johnson
    pushes Aung San Suu Kyi
    on Rohingya refugees
      Foreign secretary tells de facto Myanmar leader refugees must return under UN supervision
      “I’ve seen nothing like it in my life. Hundreds and hundreds of villages torched. It’s absolutely clear that what is needed now is some leadership, some calm leadership working with the UN agencies to get these people back home.” ~Johnson
        - The Guardian (U.K.)

  • Boris Johnson visits a
    burned out Rohingya village in Myanmar
    as he confronts Aung San Suu Kyi
    over persecution of the country's
    Muslim minority.
        - London Daily Mail (U.K.)
    • Yesterday, Foreign Secretary visited refugee camp in neighbouring Bangladesh.
    • He raised the plight of Rohingya muslim refugees during the meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi.
    • He inspected burnt-out Burma villages after the meeting.
        - (same topic at: BBC in
    "Boris Johnson 'doubts Aung San Suu Kyi grasps Rohingya suffering'" )

  • Myanmar vows action
    against security forces
    who killed Rohingya Muslim prisoners.
      'We are not denying the allegations about violations of human rights. And we are not giving blanket denials'
        - The Independent (U.K.)
    (same topic at: Reuters
        / Australian Broadcasting Corp. )

• 2018 Feb. 12 - Monday

  • Bangladesh agrees to let UN oversee
    repatriation of Rohingya refugees to Myanmar.
      Deal signed so country cannot be accused of returning anyone against their will, minister says.
        - The Independent (U.K.)

  • Myanmar minister orders Rohingya
    to leave no man's land
      A Myanmar government minister has told Rohingya refugees living in a makeshift camp on the Bangladesh border they should take up a government offer to return, warning they will face "consequences" if they stay where they are.
      The minister's message was directed at around 6,000 refugees living in Tombru, an area of no man's land between Myanmar and Bangladesh.
        - Agence France-Presse
            / Channel NewsAsia (Singapore) (Singapore)

  • Vatican thanks Bangladesh
    for welcoming Myanmar's Rohingya
        - Associated Press
          / Fox News

• 2018 Feb. 13 - Tuesday

  • U.S. urges U.N. to
    hold Myanmar military accountable
    for 'ethnic cleansing.'
        - Reuters News Service
    Tuesday, at the United Nations Security Council , the U.S. ambassador described Myanmar's denials of its ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims as “preposterous.”
      U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, called on the Council to hold Myanmar's military accountable and pressure it's civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, “to acknowledge these horrific acts that are taking place in her country.”
    U.S. Ambassador Haley, to the Security Council:
    • “Powerful forces in the Burmese government have denied the ethnic cleansing in Rakhine State,”
    • “To make sure no one contradicts their preposterous denials, they are preventing access to Rakhine to anyone or any organization that might bear witness to their atrocities, including the U.N. Security Council.”
    • “We strongly call for... immediate and unconditional release,” of of Reuters news agency reporters arrested for reporting on the massacre of Rohingya Muslims. Referring to Myanmar’s reason for detaining the journalists, Haley added, “On top of it all, they have the gall to blame the media.”
    French U.N. Ambassador Francois Delattre, to the U.N. Security Council:
    • A massacre of Rohingya Muslims reported by Reuters could “constitute crimes against humanity.”
    Myanmar has denied that ethnic cleansing has taken place.
    Russia and China -- U.N. Security Council veto powers (as are the U.S., Britain and France) -- both said on Tuesday the situation in Rakhine state was stable and under control. The two nations are likely to resist any push for action by the council.

  • Besieged Rohingya Face
    ‘Crisis Within the Crisis’:
    Deadly Floods
        - New York Times
    (also at:
        - Voice of America (U.S. propaganda radio)
    in "UN: Rohingya Refugee Crisis
    Faces New Emergency"

    ---

    

  • Myanmar’s presence downplayed
    at Thai-U.S. military exercise
        - Associated Press & Reuters
          / Japan Times

• 2018 Feb. 14 - Wednesday

  • Myanmar still not safe
    for Rohingya to return:
    ~U.N. refugee chief.
        - Agence France-Presse /
          The Independent (U.K.)
          ( also at: Japan Times )
    • UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, to a Security Council meeting, speaking by videoconference from Geneva:
      • “Let me be clear: conditions are not yet conducive to the voluntary repatriation of Rohingya refugees.”
      • “The causes of their flight have not been addressed, and we have yet to see substantive progress on addressing the exclusion and denial of rights -- that has deepened over the last decades -- rooted in their lack of citizenship.”
      • While the exodus of Rohingya from Myanmar has significantly decreased, the flow “still continues,” with some 1,500 refugees arriving in Bangladesh this month.
      • He raised alarm over the monsoon rainy season starting next month, warning that 100,000 refugees are living in flood-prone areas and must be urgently relocated, calling for international support “to avert a catastrophe.”
    • US Ambassador Nikki Haley
      (supported by Security Council members
      Britain, France & Sweeden):
      • “This council must hold the military accountable for their actions and pressure Aung San Suu Kyi to acknowledge these horrific acts are taking place in her country. No more excuses.”
    • China's Ambassador Ma Zhaoxu, supporting Myanmar’s former ruling junta...
      • Called for patience and noted that “stability and order” had been restored to Rakhine state... adding the Rohingya crisis "cannot be solved overnight."
      • Sidestepped appeals for citizenship rights for the Rohingya.
      • Recommended that Myanmar “address the root cause of poverty through development”  in Rakhine.
        [NOTE: China is the principal developer in Rakhine state, and -- apart from some people in Myanmar -- the principal beneficiary of that development, largely on confiscated Rohingya lands. ~RH]
    
    (Official U.N. news release, Feb. 13, at:
    "Causes of Rohingya refugee crisis
      originate in Myanmar;
      solutions must be found there,
      Security Council told." )

  • US says Myanmar makes life for Rohingya
    'a death sentence'
        - Associated Press / Fox News
    (same topic at: Bangkok Post (Thailand) )

  • Burma Welcomes Genocide Deniers
    to Rohingyas’ Home.
    Burma’s government won’t let the UN into Rakhine state, site of its alleged slaughter of Rohingya Muslims—but it just rolled out the red carpet there for a group of genocide deniers, a curious group of journalists—including:
    • a Canadian radio host who was arrested last year on hate speech charges;
    • a San Francisco-based musician who has warned that Rakhine is the final front in the fight against a global Islamic threat.
        - The Daily Beast (U.S. political journal)

  • Myanmar still not allowing
    Rohingya to return:
    ~UN refugee chief
        - AFP / Channel NewsAsia (Singapore)

  • Dhaka urges the EU
    to put pressure on Myanmar
        - Dhaka Tribune (Bangladesh)

• 2018 Feb. 15 - Thursday

  • Will the Rohingya Ever Return Home?
        - New York Times

    

  • How the West Can Help Fix
    the Rohingya Crisis
    ESSAY by Ambassador Bill Richardson
        - TIME Magazine
    • Donor governments and humanitarian agencies should withhold both political and financial support to the hastily planned repatriation process for refugees in Bangladesh — unless Myanmar can ensure that returns are safe, voluntary, dignified and sustainable.
    • The West should only commit development support to central and northern Rakhine State if Myanmar agrees to clear conditions and both sets and achieves benchmarks before further support is disbursed
    • Pulling out completely, however, would be counter-productive... push[ing] Myanmar to retrench further, and towards neighbors, such as China... keen for influence, but whose approaches in Rakhine could spark further violence [over] basic rights and the inequitable distribution of resources. The West must therefore find ways to continue to stay engaged -- to, at a minimum, forestall a further deterioration.
    • In the meantime, however, further punitive measures must be considered, even if they are largely symbolic. At a minimum, Western governments should impose targeted sanctions against military officials implicated in human rights abuses.
    • Other efforts, such as the pursuit of a UN Human Rights Council–mandated Commission of Inquiry or a fresh push for action through the UN Security Council, are likely to prove either ineffective or unviable, though they would nonetheless signal the international community’s concern to both Myanmar and domestic audiences.
    • Broad-based economic sanctions should remain an option, but are blunt tools that should only be used as a last resort.
    • The international community should nonetheless continue to push for efforts to establish accountability mechanisms, such as a joint Myanmar-international investigation into human rights abuses and the mass graves discovered in Rakhine thus far.
    • There is more scope for international influence and support on the Bangladesh side of the border. The West should continue to praise Bangladesh’s magnanimity in hosting hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees, though the international community should not take it for granted.
    • Bangladesh has repeatedly threatened to relocate refugees to an uninhabitable island in the Bay of Bengal and has not yet granted UNHCR a formal role in managing refugee populations or planned repatriation efforts.
    • Bangladesh and partner governments must begin to move from crisis response to a long-term strategy that recognizes that few Rohingya will soon voluntarily return to Myanmar... while continuing to ensure that basic humanitarian needs are met, particularly as the monsoon season approaches.
    • International donors should partner with Bangladesh to organize a major donor conference to provide Bangladesh with the financial and technical support required to ensure that refugees’ humanitarian and development needs are met and their rights protected. ...
    • Bangladesh will resist accepting a large and sustained Rohingya presence on its soil, so it must be provided with the resources to cope.
    • The international community must also convince Bangladesh that the best means of dampening the allure of radicalization among refugees is through social integration, providing refugees with work permits and respecting their fundamental rights, including by ensuring refugees’ participation in repatriation efforts is voluntary.
    • States in the West and those that already shelter large Rohingya populations should welcome Rohingya refugees to their own countries through a third-country resettlement process.
    • The situation could easily get worse:
      • The Rohingya that remain in Rakhine... could become refugees themselves, adding to the strain on Bangladesh and other countries.
      • Rising tension between the Myanmar government and the Buddhist Rakhine community could spark a new wave of violence that makes it even more difficult to address the root causes of conflict in Rakhine.
      • Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh could fall prey to radicalization, deepening a cycle of violence that spreads well beyond the Myanmar-Bangladesh border.
    • In the absence of far greater action from Myanmar, the international community must demonstrate the political will and moral authority needed to avert an even greater crisis.

• 2018 Feb. 16 - Friday

  • Bangladesh gives names
    to begin Rohingya repatriation.
        - Associated Press / ABC News
    Bangladesh Home Minister, A. Khan, gave a list of 8,032 Rohingya refugees to his Myanmar counterpart to begin repatriations of the Muslim minority under a November agreement between the two countries. Khan did not explain how the names had been chosen.
    • U.N. refugee chief Filippo Grandi told the Security Council, on Tuesday, that:
      • Conditions aren't right for Rohingya to voluntarily return -- because Myanmar hasn't addressed their exclusion and denial of rights.
      • Rohingya are still  fleeing Myanmar, and thousands more are expected to leave.
    • Khan said officials in Myanmar will choose 6,500 people, next Tuesday, to be sent back in an initial phase. He would not say exactly when the repatriation would start.
    (same topic at:
        - Associated Press /
            CTV News (Canada)
        - Associated Press /
            Bangkok Post (Thailand)
        - Agence France-Press (AFP) /
            Channel NewsAsia (Singapore)
    ...which reports:
    • Khan said more than one million Rohingya now live in squalid camps in Bangladesh's southeast and [the Bangladesh government in] Dhaka hopes all of them will be repatriated to Myanmar.
    • Bangladesh's refugee commissioner Abul Kalam told AFP Dhaka has already started construction of a transit camp and would start building another next week to facilitate the return of the Rohingya.
    • This week, Bangladesh's junior foreign minister said they had signed a deal to involve the United Nations in the process of returning Rohingya refugees to Myanmar, so the Bangladesh government could not be accused of sending any of the Rohingya back to Myanmar against their will. He gave few details, but said refugees would be asked to fill out repatriation forms in the presence of UN officials.
    • Rohingya refugees are still entering Bangladesh, claiming rights abuses by Buddhist mobs and the military in their native Rakhine state in Myanmar.

  • Construction Plan for
    New Police Regimental Base
    Causes Rohingya to Flee.
    
    • The border police force in northern Rakhine State’s Buthidaung township is preparing to build a new regimental base on nearly 600 acres of farmland that belonged to Rohingya residents of Ale Chaung village.
    • Ale Chaung village is a 15-minute drive from downtown Buthidaung [originally one of the main concentrations of Myanmar's Rohingya], and located near the under-construction Buthidaung-Nyaung Chaung Highway.
    • At least two police majors verified the controversial project. The officers declined to provide specific information about the project as it is being overseen by high-ranking officials.
    • Several hundred Ale Chaung residents have left their homes as they are concerned about being detained by the police in coming weeks.
    • “Homes were not set alight by police here, but villagers are frightened of them, and that’s the main reason why they fled the village,” said a Muslim civil servant.
    • Multiple police reports, since Jan. 5, indicate over 2,000 people have migrated from the Buthidaung township -- mostly from the area around Ale Chaung -- to a Rohingya refugee encampment around the Gawdu Thara shore of southern Maungdaw, in Myanmar.
        - The Irrawaddy (Myanmar)

  • Canada imposes sanctions on Myanmar general
    over Rohingya abuses
    
    Ottawa says Maj.-Gen. Maung Maung Soe is 'responsible for, or complicit in, gross violations'
        - CBC (Candian Broadcasting Corp.)

  • Thailand decorates
    Myanmar's army chief
    amid Rohingya crisis.
        - Reuters News Service

• 2018 Feb. 17 - Saturday

  • Aung San Suu Kyi 'complicit'
    in Rohingya slaughter:
    ~UN investigator.
        - Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
    
    • The United Nations investigator of human rights in Myanmar has accused Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi of “complicity” in the slaughter of Rohingya Muslims, an event which has the “hallmarks of genocide”.
    • Yanghee Lee, a leading child rights expert appointed to the UN post in 2014, said it is possible that Myanmar’s civilian leader could eventually face charges relating to genocide, or crimes against humanity, in an international tribunal.

• 2018 Feb. 18 - Sunday

  • A Bombing in Northern Myanmar
    Signals Strife Beyond the Rohingya
        - New York Times
      No one has claimed responsibility for the bombing, but such violence occasionally strikes Myanmar’s frontier region, where armed groups from a patchwork of ethnic minorities, including the Kachin, the Shan, the Ta’ang and the Wa — have battled the Myanmar military for decades.
      The military has blamed the bombing on one of a coalition of ethnic fighting forces known as the Northern Alliance.
      But ethnic rebels routinely reject such accusations. They argue that Myanmar’s military blames ethnic insurgents for instigating violence, to justify the military's brutal offensives against ethnic populations.
      Fighting in Myanmar’s borderlands is now at its worst in years.
      The Kachin Independence Army, in particular, has lost territory to the Myanmar military in intense fighting recently. An estimated 100,000 ethnic Kachin have been displaced from their homes -- some fleeing across the border into China.
      * * *
      Myanmar has suffered from some of the world’s longest-running ethnic conflicts.
      Most major combatants, like members of the Northern Alliance, however, have refused to join a peace process they claim has been rigged from the start.
      They say that persecution by the Myanmar military, which ruled the country for nearly half a century, has not ceased in ethnic areas.
      International human rights groups have, for decades, accused the military of gang-raping ethnic-minority women and forcing ethnic-minority civilians to act as human minesweepers, among other war crimes.
      * * *
      Much of Myanmar’s natural resource bounty is concentrated in areas inhabited by ethnic minorities, who make up at least one-third of the country’s population.
      * * *
      In a statement this month, Yanghee Lee, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, stressed that the global focus on the Rohingya crisis was diverting attention from serious strife in the rest of the country.
    “Representatives from different ethnic groups that I met expressed their concern that -- as the world’s attention is focused on the atrocities in Rakhine State -- potential war crimes are being committed in Shan and Kachin State without so much as a murmur of disapproval from the international community.”

    ---

  • Kites, Prayers, A Snake Show:
    Reporting From The Rohingya Camps.
      Finding The Human Stories
    In The World's Largest Refugee Camp
        - NPR (National Public Radio)

• 2018 Feb. 19 - Monday

  • Bangladesh says to meet with Myanmar
    on Rohingya trapped at border
        - Reuters News Service

• 2018 Feb. 20 - Tuesday

  • Bangladesh, Myanmar meet
    over stranded Rohingya.
        - Agence France-Presse
            / Channel NewsAsia (Singapore) (Singapore)

• 2018 Feb. 21 - Wednesday
  
  • Floating Island:
    New home for Rohingya refugees
    emerges in Bay of Bengal.
        - Reuters News Service

  • Amnesty says Rohingya crisis
    consequence of
    society "encouraged to hate."
        - Reuters News Service
    • The human rights group said in its annual report covering 159 countries that “hate-filled rhetoric” by leaders was normalising discrimination against minorities.
    • Salil Shetty, Secretary General of Amnesty:
      “We saw the ultimate consequence of a society encouraged to hate, scapegoat and fear minorities laid bare in the horrific military campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya people in Myanmar”
    • Amnesty said the international community had failed to respond robustly to “crimes against humanity and war crimes from Myanmar to Iraq, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen”.
    • It said that leaders in countries such as the United States, Russia and China were not standing up for civil liberties and instead were “callously undermining the rights of millions”.
    • Amnesty said President Donald Trump had taken backward steps on human rights that were setting a dangerous precedent. Shetty described his move to ban people from several Muslim-majority countries in January last year as “transparently hateful.”
    (same story at:
        - U.S. News
        - Tribune of India
    more details at:
        - The Guardian (U.K.)
        - The Daily Star (Bangladesh)
    (Official Amnesty International report (Feb.22) at:
      "State-sponsored hate
        spurs new era of social activism." )

• 2018 Feb. 22 - Thursday
  
  (See previous day's news on Amnesty International report;
    most of those articles actually published today.)
  
  • EU set to prepare sanctions
    on Myanmar generals:
    ~diplomats
        - Reuters
    

  • "I was told 'don't weep, it will be okay'"
    Ashley Judd's diary of life
    in a Rohingya camp
        - SkyNews (U.K.)
      The US actress and activist is a Goodwill Ambassador for UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund (the United Nations' reproductive health and rights agency). She writes:
     
      Within the camps there is a shortage of everything that matters: shelter, food, safe drinking water, sanitation, healthcare, peace of mind, knowledge of where one's loved ones are, or escape from the knowledge that one has left babies, children, and elderly behind in Myanmar, abandoning them by necessity as one fled to save oneself from flames, from hatred, from more rape and murder...
      ...60,000 pregnant women [are] affected by the crisis - 300,000 affected women are of reproductive age.
      A total of 78% of the births in the camp are happening in women's shelters, which are often just bamboo and tarps. That's why UNFPA's clean delivery kits are so important. Containing a pair of gloves, a bar of soap, and a razor blade for the umbilical cord, these $5 (£3.60) kits make the difference between life and death for mothers and their newborns...
    (Official UNFPA video (Feb.27) at:
    Ashley Judd Visits UNFPA
    Women-Friendly Spaces
    in Bangladesh )

• 2018 Feb. 23 - Friday

  • Rohingya in 'no man's land'
    to be sent back to Myanmar
      VIDEO & TEXT
        - CNN (Cable News Network)

    Human Rights Watch has posted this, and other, satellite photos of burnt Rohingya villages, taken before and after being bulldozed. This one was still smoldering when photographed Dec. 2, 2017. Two months later, everything has been scraped from the earth. Click on photo to enlarge; for more photos, see the Human Rights Watch report (CLICK HERE), or view the other articles listed here.

  • Myanmar bulldozes what is left
    of Rohingya Muslim villages
      First, their villages were burned to the ground. Now, Myanmar's government is using bulldozers to literally erase them from the earth — in a vast operation that human-rights groups say is destroying crucial evidence of mass atrocities against Myanmar's ethnic Rohingya Muslim minority.
        - Associated Press / ABC News
    (same topic at:
        - Associated Press / Fox News
        - Associated Press / NBC News
        - Reuters News Service
        - The Independent (U.K.)
        - Agence France-Presse
            / Channel NewsAsia (Singapore) (Singapore)
        - BBC (U.K.)
        - SkyNews (U.K.)
        - NPR (National Public Radio) )
    (Official Human Rights Watch report (Feb.23) at:
    Burma:
    Scores of Rohingya Villages Bulldozed:
    New Satellite Images Show Destruction Indicating Obstruction of Justice. )

  • 'It’s freedom':
    Rohingya refugee reaches Florida
    after horror of Australian detention
      The US has quietly admitted a handful of Australia’s refugees since September of last year – but what happens if Trump cancels the arrangement?
        - The Guardian (U.K.)

  • "Technology is like a bomb":
    Social media weaponized
    in Myanmar's Rohingya crisis
        - CBS News
      The utopian dream of internet and social media pioneers — the idea that connecting millions of people in cyberspace would make the world a better place — has run into a darker reality as invisible armies of trolls, bots and propagandists use the technology to sway public opinion and poison debate.
      Perhaps nowhere has that impact been more malign than in Myanmar, where social media has been weaponized against the vulnerable Rohingya minority as the regime carries out what one U.N. official calls "a textbook example of ethnic cleansing."
      Social media has been, I think, one of the most damaging aspects of this entire crisis. ... I think people internationally need to realize that five years ago, it cost a couple hundred dollars to get a sim card. Not many people had phones. And so, what we've seen in the past three or four years is [Myanmar] getting online, everyone having a cheap smartphone and access to Facebook. And so there's not the media literacy, there's not the kind of ability to understand this medium, and the limitations of online speech,"
    ~David Mathieson, an independent analyst who's lived and worked in the region for years.
    

• 2018 Feb. 24 - Saturday

  • Rohingya refugees find uneasy solace in Malaysia.
        - CNN
      Between 2012 and 2015, more than 112,000 Rohingya fled, largely by boat, to Malaysia. Even though they consider themselves the lucky ones, those who made it to Malaysia still lead lives fraught with risk and hardship.
      "They have no legal rights -- no right to work, no opportunity for mainstream education, and are obliged to eke out a very difficult living in the grey market economy of the country."
    ~Richard Towle, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Representative for Malaysia.

    ---

    
    

• 2018 Feb. 25 - Sunday

  ---

  NOTE:   TODAY is 6 MONTHS SINCE the
  LATE-2017 MASS ATTACKS on ROHINGYA BEGAN,
  DRIVING THEM into BANGLADESH.

  ---

  • No forceful Rohingya repatriation:
    Junior [Bangladesh] minister.
      Myanmar Ambassador, foreign minister
    discuss Rohingya issue.
        - Daily Star (Bangladesh)
      Bangladesh will not repatriate anybody against will, State Minister for Foreign Affairs M Shahriar Alam said today in regard to the Rohingya repatriation process.
      Speaking at a programme in Dhaka themed on Rohingya children, the junior minister said Bangladesh will continue to facilitate humanitarian agencies throughout.
      He also urged the international community not to lose focus on the Rohingya issue.
      The minister came up with the remarks while addressing the launching of a report titled “Childhood Interrupted”, focusing on Rohingya refugee children.
      It draws the international community's attention to maintain pressure on Myanmar for a long-term solution to the crisis that allows for “safe, dignified and voluntary repatriation.”

  • No end in sight for
    Rohingya Muslims in Bangladesh
    six months after attacks.
        - Associated Press
          / Toronto Star (Canada)
      COX’S BAZAR, BANGLADESH—Their houses are often made of plastic sheets. Much of their food comes from aid agencies. Jobs are few, and there is painfully little to do. The nightmares are relentless.
      But six months after their horrors began, the Rohingya Muslims who fled army attacks in Burma for refuge in Bangladesh feel immense consolation.
      “Nobody is coming to kill us, that’s for sure,” says Rohingya refugee Mohammed Amanullah, who fled with his wife and children.
          * * *
    On Sunday, two female Nobel Peace laureates visited refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar and talked with rape victims. Human Rights Watch has said in a report that Burma security forces raped and sexually assaulted women and girls before and during major attacks on Rohingya villages.
      “Rohingya women’s unique needs are largely unmet in refugee camps in Bangladesh... Less than [one-fifth] of displaced Rohingya women who have survived sexual violence have access to post-rape care.”
    ~ Nobel Laureate Tawakkol Karman, of Yemen. member of the Nobel Women’s Initiative delegation to Bangladesh.
          * * *
    Children in the camps face a particularly difficult time. The UN estimates that children are the heads of 5,600 refugee families. A survey of children’s lives inside the camps... showed they faced an array of terrors, from girls reporting concerns of harassment near the camp toilets, to fears that elephants and snakes could attack them as they collect firewood.
      “We cannot expect Rohingya children to overcome the traumatic experiences they’ve suffered when exposed to further insecurity and fears of violence in the camps... The overwhelming message from these children is that they are afraid. This is no way for a child to live.”
    ~ Mark Pierce, country director in Bangladesh, for Save the Children.

  • ESSAY:
    Rohingya girls are living in a grim purgatory.
    by Susanne Legena,
      Acting CEO of Plan International Australia, in
        - SBS Life (public TV) (Australia)
      In refugee camps in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, most teenage girls live out their days here in this hot and unsanitary place confined to tents no bigger than [a few dozen square feet].
          * * *
      The masses of unfamiliar men are frightening. They’ve no prospects, no money and very little hope. Unlike the boys and younger girls, many of whom have adapted to this place and play with the other kids nearby, teenage girls are considered adults. Religious protocol and safety fears severely restrict their freedom.
          * * *
      [In December workshops with teenage Rohingya girls, conducted by charity organizations], they told us that first and foremost, they felt afraid. Afraid of going outside, worried about landslides and the coming torrential rains, scared of what lies in wait when they’re forced to walk into the jungle to collect firewood.
          * * *
      Teenage girls who have small children say their kids no longer attend school and worry about their future.
          * * *
      They have few friends, if any. Many have witnessed or survived horrific sexual assaults. The sense of boredom and hopelessness is profound. Rohingya people, particularly women and girls, have inadequate supply of water and bathing facilities. Menstrual hygiene products are scarce.
          * * *
      Access to toilets and showers remains challenging and some deliberately restrict their food and water intake to avoid having to use the bathroom, or are using makeshift toilets inside their homes (or defecate in the open).
          * * *
      Women and adolescent girls refrain from going to the toilet at night, partly out of cultural belief that they should not go out at night, but mostly because they are scared of their personal security. The majority of adolescent girls here do not attend school. They cannot read or write. Some will be married early as a means of protection and survival.
          * * *

• 2018 Feb. 26 - Monday

  • EU seeks sanctions
    on Myanmar military
    over Rohingya crisis
        - Agence France-Presse
          / Channel NewsAsia (Singapore)
    (same topic at:
        - Reuters News Service
        - Associated Press
          / Washington Post
      EU countries on Monday (Feb 26) demanded sanctions against senior Myanmar military officers over "serious and systematic" rights abuses against the country's beleaguered Rohingya Muslim minority.
      EU foreign ministers, meeting in Brussels, said the situation in Myanmar was "extremely serious" -- pointing to widespread abuses by the military, "including rape and killings". They called for an extension to the EU's embargo on weapons and equipment that can be used for political repression, imposed in the 1990s -- and demanded their chief diplomat formulate plans for further action:
      "Proposals for targeted restrictive measures against senior military officers of the Myanmar armed forces responsible for serious and systematic human rights violations without delay".
    ~EU ministers assignment to diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini.

• 2018 Feb. 27 - Tuesday

  

  • Facebook says page of firebrand
    anti-Rohingya Myanmar monk
    removed.
        - Agence France-Presse in
          SBS News (public TV) (Australia)
    (same article at:
        - Channel NewsAsia (Singapore) )
      Facebook has removed the page of a Myanmar monk once dubbed the "Buddhist Bin Laden" for his incendiary posts about Muslims, the company confirmed, as it faces pressure to clamp down on hate speech.
      Wirathu, a prominent face of Myanmar's Buddhist ultra-nationalist movement, had amassed hundreds of thousands of followers on the network, using it as a platform to attack Muslims, singling out the stateless Rohingya minority.
      His tirades have been blamed for stoking sectarian violence, which has plagued Myanmar's transition to democracy.
      Thet Swe Win, a Yangon-based interfaith activist said Facebook's move sent a symbolic message about not tolerating hate speech, but that getting rid of the page will not resolve the problem.
      "They remove his account but not his videos, and his religious hate speeches, they are still on Facebook and his followers are spreading it," he said.

• 2018 Feb. 28 - Wednesday

  • Rohingya flee no man's land
    after Myanmar threat
        - Agence France-Presse
          / Channel NewsAsia (Singapore)
      Hundreds of Rohingya living in no man's land have left their makeshift camp and crossed into Bangladesh after soldiers from Myanmar used loudhailers to threaten them, community leaders said on Wednesday (Feb 28).
      Around 6,000 Rohingya have been living on a thin strip of land between the two countries since fleeing Myanmar in the wake of a brutal military crackdown on the Muslim minority in late August.
      They were among the first to flee Myanmar when the violence erupted last year and set up shelters in no man's land in the weeks before Bangladesh agreed to let the Rohingya into the country.
      In recent weeks they have come under pressure from Myanmar soldiers, who have stepped up patrols along the barbed-wire border fence just yards from the camp and broadcast messages using loudhailers ordering the Rohingya to leave.
      Community leader Dil Mohammad said the messages had spread panic through the camp.
      "We can't now sleep peacefully. Most of the Rohingya in the camps now want to flee and take shelter in Bangladesh," Mohammad said.

    ---

• 2018 April 1 - Sunday
  
  --------------
  

• 2018 April 2 - Monday

  • Revealed: Facebook hate speech
    exploded in Myanmar
    during Rohingya crisis.
      Analyst says: ‘I really don’t know how Zuckerberg and Co. sleep at night’ after evidence emerges of a spike in posts inciting violence.
        - The Guardian (U.K.)

  • Myanmar lures Bangladesh Buddhists
    to take over Rohingya land:
    - officials
      Myanmar authorities have lured dozens of mainly Buddhist Bangladeshi tribal families to cross the border and resettle on land abandoned by fleeing Muslim Rohingya, officials said Monday.
        - AFP / Bangkok Post (Thailand)

  • Malaysia set to intercept boat
    said to be carrying Rohingya.
      Malaysian authorities said Monday that they have stepped up patrols to intercept a boat thought to be carrying dozens of people from Myanmar's beleaguered Rohingya Muslim minority seeking refuge in the country.
        - The Canadian Press / Yahoo News
          (Canada/USA)

• 2018 April 3 - Tuesday

  • Rohingya Camps in Bangladesh
    Start to Look Permanent
      Some 700,000 have crossed the border from Myanmar since August; aid groups are preparing for more.
        - Wall Street Journal
    (supplemented at: "Starting Over: A Tale of Rohingya in Bangladesh" )

  • Monsoon rains mean greater peril
    for Rohingya refugees,
    aid workers warn.
      Monsoon season will begin in a couple of months. The Cox's Bazar district, where many of the camps are located, is one of the world's wettest places, receiving more than 915 millimetres (36 inches) of rain during the average spring and summer.
      Flash floods and landslides are expected, especially in hilly areas where slopes have been stripped of vegetation by Rohingya looking for material to build shelters and cook their food.
      It's feared that the mud will hamper aid deliveries, which 90 per cent of the refugees rely on for food.
      And the standing water will bring even more disease, the United Nations warned this week, including diarrhea, hepatitis, and insect-spread illnesses like malaria, dengue and chikungunya.
      A coalition of aid groups is warning of the potential for "enormous deaths."
        - CBC News (Canada)
    (same topic at:
    - Reuters / The Guardian (U.K.)
    

  • Malaysia intercepts boat
    carrying Rohingya refugees;
    more perilous sea journeys expected.
      Malaysia intercepted a boat carrying 56 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar off its northern island of Langkawi on Tuesday and will allow them to enter on humanitarian grounds -- with rights groups expecting further such perilous journeys by sea.
        - Reuters News Service
    (same topic at:
    - AP / TIME Magazine
    - AP / CBC (Canada)
    - U.S. News
    - AFP / Channel NewsAsia (Singapore)
    - AFP & Reuters / Straits Times
      (Singapore)
    - RFA (Radio Free Asia)
      (U.S. propaganda radio) )

  • Bob Rae says Canada should take
    leadership role in Rohingya crisis.
      Special envoy to Myanmar recommends ramped-up humanitarian efforts at a cost of about $150M a year.
        - CBC News (Canada) (same topic at:
        - Toronto Star (Canada)
        - CTV News (Canada) )

• 2018 April 4 - Wednesday

  • Canada should take in
    Rohingya refugees:
    ~Special envoy
      Canada should take in Rohingya refugees and press other nations to do the same, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's special envoy to Myanmar said on Tuesday (Apr 3).
        - AFP / Channel NewsAsia (Singapore)

  • Myanmar authorities threaten
    families of Rohingyas who
    fled to Malaysia.
      The families of Rohingya Muslims who fled by boat to Malaysia say Myanmar authorities threatened to arrest them for allowing their relatives to leave.
        - Australian Broadcasting Corp.

• 2018 April 5 - Thursday

  • Myanmar minister hopes to visit
    Rohingya in refugee camps.
        - AP / Washington Post
    (same topic at:
        - VOA (Voice of America:
          (U.S. propaganda radio) )
      The Myanmar state minister overseeing the planned repatriation of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims, from overcrowded refugee camps in Bangladesh, said Thursday he hopes to talk to them when he visits this month.
      Social Welfare Minister Win Myat Aye will be the first Myanmar Cabinet minister to visit the camps since the refugee flow began in August last year in response to a brutal counterinsurgency campaign.
      Win Myat Aye told The Associated Press by phone that he will meet with officials working on repatriation during his April 11-12 visit.
      “If the Bangladeshi government makes arrangements for us, we have requested to meet the refugees in the camps,” he said. “My visit is to negotiate and to make the repatriation process smoother and quicker.”
      Win Myat Aye is seeking to convince the Rohingya that it is safe to return.
      “It is our responsibility to accept them back,” Win Myat Aye said. “Our main purpose is to tell the refugees that we are ready to accept them back and we want to explain to them about that.”
      Rights groups have raised concerns about the safety of returnees being sent back to Myanmar...

• 2018 April 6 - Friday
  
  • Fishermen rescue
    Rohingya Muslims
    at sea off Indonesia.
        - Reuters / Jerusalem Post.htm
      Indonesian fishermen rescued at least five Rohingya Muslims off the island of Sumatra in the early hours of Friday and brought them ashore, officials said, in the first such landing this year amid media reports that five others had died at sea.
      It was not immediately clear where the boat had originated. Rights groups have said they are expecting many more refugees from Myanmar to attempt the dangerous sea crossings.

• 2018 April 7 - Saturday

  • U.N. Warns More Rohingya Boats
    May Be in Danger at Sea.
        - Wall Street Journal
      Alarm sounded as an Indonesian search-and-rescue mission finds boat with five starving Rohingya

  • Philippines to accept refugees
    from Myanmar ‘genocide’.
        - The Philippine Star (The Philippines)
      President Duterte has called the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar a “genocide” as he expressed willingness to take in refugees from the Southeast Asian country.
      The description drew a rare public rebuke from a Myanmar official, who said Duterte had a propensity to shoot his mouth off.
      “He doesn’t know anything about Myanmar,” Myanmar government spokesman Zaw Htay was quoted as saying by Reuters. “The usual behavior of that person is to speak without restraint. That’s why he said that.”
      Duterte said the Philippines is prepared to accept Rohingya refugees but Europe should also do the same.
      The President has drawn flak from human rights advocates here and abroad for his war against illegal drugs, which has left thousands of suspects dead. He denied endorsing extrajudicial killings and accused his foreign critics of interfering with the Philippines’ internal problem.
      Last January, Duterte, who chided countries that are allegedly meddling with the Philippines’ affairs, advised [Myanmar civilian leader] Suu Kyi to ignore her critics.
    NOTE: See Duterte's subsequent retraction, on April 13.

• 2018 April 8 - Sunday

  • Myanmar not ready
    for Rohingya refugees to return,
    UN official says.
        - Australian Broadcasting Corp.
    (same topic, more details at:
        - Reuters News Service )
    • Myanmar is not ready for the repatriation of Rohingya refugees, says the most senior United Nations official to visit the country this year, after Myanmar was accused of instigating ethnic cleansing and driving nearly 700,000 Muslims to Bangladesh.
    • "From what I've seen and heard from people — no access to health services, concerns about protection, continued displacements — conditions are not conducive to return," Ursula Mueller, UN's Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, said after a six-day visit to Myanmar.
    • Rohingya refugees reported killings, burnings, looting and rape, in response to militant attacks on security forces.
    • "I asked [Myanmar officials] to end the violence … and that the return of the refugees from [Bangladeshi refugee camps in] Cox's Bazar is to be on a voluntary, dignified way, when solutions are durable," Ms Mueller said.
    • Asked whether she believed in government assurances the Rohingya would be allowed to return to their homes after a temporary stay in camps, Ms Mueller said: "I'm really concerned about the situation."
    • Part of the problem is that, according to New York-based Human Rights Watch, Myanmar has bulldozed at least 55 villages that were emptied during the violence.
    • Myanmar has verified several hundred Rohingya refugees for repatriation.
    • Myanmar set up two reception centres and what it says is a temporary camp near the border in Rakhine to receive the first arrivals.

  • As Hope Fades, Rohingya Refugees
    Search for the Missing.
        - Wall Street Journal
      Some seven months after the start of a campaign by the Myanmar military, tens of thousands remain missing or unaccounted for.
      A study by ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights found that, in Bangladesh’s sprawling camps, more than 43,000 Rohingya children are missing at least one parent. Others lost children, siblings and cousins.
      The questions over their fates—and widespread complaints that Myanmar isn’t helping account for them—are adding to tensions as the two countries negotiate a plan to resettle some of those who fled.

• 2018 April 9 - Monday

  • War crimes prosecutor seeks jurisdiction
    over Rohingya deportations.
        - Reuters News Service
    (same article at:
        - New York Times )
    (same topic at:
        - AFP / Channel NewsAsia (Singapore)
        - Human Rights Watch (essay)
    NOTE: More articles on this on the next day )
    

  • [India's Supreme Court] asks Centre
    to file comprehensive report
    on amenities to Rohingya refugees.
        - Times of India
    • The Supreme Court on Monday asked the central government to file a comprehensive status report on basic amenities provided in three Rohingya camps in Delhi and Haryana, located at Mewat, Faridabad and Delhi, within four weeks... posting the matter for further hearing on May 9.
    • The Rohingya refugees in India had alleged that basic amenities like toilets, drinking water and others were not provided for them which in turn caused diarrhoea among the children and the elderly in the camps.
    • The court had, on March 19, refused to grant any interim relief to Rohingya refugees and favoured the Centre's submission that it would grab 'media headlines' and have repercussions on India's diplomatic ties with Myanmar and Bangladesh.
    • The top court had said it will not pass any interim order with regard to ensuring health and educational facilities for Rohingya refugee camps in the country unless materials contradicting the Centre's claims are brought before it

• 2018 April 10 - Tuesday

  • 'Hallmarks of genocide':
    ICC prosecutor seeks justice
    for Rohingya.
      Fatou Bensouda wants the International Criminal Court to claim jurisdiction, and investigate treatment of Myanmar minority.
        - The Guardian (U.K.)
    (same topic at:
        - The Times of London (U.K.)
        - The Jurist (legal trade periodical)
        - AFP / Channel NewsAsia (Singapore) )
    • The prosecutor of the international criminal court has asked the court to rule on whether it has jurisdiction over the deportations of Rohingya people from Myanmar to Bangladesh, a possible crime against humanity.
    • A ruling affirming jurisdiction could pave the way for an investigation into the deportation of many thousands of Rohingya, though Myanmar is unlikely to cooperate.
    • In a filing published on Monday, the court prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, listed the well-documented mistreatment of Rohingya and cited the UN special envoy for human rights who described it as bearing the “hallmarks of genocide”.
    • She argued that -- although Myanmar was not a member of the court -- the fact that part of the alleged crime took place on the territory of Bangladesh (which is a member of the court), meant the court could seek powers of jurisdiction.

  • Seven Myanmar soldiers
    sentenced to 10 years
    for Rohingya massacre.
        - Reuters News Service
    (same article at:
        - Reuters / The Guardian (U.K.) )
    (same topic at:
        - CNN (Cable News Network)
        - BBC
        - AFP / Channel NewsAsia (Singapore)
    ...which adds:
    • Amnesty International called the summary killings at Inn Din "the tip of the iceberg" in terms of atrocities carried out since August and has repeatedly urged a wider, impartial probe.
    • The UN has accused Myanmar's army of ethnic cleansing, saying there are even possible "hallmarks of genocide" with refugees bringing with them consistent testimony of murder, rape and arson.
    • Doctors Without Borders (MSF) estimate that at least 6,700 Rohingya were killed in the first month of the military crackdown alone.
    • Myanmar denies the allegations, justifying its campaign in Rakhine as a legitimate response to Rohingya militants and blaming the international media and aid agencies for spreading false information fuelled by a pro-Rohingya bias.
    • Northern Rakhine state has largely been in lockdown since the campaign began eight months ago, with access to media, observers and most aid groups tightly controlled.

• 2018 April 11 - Wednesday
  
  • Myanmar court refuses to drop case
    against Reuters journalists.
        - Agence France-Presse news service
      The reporters had been investigating and reporting on the Inn Din massacre, for which 7 Myanmar soldiers were just convicted and sentenced yesterday.
    (same topic at: The Guardian (U.K.) )

  • Myanmar minister assures
    Rohingya in Bangladesh
    repatriation is a priority.
        - Reuters News Service
      Myanmar's Social Welfare Minister, Win Myat Aye -- who is leading rehabilitation efforts in Rakhine State -- met about 50 newly arrived refugees in the Kutupalong refugee camp in southeast Bangladesh...
      Bangladesh wants the refugees to go home as quickly as possible and officials said this week they hoped the minister’s visit would speed up repatriation.
      But many refugees say they are reluctant to go back to Buddhist-majority Myanmar, fearing persecution.
      “The most important thing is to the start the repatriation process as soon as possible. We can overcome all of the difficulties,”   Win Myat Aye said, as he left a meeting with Rohingya representatives at the Kutupalong camp.
      When asked about whether Rohingya could be granted Myanmar citizenship, which they had been long denied, the minister replied: “We are trying to have that.”

  • Rohingya in camp
    tell Myanmar official
    they survived attacks.
        - AP / ABC News
    (same topic at:
        - AP / Fox News )
      A Myanmar Cabinet minister on Wednesday visited a sprawling refugee camp in Bangladesh for Rohingya Muslims -- who described the violence that forced them to flee Myanmar, and who presented a list of demands for their repatriation.
      Myanmar's Social Welfare Minister Win Myat Aye met with about 40 Rohingya refugees at the Kutupalong camp in Cox's Bazar for more than an hour, sometimes exchanging heated words.
      A Rohingya leader, Abdur Rahim, said at least eight rape victims were among those who met with Win Myat Aye. Rahim said the group presented 13 demands for the government to meet for their return to Myanmar.
      Bangladesh has given Myanmar a list of more than 8,000 refugees to begin the repatriation, but it has been further delayed by a complicated verification process.
      Win Myat Aye did not specify a timeframe for the repatriation but said it should begin as soon as possible.
      Rahim said the group became angry when Win Myat Aye said the Rohingya refugees must accept national verification cards to be provided by Myanmar, which identify the Rohingya as migrants from Bangladesh.
      "We protested... We have told him it is not acceptable, we belong to Burma (Myanmar)." ~Rahim.
      Rahim said they demanded..:
    • ...to be recognized as citizens of Myanmar before the repatriation starts;
      and that
    • ...their security arrangements be supervised by the United Nations.
      Rohingya who have been repatriated in the past, after previous refugee exoduses, have been forced to live in camps in Myanmar.
      "We told him clearly we want to go back and we want our home, our land and everything back,"   said Rahim.
      Rahim said the rape victims described their experiences to Win Myat Aye.
      "He listened to them patiently and said they will punish those responsible," Rahim said.

  • How the families
    of 10 massacred Rohingya
    fled Myanmar
        - Reuters News Service
    (same topic at:
        - Bangkok Post (Thailand) )
      A Reuters investigation in February revealed what happened to the 10 Rohingya men. On September 1, soldiers snatched them from a large group of Rohingya villagers detained by a beach near Inn Din. The next morning, according to eyewitnesses, the men were shot by the soldiers or hacked to death by their Rakhine Buddhist neighbors.
      Their bodies were dumped in a shallow grave.
      The survivors waited by the beach with rising anxiety and dread as the sun set and the men didn’t return.
      The relatives the 10 men left behind that afternoon wouldn’t learn of the killings for many months - in some cases, not until Reuters reporters tracked them down in the refugee camps, and told them what had happened.
      This is their story. Three of them fled Inn Din while heavily pregnant. All trekked north in monsoon rain through forests and fields. Drenched and terrified, they dodged military patrols and saw villages abandoned or burning. Some saw dead bodies. They walked for days with little food or water.
      They were not alone. ...

  • Raised in the shadow of genocide:
    A young Rohingya's story.
        - CNN (Cable News Network)

• 2018 April 12 - Thursday

• 2018 April 13 - Friday

  • Myanmar Military Put on UN Blacklist
    for Sexual Violence.
        - Associated Press / New York Times
    (same topic at:
    - Associated Press / U.S. News
    - Associated Press / Washington Post
    - Associated Press / Fox News
    - Associated Press / News.com (Australia)
    - Associated Press & Reuters
        / The Guardian (U.K) )
      A new U.N. report puts Myanmar's armed forces on a U.N. blacklist of government and rebel groups "credibly suspected" of carrying out rapes and other acts of sexual violence in conflict for the first time.
      Report says international medical staff and others in Bangladesh have documented that many of the almost 700,000 Rohingya Muslims who fled from Myanmar "bear the physical and psychological scars of brutal sexual assault."
      The U.N. chief said the assaults were allegedly perpetrated by the Myanmar Armed Forces, known as the Tatmadaw, "at times acting in concert with local militias, in the course of military 'clearance' operations in October 2016 and August 2017."
      "The widespread threat and use of sexual violence was integral to this strategy, serving to humiliate, terrorize and collectively punish the Rohingya community, as a calculated tool to force them to flee their homelands and prevent their return," Guterres said.

  • Despite UN warnings,
    Myanmar vows
    early Rohingya return.
        - Agence France-Presse news service
    (same topic at:
        - The Guardian (U.K.) )
      Rohingya refugees will be allowed to return to Myanmar "as soon as possible", a minister said, despite a stillborn repatriation process and UN warnings that the safety of returnees could not be guaranteed.

  • Rohingya repatriation:
    Dhaka signs MoU with UNHCR.
        - Daily Star (Bangladesh)
    (same topic at:
        - Radio Free Asia
            (US propaganda radio) )
      Bangladesh today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), relating to voluntary return of Rohingya refugees, once conditions in Myanmar are conducive.
      The MoU established a framework of cooperation between UNHCR and Bangladesh on the safe, voluntary, and dignified returns of refugees in line with international standards, said the statement.
      The agreement would aim to set forth a framework for refugees’ voluntary repatriation in line with international standards, aim to create conditions that are conducive to eventual voluntary repatriation, and provide humanitarian and development assistance for all people of Rakhine State.

  • Conditions ‘not yet conducive’
    for Rohingya refugees to
    return home to Myanmar:
    – UN agency
        - UN News Centre
      The United Nations refugee agency and the Government of Bangladesh on Friday signed a cooperation agreement on the safe, dignified return of Rohingya refugees to their homes in Myanmar, “once conditions there are conducive.”
      Noting that such conditions are not present at the moment, the UN refugee agency urged Myanmar authorities to create them, as well as to take concrete measures to address the root causes of displacement.

  • Myanmar's Rohingya stuck in
    Bangladesh's 'no man's land'
        - BBC
      More than 5,000 Rohingya Muslims have taken shelter on what is called the "no man's land" - a small strip of land along the border between Bangladesh and Myanmar.

  • Philippine President Duterte
    apologises to Myanmar's Suu Kyi
    over Rohingya 'genocide' remark,
        - The Straits Times (Singapore)
      Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte apologised to Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi, on Friday (April 13), for saying genocide was taking place in her country -- saying his remark was a satirical barb at the West for not taking in Rohingya Muslims.
    (NOTE: See April 7th article about his original statement.)

• 2018 April 14 - Saturday

  • Myanmar says ICC
    has no jurisdiction.
        - Daily Star (Bangladesh)
    (same topic, other details, at:
        - Reuters / Japan Times )
      Myanmar has expressed "serious concern" over an attempt at the International Criminal Court to open a probe into mass deportations of Rohingya Muslims -- dismissing the claims, and saying the court has no jurisdiction.

    

  • Boat with 70 Rohingya Muslims
    leaves Myanmar for Malaysia:
    ~ Reports
        - Reuters / Channel NewsAsia (Singapore)
      ...the latest to embark on a dangerous sea journey, the vessel will be the second to arrive in Malaysia this month, as the Rohingya flee Myanmar's Rakhine state before the onset of the monsoon season in May brings storms at sea that could endanger their lives.
      "The boat should arrive in Malaysian waters in the next week, assuming it doesn't come under distress or make landfall in Thailand," said Matthew Smith, co-founder of Fortify Rights, adding... reports of the boat's departure on Thursday (Apr 12).
      "This is a tremendously dangerous journey," Smith told Reuters, adding that the adding that the passengers faced deprivation of food, water, and physical space as well as the risk of capsizing.
      Weather conditions or pushbacks by authorities could carry the boat into Thai or Indonesian waters, one source said.

• 2018 April 15 - Sunday

  • First group of Rohingya refugees
    returns to Myanmar.
        - London Daily Telegraph (U.K)
    (same topic, other details, at:
        - The Guardian (U.K.) )
      Myanmar has accepted what appears to be the first five among some 700,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees who fled to neighboring Bangladesh to escape military-led violence against the minority group -- even though the United Nations says it's not yet safe for them to return home.

• 2018 April 16 - Monday

  • Myanmar's claim of
    first Rohingya refugee repatriation
    disputed by Bangladesh and aid agency.
        - Australian Broadcasting Corp.
    (same topic at:
    - BBC News
    - The Guardian (U.K.) )

  • Fire at Delhi’s Rohingya refugee camp
    turns savings into ashes.
        - Hindustan Times (India)
    (same topic, other details, at:
        - Times of India )
      Sunday morning’s fire wiped out the refugees’ savings within a matter of minutes. Another challenge for the Rohingyas would be to re-obtain their United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) cards issued to them at the point of settling in India.

  • Reuters wins Pulitzer
    for photography of Rohingya crisis
        - Reuters News Service

• 2018 April 17 - Tuesday

  • Rohingya widows worry about their families’ futures
        - United Nations (UNHCR)
      Lone women who head refugee families in Bangladesh struggle with concerns about food, shelter and the welfare of the next generation.

• 2018 April 18 - Wednesday

  • 'Race against time'
    to save Rohingya refugees
    from monsoon season
        - Sky News (U.K.)
    
    (same topic at:
    - The Guardian (U.K.) )
      Aid agencies are in a "race against time" to save thousands of Rohingya refugees from the dangers of the impending monsoon season.
      The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has identified 150,000 people at "high risk from mudslides and floods" due to the heavy rain, which is set to hit the eastern part of Bangladesh over the next few months.
      The region is also vulnerable to tropical cyclones, as the funnel-shaped northern section of the Bay of Bengal amplifies storm surges, making them devastating almost every year.
      [However,] with monsoon season on the horizon, the Bangladeshi government is developing a [flood-prone] island off the mainland to shift 100,000 refugees.

  • Did Soldiers Jailed for Killings Go Free?
    Myanmar TV Says Yes (Briefly).
        - New York Times
      For about an hour on Wednesday, the website of Myanmar National Television carried a surprising report: A mass prisoner amnesty the previous day, it said, had included seven members of the country’s military who were briefly jailed for a massacre of Rohingya Muslims.
      The report was quickly taken down and was strongly denied by a government spokesman, U Zaw Htay. “It’s not true, it’s false news,” he said. “They are still in prison."

• 2018 April 19 - Thursday

  • Indian police arrest
    18 Rohingya Muslims.
        - AP / Fox News
    (same topic, other details, at:
        - AP / ABC News )
      Indian police say they have arrested 18 Rohingya Muslims in a remote northeastern region as they prepared to board a train for New Delhi after entering illegally from Bangladesh.

  • BJP Youth Leader
    Allegedly Admits Burning
    Rohingya Camp;
    Complaint Filed
        - NDTV (India)
    (same topic, other details, at:
        - Times of India )
      New Delhi, India: A Muslim body on Thursday wrote to Delhi Police Commissioner... seeking action against a BJP (India's governing political party) youth wing leader after the latter allegedly admitted on social media to burning down a Rohingya refugee camp in the capital earlier this month.
      * * *
      A fire had broken out at the refugee camp near Kalindi Kunj in south Delhi, on the night of April 14 -15. [It] quickly engulfed the whole camp, in which more than 200 residents... lost all their belongings, including identity cards and special visas issued by the United Nations.

  • Muslims Cheer Old Shariah Foe
    Brownback
    for Backing Rohingya.
        - Wall Street Journal
      Sam Brownback, a conservative former governor [of Kansas, but recently appointed ambassador by President Trump, and] tasked with monitoring religious freedom, calls Myanmar’s campaign ‘religious cleansing.’

  • Myanmar minister says
    conditions in Rohingya refugee camps
    are 'very poor.'
        - Reuters News Service
      A Myanmar minister expressed concerns on Thursday about “very poor conditions” in Rohingya refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh, and said repatriation of the Muslim minority should start as soon as possible due to the coming monsoon season.
      * * *
      Myanmar’s panel of international advisers on Rohingya issues has warned the coming monsoon season could bring “enormous deaths” as refugee camps in Bangladesh are not built to withstand the storms.
      * * *
      But a senior U.N. official who recently visited Myanmar said the country was not ready for the repatriation of Rohingya refugees.

  • Fears for Rohingya as first rains
    flood Bangladesh camps
        - AFP / Straits Times (Singapore)
    (same topic at:
    - CNN (Cable News Network)
      The first rains of the year have flooded parts of the crowded Rohingya camps in Bangladesh, aid workers said on Thursday (April 19), wreaking havoc and raising fears for the nearly one million refugees ahead of the monsoon.
      A brief but heavy downpour turned roads into quagmires in the world's largest refugee camp, hindering relief efforts and hinting at the danger ahead for the Rohingya who have sought refuge from violence in Myanmar.
      Humanitarian agencies have been warning for months about the danger posed by the impending monsoon, due to start in June, to the welfare of refugees who live cheek by jowl in cramped tents on hillsides.
      Landslides and floods caused by violent monsoon storms can be deadly in south-east Bangladesh, which is also prone to powerful cyclones.
      Last season, heavy rain triggered mud slips in Cox's Bazar and nearby Chittagong Hill Tracts, killing at least 170 people. More than 100 died in landslides in the region in 2012, and two years earlier heavy downpours killed around 50. ... ( more )

• 2018 April 20 - Friday
  
  • Myanmar police 'set up'
    Reuters reporters in sting:
    ~ Police witness.
        - Reuters News Service
        A Myanmar police chief ordered officers to "trap" a Reuters reporter arrested in December, telling them to meet the journalist at a restaurant and give him "secret documents", prosecution witness Police Captain Moe Yan Naing told a court on Friday (Apr 20).
    (same topic at:
        - AP / Chicago Tribune (USA)
        - Australian Broadcasting Corp.
        - Reuters / Channel NewsAsia (Singapore) )

  • R Vision -- a digital news outlet
    by and for Rohingya people --
    aims to shed light on crisis.
        - Nieman Journalism Lab
          at Harvard University
        According to R Vision (R for Rohingya...) managing director Muhammad Noor, the site, launched in 2012, was born out of the crisis and is dedicated to bearing witness to its horror. “Our first priority is in covering the daily atrocities committed by the Burmese government on the Rohingya people in [Rakhine] and the overall plight of Rohingya on the diaspora.”
        From its office space in Kuala Lumpur — now home to some 100,000 Rohingya refugees — R Vision’s work generates 70,000 plays per day on its YouTube channel (which has more than 100,000 subscribers), 20,000 a day on its website, and 60,000 combined mentions and reposts per day across various social media platforms, mainly Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. ...

  • Dozens of Rohingya come ashore
    in Indonesia.
        - AFP / Channel NewsAsia
    (same topic at:
        - Daily Star (Bangladesh) )
      About 80 Rohingya in a wooden boat arrived in Indonesia Friday (Apr 20), officials said -- the latest batch of the vulnerable minority to come ashore in the world's biggest Muslim majority nation.
      The group landed in Aceh province on Sumatra island, just weeks after dozens of the persecuted Muslim minority from Myanmar came ashore in neighbouring Malaysia.
    (More on Aceh province, Indonesia at:
      "Amorous couples, sex workers whipped in Indonesia's Aceh."
        - AFP / Channel NewsAsia )

• 2018 April 21 - Saturday

  • Family of Myanmar policeman who
    described sting on Reuters reporters
    evicted:
    ~ family.
        - Reuters News Service
        The family of a Myanmar policeman, who told a court how police planted secret documents on Reuters reporters to “entrap” them, was evicted from police housing in the capital Naypyitaw on Saturday, less than 24 hours after his testimony, family members said.
    (same topic at:
        - Associated Press news service
        - AP / Boston Herald (USA)
        - Bangkok Post (Thailand) )

  • Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh
    on 'precarious ground'
    ahead of monsoon.season.
        - CBC News (Canada)
      Myanmar's panel of international advisers on issues concerning the Rohingya recently warned that the season, which begins in earnest in June and runs until October, could bring "enormous deaths," because the refugee camps are not built to withstand the rainstorms.
      * * *
    "People are living on very precarious ground ... and the expectation is that at least 200,000 people are at direct risk of either being flooded out or [forced out by] landslides,"
      * * *
      "It's basically entering a new phase of misery for many of these people, but also particularly for the children... They're the ones who are maybe not as resilient as their parents. They're the ones who are more likely to succumb to diseases that will become more prevalent with the rains..."
      ~ Daphnee Cook with Rohingya Response at Save the Children
    

  • Rohingya refugees rescued
    after drifting at sea for 9 days.
        - AP / ABC News
    (same topic at:
    - AP / Washington Post )
      The 8 children, 25 women and 43 men were brought ashore on Friday afternoon at Bireuen in [Indonesia's] Aceh province on the island of Sumatra -- the third known attempt by members of the ethnic minority to escape Myanmar by sea this month. Several required medical attention for dehydration and exhaustion, local authorities said.

  • EDITORIAL:
    Conscience call:
    On Rohingya crisis
        - The Hindu (India)
      "The world must increase pressure on Myanmar to do right by the Rohingya. ... The world needs to do a lot more — especially India, as a neighbour that has an estimated 40,000 Rohingya refugees living precariously on its territory, and as a regional power that is failing this time round to keep up its legacy of providing succour to those fleeing persecution. ..."

• 2018 April 22 - Sunday

  • [United Nations Security Council]
    (UNSC) team due on April 29;
    Dhaka to brief Rohingya situation.
        - Daily Star (Bangladesh)
      Bangladesh will describe the brutalities that the Rohingyas faced in Rakhine State and steps taken by the government here to the UN Security Council delegation, which is scheduled to arrive in Dhaka on April 29.
      The UNSC delegation comprising envoys from five permanent members and 10 non-permanent members is scheduled to visit Rohingya camps and the zero line along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border to see the situation on the ground. ...
      The delegation members are expected to meet Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and top government officials on April 30, an official told UNB. The visit of the UNSC was originally scheduled for April 27-28. ...

  • [India's] JKNPP [party] demands
    early deportation of Rohingyas, Bangladeshis.
        - Times of India
      The Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party (JKNPP) today staged a demonstration [in India's Jammu province] as part of its campaign to press for early deportation of Rohingya and Bangladeshi nationals.
      Led by party chairman and former minister Harsh Dev Singh, a group of JKNPP activists staged the demonstration at Exhibition ground, raising slogans against the government and in support of their demand.
      Accusing the state government of not being sincere in deportation of the illegally settled foreigners from Jammu, Singh claimed that they are the "biggest threat" to the communal harmony and composite culture of the region.
     

• 2018 April 23 - Monday

  • [Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister] Freeland
    expected to travel to Bangladesh,
    visit Rohingya refugee camp in May.
        - Toronto Globe and Mail (Canada)

• 2018 April 24 - Tuesday

  • Indonesian police bust
    fake Rohingya people-smuggling network
    with [Australian Federal Police] help.
        - Australian Broadcasting Corp.
      Indonesian police say they have worked with the Australian Federal Police to unravel a people-smuggling network that was aimed at bringing in fake Rohingya refugees to Australia.
      The revelation comes as real Rohingya refugees took to the water to escape persecution in Myanmar and crowded camps over the border in Bangladesh.

  • Cut 'untenable' Myanmar military ties
    over Rohingya crisis,
    [Australia's] Labor [party] urges.
        - AP / Special Broadcasting Service (Australia)
      While the United Kingdom, United States, European Union, France and Canada have cut ties with the Myanmar military, Australia's program continues.
      Military assistance is worth almost $400,000 and involves training in humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, peacekeeping and English classes.

• 2018 April 25 - Wednesday

  • Exclusive:
    U.S. team in refugee camps
    investigating atrocities against Rohingya.
        - Reuters News Service
      The U.S. government is conducting an intensive examination of alleged atrocities against Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims, documenting accusations of murder, rape, beatings and other possible offenses in an investigation that could be used to prosecute Myanmar’s military for crimes against humanity, U.S. officials told Reuters.
      ...led by the State Department, [it] has involved more than a thousand interviews of Rohingya men and women in refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh...
      The interviews were conducted... by about 20 investigators with backgrounds in international law and criminal justice, including some who worked on tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia...
      The work is modeled on a U.S. forensic investigation of mass atrocities in Sudan’s Darfur region in 2004, which led to a U.S. declaration of genocide that culminated in economic sanctions against the Sudanese government. ...
    (same topic at:
    - Voice of America (U.S. propaganda radio)
    - AP / Taiwan News
    - ABC News
    - Reuters / NBC News
        ...and...
    - Reuters / Straits Times (Singapore)
      ...which notes: "The investigation coincides with a debate inside the US government and on Capitol Hill over whether the Trump administration has done enough to hold Myanmar's military to account for brutal violence against the largely stateless Rohingya." )

  • Opinion essay:
    The Rohingya refugee crisis
    will test whether ‘Canada is back.’
    ~ former Canadian diplomat.
        - Toronto Globe & Mail (Canada)

• 2018 April 26 - Thursday

  • Inside the Bangladesh brothels
    where Rohingya girls are suffering
        - PBS News Hour
      WARNING: This article contains graphic content. It is disturbing and not suitable for children.

• 2018 April 27 - Friday

  • UN council visits Myanmar
    as it eyes action
    on Rohingya crisis.
        - AFP / Daily Star (Bangladesh)
    (same topic at:
    - Associated Press / Fox News
    - AFP / Channel NewsAsia (Singapore) )
      The UN Security Council will pay a visit to Bangladesh and Myanmar beginning on Saturday (Apr 28) as it weighs next steps to address one of the world's worst refugee crises, stemming from the forced exodus of Muslim Rohingya.

  • Myanmar Jails Two Reporters
    for Exposing a Massacre.
        - The New Yorker
      (In-depth and personal story about the two Reuters reporters -- Kyaw Soe Oo and Wa Lone -- currently on trial in Myanmar.)

    ---

  • 'Lives will be lost':
    700,000 Rohingya
    face cyclone season
    under tarpaulin
        - The Guardian (U.K.)
      As the monsoon rains start in Bangladesh,
    there are grave concerns for refugees.
      If cyclones bear down on the region again -- as they have in the past two years -- they could collide with nearly 700,000 new residents sleeping in tents of bamboo and tarpaulin. Aid agencies fear a second catastrophe is about to strike the Rohingya.
      “Lives will be lost... It’s just a question of how many.”
    ~Daphnée Cook, Save the Children’s communications manager. ...
    (same topic at:
        - Human Rights Watch

• 2018 April 28 - Saturday

  • Aung San Suu Kyi
    seeks new relationship with UN
    over Rohingya crisis.
      Myanmar leader is allowing UN organisations into country to prepare for return of refugees
        - The Guardian (U.K.)
      Aung San Suu Kyi hopes to restore her battered reputation by allowing UN human rights and development organisations to enter Myanmar to prepare the ground for the large-scale return of Rohingya Muslims.
      Her aides hope the offer -- linked to internal political changes strengthening her position, and the appointment of a UN special envoy for the crisis -- can mark a turning point in her relations with the international community. ...

  • Australia to provide $15m [more]
    to Rohingya crisis.
        - News.com.au (Australia)
    (same topic at:
        - Special Broadcasting Service (Australia)
        - The Australian )

• 2018 April 29 - Sunday

  • Rohingya refugees welcome UN team
    in Bangladesh.
        - AP / New York Times
    (same topic at:
        - AP / Fox News
        - AP / ABC News
        - AP / U.S. News
        - AP / CTV News (Canada) )
      Thousands of Rohingya Muslims have gathered at a camp in Bangladesh to welcome a U.N. Security Council team that's getting a firsthand look at the plight of refugees who have fled military-led violence in Myanmar.
      The refugees are carrying placards, some of which read "We want justice."
      Some 700,000 refugees are seeking U.N. protection to return home.
      The U.N. team will meet some of the refugees, including victims of rape and torture. The delegation will also visit Myanmar after concluding its three-day visit on Monday.
      Representatives from the five permanent Security Council members — China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States — and 10 non-permanent member states have joined the delegation in the coastal town of Cox's Bazar, where the camps are located ...

  • UN security council overwhelmed
    by suffering at Rohingya camps.
        - The Guardian (U.K.)
      Delegation visiting refugee camps
    in Bangladesh
    hear pleas for action by the UN
    and involvement of the
    international criminal court. ...
    (same topic at:
        - Reuters News Service
    ...which adds:
      Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh made emotional pleas to the U.N. Security Council on Sunday for help to return safely to their homes in neighboring Myanmar and for justice over the reason they fled - accusations of killings, rapes and arson.
      During a visit to an unclaimed strip of territory between the two states dubbed no-man’s land, several tearful women and girls threw themselves at British U.N. Ambassador Karen Pierce as they recounted what had happened to them.
      “It shows the scale of the challenge as we try as a Security Council to find some way through that enables these poor people to go home,” Pierce said. “The sad thing is there’s nothing we can do right today that will make their distress any less.”
      The Security Council envoys... also visited a dry and dusty Kutupalong refugee camp that housed many of the nearly 700,000 Rohingya who fled Myanmar’s Rakhine state.
      “It’s quite overwhelming. Obviously the scale of this camp is unlike anything I’ve ever seen,” said deputy U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Kelley Currie. “It is going to be a disaster when the rains come.”
    * * *
      Hundreds of refugees lined a road in Kutupalong camp on Sunday with signs that read “we demand justice” and “protected return to protected homeland.”
    * * *
      Several female refugees who met with council envoys accused Myanmar troops of gang-raping them, attacking their young children and killing their husbands. Myanmar has said that its operations in Rakhine were a legitimate response to attacks on security forces by Rohingya insurgents.
    * * *
      “This is very complicated issue, and it’s related with history, with ethnicity, with religions,” Chinese deputy U.N. Ambassador Wu Haitao told reporters -- in response to a question about whether China and Russia were preventing the council from considering a resolution on Myanmar.
    * * *
      While the Security Council is united on traveling to the region, diplomats said they expect Myanmar ally China and Russia -- both veto-wielding powers on the council -- to resist any push for stronger council action, such as sanctions or a referral of the situation to the International Criminal Court.
    * * *
      The council adopted a formal statement in November -- a move that requires consensus by the 15-member body -- that asked Myanmar to ensure "[no] further excessive use of military force" and to allow "freedom of movement, equal access to basic services, and equal access to full citizenship for all." ...

    ---

     

    

  • Bangladesh wants...
    • China,
    • Russia,
    • India,
    • Japan
    ...to help resolve Rohingya issue:
    ~[Prime Minister]
        - Daily Star (Bangladesh)

     

• 2018 April 30 - Sunday

  • Top-level UN team meets Myanmar leader
    in Rohingya probe
        - AP / ABC News
      Ambassadors from the U.N. Security Council probing Myanmar's crisis (over its ethnic Rohingya Muslim minority) met Monday with the country's leader and military chief, after visiting Bangladesh...
      The 15-member delegation co-led by [the] Security Council President... met in Myanmar's capital with
    • State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi
      and
    • military commander Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing.
    [The delegation will] travel Tuesday to Rakhine state -- the place the Rohingya fled and where hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas remain.
      They are expected to see the aftermath of the army's crackdown there as well as the government's preparations for taking back the refugees from Bangladesh. ...
    (same topic at:
        - AFP / Channel NewsAsia (Singapore)
        - AAP / Special Broadcasting Service
          (Australia)
        - AP / CBC News (Canada)
    ...which notes:
      Myanmar's government agreed to allow the delegates' visit after previously rejecting UN requests for a visit by a specially appointed independent fact-finding committee. That team said in March that it found evidence of human rights violations against [Myanmar's] Kachin, Shan and Rohingya minorities "in all likelihood amounting to crimes under international law." ...
      Thousands of refugees had gathered amid scorching heat at the camp to welcome the delegation. They carried placards, some of which read "We want justice."
    * * *
      "The other thing the Security Council should do is refer the situation in Rakhine state to the International Criminal Court," Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, said Friday in a speech to journalists in Yangon, Myanmar's biggest city.
      "The crimes against humanity that were committed against the Rohingya population were clearly of the gravity and severity that they warrant prosecution by the ICC. If impunity were to prevail it would be an enormous injustice to the victims and their families, and it would only encourage a repetition of these kinds of mass atrocities." ...

  • Rohingya Muslims should not
    be repatriated to Myanmar
    until credible investigation,
    [Australian Foreign Minister]
    Julie Bishop says.
        - Australian Broadcasting Corp.

  • Nine months after Myanmar assaults,
    Rohingya camps ready
    for spate of births.
      Agencies brace for spike in unwanted children, who were conceived as a result of sexual violence by Myanmar soldiers and militiamen.
        - The Guardian (U.K.)
      (same topic at:
        - Sky News (U.K.) )
      When hundreds of thousands of Rohingya flooded into south-east Bangladesh last year, they told of systematic rape and other sexual violence by Myanmar soldiers and militiamen.
      This May will mark nine months since that exodus started. Aid agencies, especially those who work with women and children, have been bracing for the date. Over the next weeks, babies conceived as a result of sexual assaults, committed during the crackdown, will be born.
      Save the Children says it is expecting the number of babies who are abandoned by their mothers to increase next month in line with the milestone.
    * * *
      “They may feel they cannot care or are not equipped to care for their new baby,” says Melissa How, a medical coordinator with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)(Doctors Without Borders), . “Many of them are young women under the age of 18. Additionally, how they will be perceived socially due to stigma is an added stress.”
    * * *
      In Myanmar, most Rohingya had little or no access to healthcare, let alone abortion services. [A raped Rohingya widow] says she bought “medicine” from a village doctor that failed to halt the pregnancy. As a widow, she felt a particular stigma against asking other villagers for help.
      “Seeking help to abort pregnancy is very difficult for a widow in our society,” she says. “I stopped searching for any way to get rid of the pregnancy and I left everything to the mercy of Allah.”
      Inside the heaving refugee camps, she again sought help to terminate the pregnancy. But by then it was too late. Bangladesh law prohibits abortion after the first trimester. Doctors warned her an illegal procedure could endanger her life.
      “I had other little children at home,” she says. “I chose not to take the risk.”
      Nobody knows how many women like [her] there are in the camps.
    * * *
      In January, so many women were showing up at [MSF’s] hospitals, bleeding, that midwives speculated many were probably trying to abort their pregnancies at home. ...

    ---

• 2018 May 1 - Tuesday

  • Myanmar army chief denies
    rape of Rohingya
    as U.N. visits.
        - AFP / The Hindu (India)
      Denied access to Myanmar in the months immediately after the crisis, a UN Security Council delegation is making a belated first visit to Myanmar to ratchet up pressure for a safe and dignified return of the Muslim minority.
      Late on Monday they met the army chief, who controls all security matters in the country without oversight from the elected government.
      “The Tatmadaw (army) is always disciplined... and takes action against anyone who breaks the law,” he told the delegates...
      Rohingya women and girls in Bangladesh have provided consistent accounts of sexual violence -- reports verified by conflict monitors -- but Min Aung Hlaing said his forces have “no such history of sexual abuse.” “It is unacceptable according to the culture and religion of our country,” he said, adding that anyone found guilty of crimes would be punished.
      He also repeated the official line that Myanmar was ready to take back the refugees who could be verified as residents, as per a repatriation deal with Bangladesh. Several months after the deal was signed, no refugees have returned. Enraged Bangladeshi officials... accuse Myanmar of pretending to co-operate for the benefit of the international community. ...

  • UN [Security Council] delegation
    visiting northern Rakhine.
        - AP / Daily Star (Bangladesh)
      A UN Security Council delegation on Tuesday was visiting volatile areas of Myanmar's Rakhine state, from where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims have fled military-led violence, to see firsthand the aftermath of the army's crackdown as well as Myanmar's preparations for taking back the refugees. ...

  • Security Council urges conditions
    that allow safe return
    of Rohingya refugees.
        - United Nations Security Council
      After seeing for themselves the conditions facing Rohingya refugees in the camps of southern Bangladesh as well as homes they fled in Myanmar, Security Council members called on Tuesday for them to be allowed a safe return. ...
      * * *
      Security Council members also urged the international community to continue supporting the work being undertaken by the UN and humanitarian agencies in southern Bangladesh, on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of vulnerable refugees living there.
     

• 2018 May 2 - Wednesday

  

  • Surprise Ruling in Myanmar
    Favors Jailed Reuters Journalists.
        - New York Times
    (same topic at:
    - Reuters News Service )
      In the first significant ruling in favor of two jailed Reuters reporters, the judge... announced... he would accept evidence from a police captain, who testified that an officer was ordered to entrap one of the journalists.
      Both sides... appeared caught off guard by the ruling of the judge,... who previously sided with the prosecution by allowing the case to proceed. Myanmar's judiciary is not known for independence. ...
      The police captain -- since his April 20th testimony that went against the prosecution -- has been sentenced, in secret, to a year in prison for an unspecified charge, and his family has been evicted...

• 2018 May 3 - Thursday

  • Human traffickers
    targeting Rohingya refugees
    in Bangladeshi camps.
        - Dhaka Tribune (Bangladesh)
      Life in the cramped camps is tough. Many of the Rohingyas are trying to escape the camps to build a better future for themselves and their families. Human traffickers are taking advantage of this situation. ...
      “It actually goes back several years. The grand crisis is just part of a longer story,” [says] human trafficking expert Siddharth Kara.... “Many of them (Rohingyas) have been trafficked to Thailand for prostitution.”
      He said the traffickers took advantage of the recent exodus and trafficked girls to India or other parts of Bangladesh. “It is a horrible scenario... I do not have that much faith in the repatriation process.”
      Assistant Director for Mediation in BLAST Taposhi Rabaya said that at the beginning of the influx, people took away many children from the camps.
      “These Rohingya children and women are at high risk of being trafficked. People are trafficking children for domestic work. They just hold the hand of a child and take him or her with them,” she said.
      “No one knows what happens at the camps after sunset as outsiders (NGOs and aid workers) are not allowed to stay. Anything can happen. In fact, I did not feel that the security [in the camps] is tight enough even during the day,” she added. ...
      Women’s rights activist Salma Ali said that many Rohingya women and children had already been trafficked. At the beginning of the influx, no one monitored the movement of the refugees. ...

  • Rohingya Refugee Sites: UAV Imagery
    - Unchiprang, Teknaf, Cox's Bazar, Chittagong, Bangladesh
    (02 May 2018)
        - International Organization for Migration
            on ReliefWeb.int

  • Rohingya refugees
    in Bangladesh camps
    await new danger:
    Rain.
        - Associated Press
    (same topic at:
    - Washington Post
    - AP / Asahi Shimbun (Japan) )
      The early rains have already loosened the dirt on steep hillsides, and tons of earth has shifted in some places. While a handful of people have been relocated, most remain at risk.
      "There are no more trees, no more roots, so there could be massive landslides, burying people that live at the bottom of the hills" and carrying away those who live on hilltops, said UNICEF spokesman Benjamin Steinlechner. "So that is the major risk."
      An even bigger worry is cyclones forming in the nearby Bay of Bengal. ...

  • 'Myanmar authorities must face accountability':
    ~[Canada's envoy] Bob Rae
        - Daily Star (Bangladesh)
      Myanmar authorities must face accountability for the crimes against the Rohingyas, said Canada's special envoy to the country's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. ...
      Bob Rae, who recently submitted a report to the Canadian PM, said Canada has to take a leadership role in resolving the Rohingya crisis when there has been a void of global leadership. ...

  • A Door Opened to Resolve the Rohingya Crisis?
      The U.N. Security Council has the chance
    to make Myanmar's government
    accountable for the refugee crisis.
    Opinion Essay by Daniel Sullivan,
    senior advocate for human rights,
    Refugees International.
        - U.S. News

  • Trump sends letter to [Bangladesh's] PM,
    assures of continuing pressure
    for Rohingya repatriation.
        - Daily Star (Bangladesh)
    (same topic at:
    - New York Times
    - Reuters News Service )
      "The United States will continue to pressure Myanmar to create necessary conditions for the safe and voluntary return of the Rohingya people to their homeland," Trump said in the letter to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
      * * *
      In the letter, the US president said there is no question that those in Myanmar responsible for instigating this crisis must be held accountable.
      * * *
      Trump [praised] the prime minister for her humanitarian leadership role in... the Rohingya crisis, [adding]:
    "The United States is deeply grateful to the government of Bangladesh for its generous humanitarian response to the Rohingya crisis. ..."

  • Myanmar journalists say
    government failing to
    protect press freedom:
    ~Survey.
        - Reuters News Service
      Journalists in Myanmar believe their government is failing to defend media freedom despite the transition from harsh military rule to an elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, according to a survey published to mark World Press Freedom Day on Thursday.
      * * *
      Asked to rate the government’s success on defending media freedom, 79 percent of journalists questioned for the survey answered “low” or “very low.”
      * * *
      The survey comes after Paris-based Reporters Without Borders last week moved Myanmar down in its annual press freedom index by six places to 137th out of 180 nations, citing legal action against journalists and restrictions on access to conflict-affected areas.

  • OPINION:
    An open letter to
    U2’s Bono and others
      by Saw Wai
        - Myanmar Times (Myanmar)
    [NOTE: This media may be subject to Myanmar military control or censorship.]
      This commentary -- by a famed Buddhist-Burmese poet-dissident, who opposed the military in the past -- urges sympathy with the government and military in their dealings with the Rohingya (whom he implies are simply not entitled to citizenship in Myanmar).
      He dismisses allegations "that Myanmar authorities have killed thousands of Muslims in northern Rakhine."

  • OPINION & ANALYSIS:
    The Rohingya crisis and
    implications for Sri Lanka.
      by a Research Associate at the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute of International Relations and Strategic Studies(LKI), Sri Lanka.
        - Daily FT (Sri Lanka)
      This commentary looks at the recent humanitarian crisis involving Myanmar’s Rohingya community from a Sri Lankan perspective. In particular, it considers implications of the crisis for Sri Lanka:
      We suggest that the crisis requires Sri Lanka to formulate a national policy on refugees, in its drive to become a better ‘regional citizen.’ In addition, we argue that the deteriorating situation in Myanmar serves as an implicit warning for Buddhist-Muslim relations in Sri Lanka. ...

• 2018 May 4 - Friday
  
  • OIC delegation visiting
    Cox's Bazar Rohingya camps.
        - Daily Star (Bangladesh)
      A delegation of ministers and representatives of [the] Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) countries visited Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar today.
      * * *
      [Foreign ministers of Bangladesh and Canada, and some of their senior diplomats], are accompanying them.
      * * *
      Diplomatic sources in Dhaka believe the back-to-back visits of the UN Security Council delegation and OIC foreign ministers would have a positive impact towards a sustainable solution to the Rohingya crisis.
      * * *
      They will attend the 45th Session of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Council of Foreign Ministers starting from tomorrow in [Bangladesh's] capital.
      * * *
      The OIC is considered the second-largest inter-governmental organisation after the United Nations -- with the membership of 57 states, covering four continents, with a collective population of over 1.6 billion.
    (same topic, additional info at:
        - "Dhaka expects move on refugee crisis"
    and at:
        - Reuters News Service )

  • VIDEO:
    Why are elephants smashing
    the Rohingya refugee camp?
        - BBC News
     

• 2018 May 5 - Saturday

  • SPECIAL BROADCAST NOTE:
    PBS FRONTLINE   TV DOCUMENTARY SERIES
      NEXT WEEK'S EPISODE:
      "MYANMAR'S KILLING FIELDS"
        - PBS (Public Broadcasting Service)
            & WGBH-TV, Boston
      The foremost award-winning public television documentary series -- Frontline, on PBS -- will focus on a history of the Rohingya crisis -- and how it survives international condemnation. The first release is scheduled for Tuesday, May 8th (different stations may broadcast on other days).
      * * *
      The official Frontline website summarizes it:
      Season 34: Episode 18
    "In this... documentary... secret footage going back years, and accounts from victims and their families, shine new light on the effort to kill and expel the Rohingya people from Myanmar — an effort that has been described by the United Nations as having the “hallmarks of genocide.”

    For local broadcast dates & times, contact your local PBS station, or visit pbs.org
     

  • [Canada's Global Affairs Minister]
    Freeland says Canada working
    to play a leadership role
    in Rohingya crisis.
        - The Canadian Press /
          Ottawa Citizen (Canada)
    (same topic at:
        - The Canadian Press /
          CTV (Canada) )

• 2018 May 6 - Sunday

  • OIC seeks international support
    to resolve Rohingya crisis
        - Daily Star (Bangladesh)
      The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has condemned the recent atrocities against Rohingyas in Myanmar, terming that actions against them have reached the level of “ethnic cleansing”.
      The systematic acts against the Rohingyas by the Myanmar security forces constitute a serious and blatant violation of international law, the foreign ministers and head of delegations of the OIC member-states said in a declaration today.
      They also commended the leadership of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in addressing the plights of the Rohingyas and sought international support to resolve the crisis and full implementation of the recommendations made by the Kofi Annan-led advisory commission on Rakhine State. ...
    (also see:
      - Full text of the Dhaka declaration of the
        45th OIC Council of Foreign Ministers)

  • Myanmar Rohingya refugees brace
    for monsoon deluge
    in Bangladesh camps.
        - BBC News
      In the Rohingya refugee camps of southern Bangladesh, where flimsy bamboo shelters sprawl across the steep hillsides and flood prone valleys, there has been a desperate effort to make ready for the coming cyclone and monsoon season. But the almost 900,000 refugees here remain very vulnerable. ...

  • Fear spreading among Rohingya refugees
    as they brace for coming monsoon.
        - Toronto Globe & Mail (Canada)
      Between June and August,
    2.5 metres (8 feet) of monsoon rains
    will fall in this region;
    and fear is spreading that the deluge
    will bring landslides, flooding,
    and water-borne diseases --
    -- multiplying the afflictions
    that have already befallen Rohingya
    driven away from torched homes.
      Contingency plans among
    humanitarian agencies include
    preparations for thousands of deaths,
    -- although aid workers say
    that does not mean such an outcome
    is unavoidable.

• 2018 May 7 - Monday

  • Islamic countries call
    Rohingya crisis
    'ethnic cleansing'.
        - Times of India
      The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) issued a joint statement Sunday, at the end of a two-day conference in Bangladesh, saying Myanmar's treatment of Rohingya Muslims is a "serious and blatant violation of international law." The OIC is calling for international support in solving the crisis.
    (same topic, more details, at:
    - Associated Press
    - Dhaka Tribune
    - Hindustan Times
    - Al Jazeera )

  • One Killed, 2 Injured
    in Landslide at
    Rohingya Refugee Camp.
        - The Irrawaddy (Burma/Myanmar)
      A Rohingya girl was killed, and two other children were injured, Friday morning, in a landslide at the Kutupalong refugee camp in Ukhiya on the outskirts of Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. ...
      It is the first known death caused by a landslide at the camps due to rain.
      Also...:
    •   UN Sends More Aid ...
    •   OIC Delegation Visits Camps ...

• 2018 May 8 - Tuesday

  • SPECIAL BROADCAST NOTE:
    PBS FRONTLINE   TV DOCUMENTARY SERIES
      TONIGHT'S EPISODE:
      "MYANMAR'S KILLING FIELDS"
        - PBS (Public Broadcasting Service)
            & WGBH-TV, Boston
      Tonight, the foremost award-winning public television documentary series -- Frontline, on PBS -- will focus on a history of the Rohingya crisis -- and how it survives international condemnation. The first release is scheduled for Tuesday, May 8th (different stations may initially broadcast on other days, or air re-runs).
      * * *
      The official Frontline website summarizes it:
      Season 34: Episode 18
    "In this... documentary... secret footage going back years, and accounts from victims and their families, shine new light on the effort to kill and expel the Rohingya people from Myanmar — an effort that has been described by the United Nations as having the “hallmarks of genocide.”

    For local broadcast dates & times, contact your local PBS station, or visit http://pbs.org

      The Frontline website includes these supplemental articles, published today:

    • Full TRANSCRIPT of the episode

    • "'A Soldier Cut Off Her Breast':
      Rohingya Survivors Recount Atrocities."
      (also posted on KUOW Radio website

    • "What Will Happen
      to the Rohingya People Now?"

    • "Q&A: How to Prove a Mass Killing
      Isn’t 'Fake News.'" )
       

  • More Than 43,000 Rohingya Parents
    May Be Missing.
    Experts Fear They Are Dead.
        - TIME Magazine
      More than 43,000 Rohingya parents have been reported lost, presumed dead in the six months since Myanmar’s military unleashed a crackdown last August, according to a new report. These figures provide the latest indication that even by conservative estimates the number of Muslim Rohingya killed in the crisis far exceeds the Myanmar government’s official count of 400.
      Based on surveys of refugees who fled Myanmar for neighboring Bangladesh, 28,300 Rohingya children have lost at least one parent, while an additional 7,700 children reported having lost both parents, according to the ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR), citing data from the Bangladeshi government. That puts the number of “lost” parents as high as 43,700, according to APHR, adding that it is unclear how many of the children are siblings and may have lost the same parent.
      * * *
      While there are no reliable totals for how many people have been killed in what the U.N. has labelled an “ethnic cleansing” campaign, Doctors Without Borders estimated 6,700 Rohingya deaths in the first month of violence alone.

  • The Rohingya Crisis
    and the Meaning of Genocide
        - Council on Foreign Relations
          on ReliefWeb.int
      Despite evidence of systematic violence against the Rohingya, countries remain reluctant to classify the humanitarian crisis in Myanmar’s Rakhine State as genocide. ...
      * * *
      Does the situation in Myanmar fit the legal parameters of genocide?...

  • 4 rights groups urge UN council
    to refer Myanmar to ICC
    [(International Criminal Court)].
        - Associated Press
      Four human rights groups...
    • Amnesty International,
    • Human Rights Watch,
    • the Global Center for the Responsibility to Protect
    • Fortify Rights —
    ...urged the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday to refer Myanmar to the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity, including targeting about 700,000 Rohingya Muslims who fled military-led violence to Bangladesh.
      Matthew Smith, head of the Asia-based group Fortify Rights, went a step further to say the ICC should also investigate “mounting evidence” of genocide against Rohingya.

  • OPINION: UN Security Council:
    Refer Myanmar to ICC.
        - Human Rights Watch
        "Stand Up for Rohingya Victims
            of Crimes Against Humanity"
    (see FULL article at:
      "The Rohingya Crisis and the Meaning of Genocide"
      on the website of the
      Council on Foreign Relations
      (CFR.org) )

  • Dangers persist for
    nearly a million Rohingya refugees
    in Bangladesh:
    ~WHO (World Health Org.)
        - UN News
      Renewed efforts are underway in Bangladesh to protect nearly one million Myanmar refugees from cholera, amid a warning from the UN health agency on Tuesday that
    “We’re not out of the woods yet,”... adding that the majority of the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh live in “overcrowded…unsanitary camps”.
      Dr. Richard Brennan, Director of Emergency Operations at the World Health Organization, (WHO), issued the warning in Geneva, citing risks from other diseases, natural hazards and a serious funding shortage:
      “We are looking down the barrel of the monsoon season with the inherent risk of flooding, landslides, as well as the cyclone season,” he added.
      * * *
      There are now nearly 900,000 displaced individuals living in a dozen camps in and around the border town of Cox’s Bazar... Brennan said it was a “major achievement” that mortality rates had remained low.
      * * *
      ...cohlera is “only one health concern among a number of priorities”, the WHO official said, stressing the need to focus on water and sanitation facilities as the most effective guarantee against other water-borne diseases.
      * * *
      Some $950 million is required to help the refugees, Dr. Brennan said, but only around 16 per cent of this amount has been provided.
      Resources are even more scarce when it comes to healthcare, with only 6.3 per cent of funding needs met.

  • 30,000 Rohingya refugees
    moving to raised land,
    to escape floods:
      ~WFP
        - UN News
      With monsoon rains threatening to flood Rohingya “mega camps” in Bangladesh, the World Food Programme (WFP) is leading a UN-wide effort to relocate around 30,000 refugees to higher ground.

  • Myanmar's bishops
    discuss China, Rohingya
    with Pope Francis.
        - Catholic News Agency
     
    

  • Crisis in Myanmar’s Kachin
    means jungle treks
    to escape war.
        - Associated Press
    (same topic at:
    - AP / Fox News
    - AP / Minneapolis Star-Tribune (USA) )
    ...a wave of 6,800 people... have fled their homes in [northwest Myanmar's] Kachin [state] since a fresh government offensive began in early April.
      The onslaught is part of a decades-long government campaign to defeat Kachin rebels fighting for greater autonomy for the largely Christian minority group in Myanmar’s far north. The intensified offensive has renewed accusations that the army is creating a similar humanitarian crisis in Kachin to the one spawned by its violence against Rohingya Muslims in the country’s west.
      * * *
      The government has denied virtually all access to the area for the United Nations and international humanitarian groups.

  • UNICEF gets $15.7m fund [from Japan]
    for Rohingya children, women
    in Cox’s Bazar.
        - Daily Star (Bangladesh)
      The United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) has scaled up humanitarian assistance and life-saving interventions for the Rohingya children and women along with the vulnerable host population in Cox's Bazar with US$15.7 million funding received from the government of Japan.

• 2018 May 9 - Wednesday

  • U.N. Security Council pushes Myanmar
    on accountability over Rohingya.
        - Reuters News Service
      The United Nations Security Council urged Myanmar’s government on Wednesday to carry out transparent investigations into accusations of violence against mainly Rohingya Muslims in the country’s Rakhine state and to allow immediate aid access to the region.
      Despite initial resistance by China to the Security Council pressing Myanmar on accountability, the 15-member body reached consensus agreement on the British-drafted statement. ...
    (same topic at: ABS-CBN (The Philippines) )

  • International Criminal Court
    seeks Dhaka’s opinion
    on Rohingya crisis.
        - Dhaka Tribune (Bangladesh)
      The court sought opinions from Bangladesh on three specific issues:
    • living conditions of the refugees,
    • whether the ICC has any authority to hold hearings on the Rohingya exodus, and
    • providing necessary information for the trial process.
      The pre-trial chamber was formed after ICC Prosecutor... filed a petition with it on April 9, seeking a ruling on whether the court has any authority to hold hearings on the offences committed against Rohingyas.
    (same topic at: bdnews24.com (Bangladesh) )

  • 'Bangladesh,
      involve ICC
      into Rohingya crisis'
        - Daily Star (Bangladesh)
      Bangladesh government should encourage the International Criminal Court (ICC) to exercise jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute the crime of deporting Rohingyas, said a Southeast Asia-based rights organisation, Fortify Rights, today.

  • China resists Britain’s push
    for UN statement in probe
    on Myanmar’s Rohingya crisis.
        - South China Morning Post
      (same topic, more details at:
        - Reuters News Service )
      Britain last week circulated a statement stressing ‘credible and transparent investigations’. On Monday, China -- a supporter of Myanmar’s former ruling junta -- put forward an amended statement that dropped all mention of investigations or accountability.
      * * *
      China is resisting a British push at the UN Security Council for a statement calling on Myanmar to try those responsible for attacks on the Rohingya, according to a draft seen on Tuesday.

  • OPINION ESSAY:
    Pregnant Rohingya Refugees
    Are in Desperate Need.
    by Andrew Gilmour,
    U.N. Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights
      and
    Pramila Patten
    U.N. Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict
        - Bloomberg
      Thousands of women who were raped by the Burmese military live in refugee camps that are at risk from monsoon flooding. But will the international community answer?
      * * *
      We believe that there are at least 40,000 pregnancies among Rohingya refugee women and children; the Bangladesh Health Ministry estimated double that number in December 2017. Rape is the likely cause of many of those pregnancies.
      * * *
      There’s little time to waste. The rains have already begun in Cox’s Bazar; May is also cyclone season. Floods and landslides in the camps could be calamitous even without a sudden surge of obstetric deliveries. While humanitarian agencies are preparing for the monsoon as best they can, they need far greater resources.
      * * *
      But the first priority must be to save lives, which means moving these expectant mothers to sites less vulnerable to the oncoming rains. They cannot be cared for where they are. And the international community cannot allow them to be victimized a second time.

    

  • Myanmar cop details sting
    on Rohingya massacre reporters.
        - Reuters / Bangkok Post (Thailand)
      A Myanmar policeman, now serving a prison sentence, gave more details to a court on Wednesday about how he says two Reuters reporters were framed by police, in what has become a landmark press-freedom case for the Southeast Asian nation.
    (also see:
    - Myanmar whistleblower police officer
      says jailing a warning.
        - Associated Press
    ...which notes:
        A Myanmar police officer, who testified that his colleagues helped frame two reporters being tried on charges of possessing state secrets, said Wednesday his subsequent jailing was intended to intimidate any other officers thinking of telling the truth. )

  • Fatal elephant attacks on Rohingya refugees push Bangladesh to act
        - The Hindu (India) / The Guardian (U.K.)
      Young boy becomes latest in series of casualties at Kutupalong camp in Cox’s Bazar, which lies on migration route long used by elephants.

  • Meth trade forges unlikely link
    between Rohingya
    and Myanmar soldiers.
        - AFP / Channel NewsAsia
      Huge quantities of meth are seeding unrest inside Bangladesh's refugee camps, as jobless Rohingya turn drug runners for a criminal chain that stretches back to Myanmar - and the soldiers who drove them out.

• 2018 May 10 - Thursday

  • The U.N. Urges Myanmar
    to Seek Accountability
    for Violence Against Rohingya.
        - AP / TIME Magazine
      The U.N. Security Council urged Myanmar’s government on Wednesday to fulfill its commitment to hold perpetrators of violence against Rohingya Muslims accountable and to address the root causes that led about 700,000 members of the ethnic minority to flee to Bangladesh.
    (same topic at:
    - Associated Press
    - AP / Philippine Daily Inquirer )

  • Myanmar's bishops
    ask Holy See to organise
    conference on Rohingyas.
        - Vatican News

• 2018 May 11 - Friday

  • India wants safe, sustainable
    Rohingya repatriation
        - Daily Star (Bangladesh)
      India has conveyed to Myanmar the need for speed, safe, and sustainable repatriation of Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh as Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj today wrapped up a two-day visit to that country.

  • Months after fleeing homes in Myanmar, Rohingya refugees reckon with new lives
        - Toronto Globe & Mail (Canada)
      With no place to call their own, Rohingya from Myanmar look for small forms of solace amid the crowded camps of Bangladesh. Nathan VanderKlippe visits Chakmarkul camp, home to more than 12,000 refugees, and finds a land of dancing, weeping and Shakespeare.

  • ‘We’ll Turn Your Village Into Soil’:
    Survivors Recount One of Myanmar’s
    Biggest Massacres.
        - Wall Street Journal
      Security forces went door to door, shooting anyone who emerged, including children, in a Sunday afternoon massacre ...in [the] village of Chut Pyin.
      * * *
      The Myanmar government has restricted access to Chut Pyin and surrounding villages. Authorities don’t allow aid workers, United Nations investigators or Western journalists free travel there. ...

• 2018 May 12 - Saturday
  
  --------------
  

• 2018 May 13 - Sunday

  • Myanmar rebels launch attacks in north;
    at least 15 dead.
        - Associated Press
      An ethnic rebel group, [Ta’ang National Liberation Army, of Shan state,] launched an attack against Myanmar’s military in a northern town on Saturday, leaving at least 15 people dead and 20 injured, including civilians, officials said.
      * * *
      The TNLA is among more than a dozen ethnic rebel groups that have been fighting the central government for greater autonomy for decades. In the past few months, clashes between rebels and the military in Myanmar’s northeastern region have intensified, resulting in thousands of displaced in neighboring Kachin state.
      * * *
      Myanmar’s army has been criticized for extrajudicial killings, torture, forced labor, rape and other abuses against the country’s many minority groups.

  • How Bollywood movies helped Rohingyas settle in India
        - The Economic Times / Times of India

  • Press release:
    [USAID] Administrator... Travels to Asia:
    Bangladesh, Burma, and Thailand
        - U.S. Agency for International Development USAID Administrator Mark Green will travel to Bangladesh, Burma, and Thailand from May 13 to May 23.
     

• 2018 May 14 - Monday

  • Boatloads of Rohingya refugees
    'risking death at sea'.
      Boatloads of Rohingya could die at sea trying to flee Myanmar unless neighbouring governments step in, humanitarian workers have warned.
        - Sky News (U.K.)
      In the last month, around 180 refugees have tried to cross the Andaman Sea [bordering India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand and Indonesia] to escape persecution in Myanmar.
      At least 10 are known to have died en route, while around 200 others have drowned in the Bay of Bengal trying to get to Bangladesh since August 2017.
      * * *
      In 2015, thousands attempted the crossing but many boats were stopped from landing on neighbouring shores and hundreds of people died at sea after being stranded by traffickers.
      * * *
      There are no confirmed figures for how many refugees have tried to escape across the Andaman this year, but at least four boats have left since April.
      Of those, two were rescued by Indonesian fisherman, while a third landed in Langkawi, Malaysia, after briefly stopping in southern Thailand and being escorted back to sea by Thai authorities. ... this not only put the lives of refugees at risk, but may also contravene international maritime law.

• 2018 May 15 - Tuesday

  • War crimes judges
    to hold closed talks
    on Rohingya crisis.
        - AFP / Japan Times
      War crimes judges will hold closed-door talks next month to discuss whether to allow the launch of a probe into the forced exodus of Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar.
      Only chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda will appear before the three judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) hearing on June 20, presiding Judge Peter Kovacs said in his Friday order, seen by AFP on Monday.
      * * *
      In an unprecedented move last month, Bensouda asked judges at the world’s only permanent war crimes court to rule whether she can investigate the deportations as a crime against humanity.
      It is a legally complicated request, as Myanmar is not a signatory and member of the Rome Statute, which underpins the ICC.
      Bangladesh is, however, and Bensouda argued that should give her office jurisdiction to investigate the Rohingya’s plight.
      * * *
      Set up in 2002 in The Hague, the ICC acts to prosecute the worst abuses including genocide in places where national tribunals are unwilling or unable to act.
      The Myanmar army in the mainly Buddhist nation has denied any allegations, saying its campaign has been a legitimate response to Rohingya militant attacks last year that killed about a dozen border guard police.
      The Southeast Asian nation has voiced “serious concern” over the move at the ICC.

  • The Rohingya Have
    Fled One Crisis
    for Another
      The monsoon season, which begins in earnest in a few weeks’ time, is predicted to bring with it disease, landslides, flash flooding, and death.
        - Foreign Policy (political journal: USA)
      As the monsoon season looms, hundreds of thousands of refugees are living in overcrowded Bangladeshi refugee camps at risk of an imminent cholera outbreak.
      The monsoon season, which begins in earnest in a few weeks’ time, is predicted to bring with it disease, landslides, flash flooding, and death.
      The refugee camps are located in one of the most frequently flooded regions of one of the most flood- and cyclone-prone countries in the world. In 1970, Cyclone Bhola killed at least 300,000 people; in 2007, Cyclone Sidr killed 10,000.
      Despite their efforts, aid agencies fear that they will be unable to protect the Rohingya from yet another crisis, one that could end in utter catastrophe, further terrorizing refugees who have endured unimaginable atrocities.

  • Press release:
    The United States Announces
    Humanitarian Assistance
    for Rohingya
    and Other Vulnerable People
    in Burma and Bangladesh.
        - U.S. Agency for International Development
          (USAID)
        "This funding brings the total U.S. humanitarian assistance for displaced people in and from Burma to more than $299 million since the beginning of Fiscal Year 2017..."
    (Also see transcript:
    U.S. Agency for International Development
    Administrator Mark Green's
    Gaggle with Press )

• 2018 May 16 - Wednesday

  • About 60 Rohingya Babies
    Are Born Every Day
    in Refugee Camps,
    the U.N. Says
        - TIME Magazine
      The U.N. children’s agency, UNICEF, said Wednesday that more than 16,000 Rohingya babies have been born in Bangladesh since the violence broke out in Myanmar’s Rakhine state in August last year.
      “Around 60 babies a day are taking their first breath in appalling conditions, away from home, to mothers who have survived displacement, violence, trauma and, at times, rape,” Edouard Beigbeder, a UNICEF representative in Bangladesh, said in a statement. “This is far from the best start in life.”
    (same topic at:
        - Daily Star (Bangladesh)
        - AFP / Channel NewsAsia
          (Singapore) )

  • Rohingya Muslims face difficult Ramadan in refugee camps
        - AFP / Channel NewsAsia
          (Singapore)
      ...For [Rohingya refugee] M.D. Hashim -- and others like him, living in squalor in Bangladesh -- the start of the Islamic holy month now serves as a bitter reminder of everything they have lost, since being driven from Myanmar in an army crackdown.

  • Press release:
    U.S. Agency for International Development
    Administrator Mark Green's
    Opening Remarks at a Town Hall Meeting
    with U.S. Embassy Dhaka.
        - U.S. Agency for International Development
          (USAID)
    (Also see transcript:
    U.S. Agency for International Development
    Administrator Mark Green's
    Gaggle with Press
    After Meetings with
    Senior Government Officials. )

• 2018 May 17 - Thursday

  • Rohingya repatriation: No progress,
    more reassurances from Myanmar
        - Dhaka Tribune (Bangladesh)
      The Myanmar government on Thursday restated its commitment to repatriating the hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas currently sheltering in refugee camps in Bangladesh, but offered nothing more concrete about when or how the process would begin.

  • U.S. aid chief calls on Myanmar
    to end violence against Rohingya.
        - Reuters News Service
      The U.S. government’s aid chief called on Thursday on Myanmar to end violence against members of the Rohingya Muslim minority and to provide humanitarian workers and media unhindered access to the country.
      Mark Green, administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), visited Rohingya refugee camps on a three-day visit to Bangladesh this week.
      The United States would provide $44 million in additional aid to help meet the needs of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, he told reports in Dhaka, before traveling on to Myanmar, which is also known as Burma.
      * * *
      “Today, I will fly to Burma and will ask them to end the violence and will also ask them to allow media access,” Green said.
      * * *
      “This humanitarian crisis is a global challenge and our government along with the international community will work together to support Bangladesh,” he said.
      Green, who is due to meet Myanmar government officials in the capital, Naypyitaw, said he would ask for “free and unhindered humanitarian access throughout the country” as well as access for media to travel freely.
      U.S. President Donald Trump this month assured Bangladesh of U.S. support in dealing with the Myanmar Rohingya refugee crisis.

• 2018 May 18 - Friday

  • U.S. aid chief reaffirms
    commitment to Myanmar
    amid Rohingya crisis
        - Reuters News Service
      The U.S. government’s aid chief said on Friday he believes in American aid engagement and development work in Myanmar, and the Rohingya crisis is an “impediment” to that work, not a reason to scale back assistance.
      Mark Green, administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), is in Myanmar for a three-day visit that follows a trip to the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, and Rohingya refugee camps in southeast Bangladesh.
      Some Asian leaders have been wary about U.S. President Donald Trump’s “America First” policy and his commitment to the region, especially after he walked away from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact in 2016 in the name of protecting U.S. jobs. ...

  • Myanmar wants repatriation
    of 1,101 verified Rohingyas.
        - Daily Star (Bangladesh)
      Bangladesh pushes for conducive environment, safety for returnees.

    

  • Grass Planting Reduces
    Soil Erosion, Risk of Landslides
    in Rohingya Refugee Camps
        - Inter Press Service
      Over two million vetiver grass plants have been distributed by IOM, the UN Migration Agency, in the past two weeks to reduce soil erosion and the risk of landslides in southern Bangladesh’s Rohingya refugee camps, where hundreds of thousands of people are at risk from impending monsoon rains.
      A further two million plants will be given to local and international NGOs for distribution before the end of May, following the initial success of the project, which has local vetiver suppliers struggling to keep up with demand.
      The grass costs just over USD 1.50 for a bundle of 200 plants. But the project, which in total could help stabilize land equivalent to almost 150 football fields, is expected to have a significant impact on improving living conditions in the hillside camps and will help to prevent life-threatening soil erosion. ...

  • ESSAY:
    Rohingya Rights Now:
    AJWS Experts Address the Crisis
        - AJWS (American Jewish World Service)
      On May 17, 2018 the House Foreign Affairs Committee advanced the Burma Act of 2018 (H.R. 5819), a crucial effort to stop the ongoing persecution of the Rohingya people—an ethnic minority that has been violently displaced from their homes by the Burmese military.
      Advancing the Burma Act of 2018 would not have been possible without the support of so many people who have contacted their Senators about this critical issue. Now, we must keep the pressure on. The impending monsoon season is threatening the lives of tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees who are living in cramped and under-resourced camps in Bangladesh.

  • The International Criminal Court Is Looking Into The Crimes Committed Against the Rohingya Muslims
        - Forbes
      It has become clear that various UN bodies wish to commence a fact-finding mission in Burma. They have so far been prevented from doing so by the Burmese government who have refused permission for fact-finders to enter the country. Without the ability to conduct a fact-finding inquiry inside Burma, the quality of any enquiry would suffer. While interviews could still be collected from Rohingya Muslims who have managed to escape to Bangladesh, a lot of evidence is lost without access to the areas that the crimes are alleged to have been committed.
      Away from the UN, another international actor has decided to weigh in on the issue. ...

  • Canadian aid workers say
    Rohingya crisis needs urgent action.
        - Toronto Globe & Mail
      A group of Canadian aid workers is urging the federal government to act quickly on some of the recommendations made in a report on the Rohingya crisis by Bob Rae, Canada’s special envoy to Myanmar.
      At a news conference in Toronto on Friday, the group Canadians in Support of Refugees in Dire Need (CSRDN) said the wait has been unacceptable.
      “We must lead the international community. The inaction is unbelievable,” said CSRDN co-chair Dr. Aliya Khan, noting that it’s been six weeks since the government released a report from Mr. Rae outlining the crisis, yet no actions have come from it.

• 2018 May 19 - Saturday

  • Myanmar’s BGP [Border Guard Police]
    asks Rohingyas at Tombru
    to leave no-man’s land.
        - Daily Star (Bangladesh)
      The BGP using loudspeakers has been telling the Rohingya people to leave the border area and enter Bangladesh, our Cox’s Bazar correspondent reports quoting Mohammad Arif Hossain, a local community leader of the Rohingya people staying at the border. ....

• 2018 May 20 - Sunday

  • U.S. Aid Chief to Myanmar:
    Take 'Concrete Steps'
    on Rohingya Rights.
        - Reuters / U.S. News
      The U.S. government's aid chief urged Myanmar on Sunday to take "concrete steps" to guarantee the rights of Rohingya Muslims and to show sincerity in that endeavor in order to encourage hundreds of thousands who have fled the country to return.
      Mark Green, administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), ended his three-day visit to Myanmar touring Rohingya and Rakhine communities in western Rakhine State, including a camp for displaced Rohingya people.
      Green said the refugees, whom he met during the previous leg of the trip in camps in Bangladesh, are fearful and while they want to return, they are asking for their rights and security to be guaranteed before making the decision to come back.

  • VIDEO:
    [Canadian Foreign Minister] Freeland
    says other countries need to
    step up to help Rohingya.
        - Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
     

• 2018 May 21 - Monday

  • Myanmar orders Rohingya
    to leave tense border zone.
        - The Nation (U.S.)
      Myanmar security forces have resumed loudspeaker broadcasts near its border with Bangladesh ordering Rohingya Muslims to immediately leave a strip of no-man's land between the two countries, refugees said Sunday.
      Around 6,000 refugees from the persecuted minority have been camping on the narrow stretch of land since fleeing a brutal military crackdown in Myanmar's west last August.

  • Priyanka Chopra visits
    Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh.
        - Hindustan Times (India)
      Actor and global UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador for Child Rights Priyanka Chopra is visiting the Rohingya refugee camps on a field visit.

• 2018 May 22 - Tuesday

  • ‘A lot of shame’:
    Rohingya camps brace for wave of
    babies conceived in rape
        - Washington Post
    (same topic at: CTV News (Canada) )

  • Rohingya refugee sent
    to Papua New Guinea
    by Australia
    dies.
        - The Nation (U.S.A.)
     

• 2018 May 23 - Wednesday

  • Armed Rohingya group
    massacred Hindus in Myanmar,
    Amnesty International report alleges.
        - The Independent (U.K.)
      An armed Rohingya group carried out at least one massacre of Hindu villagers in Myanmar’s conflict-wracked Rakhine state [in August, 2017], an Amnesty International report has concluded.
      Ethnic conflict has convulsed the southeast Asian country in recent years, with the military accused of slaughtering members of the Muslim Rohingya minority in the majority-Buddhist country.
      But the new report from the human rights organisation suggests that a Rohingya group known as the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) killed up to 99 Hindu women, men and children while also abducting Hindu villagers. ...
    (same topic at:
        - NPR (National Public Radio)
        - Wall Street Journal
        - BBC
        - Sky News (U.K.)
        - TIME Magazine
        - The Guardian (U.K.)
        - Hindustan Times (India) )
    (Official Amnesty International report at:
    "Myanmar: New evidence reveals Rohingya armed group massacred scores in Rakhine State"
    2018 May 22 )

  • Canada pledges $300 million in aid
    to help Rohingya,
    but stops short on resettlement.
        - Toronto Star
    (same article at:
    - CBC News (Canada) )
    (Official statement at:
    - Prime Minister's office (Canada) )

  • Bangladesh First:
    Behind India’s Changing Stance
    on the Rohingya
    India has finally taken a stand on the biggest issue dividing Myanmar and Bangladesh.
        - The Diplomat

  • Bangladesh:
    Landslides Threaten Rohingya Shelters
        - Human Rights Watch
      Disaster Looms in Refugee Camps; Safer Ground Needed

  • U.S. House backs measure
    to clamp down on Myanmar
    over Rohingya rights
        - Reuters News Service
      Members of the US House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday in favor of legislation to pressure Myanmar, also known as Burma, to improve its record on human rights.
      Lawmakers voted 382-30 to approve the measure as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, a massive defense policy bill that is one of the few pieces of legislation passed by the US Congress every year.
      If included in a final version of the NDAA, typically passed by the House and Senate later in the year, the measure would, among other things, bar US security assistance or cooperation with Myanmar's military or security forces until they have made progress on human rights.
      It also would impose sanctions on current or former senior Myanmar military officials who perpetrated or were responsible for serious human rights abuses.
    (same topic at:
    - Reuters / Jerusalem Post
    - The Irrawaddy (Myanmar/Burma) )

  • Rohingyas rally for elephants
     
        - Daily Star (Bangladesh)
    [paraphrased:]
      Officials and Rohingya volunteers celebrated the 25th annual "Biodiversity Day," focusing on Asian elephants -- critically endangered animals whose natural habitat includes the area around Cox's Bazar -- but who endanger Rohingya refugee camp residents, because the recent refugee camps have been built on the elephants' historical migratory route, and in their traditional grazing areas. The resulting in human-elephant conflicts have killed at least 13 Rohingya in the Kutupalong-Balukhali refugee camps.
      In response, UNHCR and International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) developed a mitigation program, which included hundreds of Rohingya refugee volunteers organized into Elephant Response Teams (ERTs) to respond to the conflicts. The volunteers were on parade for the day's event.

• 2018 May 24 - Thursday
  
  • Bengal govt readies defence
    on Rohingya issue
    ahead of Modi-Hasina meet.
        - Hindustan Times (India) [West Bengal is the region of India on the western border of Bangladesh. ~ RCN editor.]
      The West Bengal government is readying its defence for a controversial decision to shelter dozens of Rohingya families in various parts of the state ahead of a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bangladeshi counterpart, Sheikh Hasina, at Santiniketan on Friday.
      State officials said that while no meeting was planned between [Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee], and the two national leaders, they are ready to counter any question regarding the state administration’s decision to shelter members of the persecuted community.
      * * *
      The issue of Rohingya resettlement is one of the many subjects on which Banerjee differs sharply with the BJP-led central government. “The Centre and the state government have been at loggerheads on the issue of settling Rohingyas on Indian soil. ..."
      * * *
      While the Modi government wants to deport all Rohingya refugees, who are considered as the most persecuted ethnic minority in the world, the Bengal chief minister publicly expressed her empathy for them last year. ...

  • Myanmar:
    Deadline to Report
    on Rape of Rohingya
    to UN
      Committee Seeks Information on Rakhine State Atrocities Against Women, Girls
        - Human Rights Watch
     

  • 'They are our brothers':
    Rohingya refugees
    find rare welcome in Aceh.
    Minority known as "the most friendless people on earth" find sanctuary in Indonesia’s conservative province.
        - The Guardian (U.K.)
     

• 2018 May 25 - Friday

  • Rohingya Militants Deny
    Slaughtering Hindus
    in Myanmar
      Group dismisses Amnesty International finding that it killed dozens of Hindus in course of its violent expulsion from Myanmar last year.
        - The Guardian (U.K.)
    (same topic at:
    - Reuters News Service
    - Wall Street Journal )
      A Rohingya Muslim militant group denied accusations Friday that it slaughtered Hindu civilians amid last year’s outburst of violence in which Myanmar’s military drove some 700,000 Rohingya out of the country.
      The London-based human-rights group Amnesty International issued a report earlier this week stating that its investigations supported allegations first made by Myanmar’s military that the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) had killed dozens of Hindus during the upheaval in western Myanmar.

  • Bangladesh PM urges Myanmar
    to take back Rohingya Muslims.
        - AP / Times of India
      Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has called for international pressure on Myanmar to take back hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims who have sought shelter in her country to escape military-led violence.
      Hasina says Bangladesh gave shelter to the fleeing Rohingya on humanitarian grounds, but they should return to Myanmar.
      "Other countries should put pressure on Myanmar to take them back," she said in a speech Friday at Visva-Bharti University in West Bengal, [India] .
      [India's] Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended the speech.

  • Vigil to be held on Manus Island
    after death of Rohingya refugee.
        - The Guardian (U.K.)
      Police say asylum seekers are struggling to cope and warn of more suicides
      On Friday evening, refugees and asylum seekers on Manus Island [in the island country of Papua New Guinea (PNG), north of Australia, where Australia interns refugees] will hold a vigil for Salim, the seventh of their group to die on the island, and the third apparent suicide in less than a year. Supporters in Sydney and Melbourne will join them.
      Salim, a father of three in his 50s, died on Tuesday after jumping out of a moving vehicle. He had been on Manus Island for almost five years, under Australia’s offshore immigration policy.
      * * *
      Because he sought asylum by boat, Australia would not take him. PNG gave him refugee status, but as a developing country that struggles to provide healthcare to its own citizens, Salim’s ailments were beyond it.
      * * *
      Salim had epilepsy and severe mental illness. Doctors4Refugees repeatedly lobbied for him to be brought to Australia for treatment of his epilepsy, psychosis and other ailments.
      According to advocates, Rohingya refugees on Manus also petitioned authorities regarding his plight. “He has seizure attack almost every day and it is really frightening to all of us...we fear for his life,” they wrote.
      * * *
      Sudanese refugee Abdul Aziz Muhamat and Kurdish refugee Behrouz Boochani said they and others blamed the Australian government for Salim’s death. ... “His death creates a lot of depression among the refugees. It came at a time when everyone is disappointed by the US [resettlement] results.”
    (same topic at:
    - Australian Broadcasting Corp.
    - SBS - Special Broadcasting Service (Australia) )

  • Rohingya refugees are living in a 'slum'
        - The London Daily Telegraph (U.K.)
      Rohingya refugees are living in slum-like conditions, where infectious disease outbreaks are ready to spring up at any time and water and sanitation are poor, humanitarian experts have warned.

  • As cyclones loom,
    Bangladesh leads push
    to protect Rohingya refugees.
        - UNHCR (UN refugee agency)
      Bangladesh is working with UNHCR and partners to stave off consequences of possible extreme weather for hundreds of thousands.

• 2018 May 26 - Saturday

  • In India,
    [Bangladesh Prime Minister] Hasina
    seeks help on Rohingya.
        - Times of India
    (same topic at:
    - AP / ABC News
    - AP / Fox News )
      Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina, on Friday, chose the backdrop of the Visva Bharati campus to seek India’s help in repatriating Rohingya refugees to Myanmar.
      * * *
      Over [1.1 million] Rohingyas had taken refuge in Bangladesh, Hasina said... in the presence of PM Narendra Modi and Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee.
      “We could not have turned them away. We are a nation of [160 million] people. Why could we not feed a few [[hundred thousand]] more mouths? If need be, we will share our food. But we also want them to be expeditiously repatriated to Myanmar. We (Bangladesh and India) have to urge Myanmar to take its people back,” Hasina said.

• 2018 May 27 - Sunday

  • OPINION ESSAY:
    Rohingya Shadow Over Myanmar Hindus
    by an anti-Rohingya Indian scholar
        - Daily Pioneer (India)
      [EDITOR'S NOTE: Some of the "facts" claimed in this essay contradict some specific investigation findings of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Amnesty International, and others. However this essay reflects some of the general anti-Rohingya fallout from the Amnesty International report, widely reported May 23, 2018, faulting Rohingya insurgents of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) in killings and violent crimes against dozens of Hindus during August 2017, in the early stages of the current conflict. ARSA representatives denied the charges in reports May 25. (see above). This essay shows the quickness to oppose the Rohingya in some circles, especially in India, where anti-Muslim sentiment is widespread (in that 80% Hindu / 20% Muslim country). ~RH,ed.]

• 2018 May 28 - Monday

  • Myanmar says
    some Rohingya refugees
    have returned voluntarily.
        - AFP / Straits Times (Singapore)
    (same topic at:
    - AFP / Straits Times (Singapore) (second article)
    - AFP / Daily Star (Bangladesh) )
      Myanmar says 58 Rohingya Muslims who fled to neighbouring Bangladesh have returned voluntarily, over the last 4 months.
      They were detained for failing to follow proper repatriation procedures until the decision to "pardon" them and allow them to resettle in Myanmar, the statement said, adding they would be "temporarily" housed in a transit camp.
      Myanmar did not identify them, and Bangladesh officials say they are unaware of any such returns, and U.N. officials warn that circumstances are not safe for the Rohingyas' return to Myanmar. ...

  • ESSAY/ANALYSIS:
    Rohingya Crisis:
    AL [Bangladesh's ruling party] leaders
    seek robust role of
    Russia, China, India.
        - UNB (United News of Bangladesh)
    (Apparently a pro-ruling-party
    partisan news service)
      The Awami League leaders on Monday requested Russia, China and India to play an even more robust role in ensuring a swift solution to the Rohingya crisis and the safe and dignified return of Rohingyas to their homeland in Rakhine State of Myanmar.
      The AL leaders made the request in line with the position of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina during a ‘diplomatic briefing on current political issues’ in the city, said a press release.
      Over 50 diplomats and representatives including ambassadors and high commissioners of several countries apart from representatives of international organizations were present.

  • UN trains Rohingya refugees
    to deal with
    rain-linked challenges.
        - The Hindu (India)
      Since April, the UNHCR — with Bangladesh’s biggest non-governmental organisation, BRAC — has trained more than 20,000 ‘community outreach members’ (COMs) on emergency preparedness. But with the onset of monsoon, at least 200,000 — out of the 900,000 refugees settled in Cox’s Bazar — will face fresh challenges to survive. ...

  • PODCAST:
    The millionaire couple
    saving Rohingya refugees
    in the sea
        - France 24 TV (France)
      After spending three years saving thousands of migrants in the Mediterranean, the millionaire couple Regina and Christopher Catrambone now want to help Rohingyas. Their boat, the Phoenix -- of the organization MOAS (Migrant Offshore Aid Station) Foundation -- is sailing off the coast of Thailand and Malaysia in order to rescue Rohingya refugees fleeing Myanmar by sea.
      (Click on orange "soundwave" icon above their ship's photo to hear podcast of report.)

• 2018 May 29 - Tuesday

  • US report:
    Ethnic cleansing of Rohingya
    persists in Myanmar.
      Ethnic cleansing targeting Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar has not stopped despite growing condemnation from the international community, the Trump administration said Tuesday.
        - AP / Boston Globe (U.S.)
      In November, the United States declared that violence against the Rohingya in Myanmar’s Rakhine state constituted ethnic cleansing, and the U.S. later imposed sanctions. Ambassador Sam Brownback, the U.S. envoy for global religious freedom, said the violence is continuing.
      “I don’t think we’ve seen progress there in that country,” Brownback said as he unveiled the State Department’s annual report on international religious freedom. The report estimates that about 680,000 people fled Myanmar to neighboring Bangladesh to escape the violence.
      Rather than changing course, Brownback said, Myanmar authorities were “doubling down” by opening a new front in Kachin state. A new offensive by Myanmar’s government against Kachin rebels who have fought for decades for greater autonomy has raised fears of a humanitarian crisis in Kachin mirroring the one in Rakhine state. The Kachin rebels are a largely Christian minority group.

  • Bangladesh drug trafficking sweep
    leaves 86 dead,
    7,000 in custody,
    including Rohingya.
        - Reuters / Japan Times
      Bangladesh police have killed at least 86 people and arrested about 7,000 since launching a crackdown on drug trafficking this month, officials said on Monday, raising fears from rights activists of a Philippines-style war on drugs.
      * * *
      ...a senior police official told reporters: “The process will continue until it’s eradicated totally.” He said police arrested six people on Sunday, including a 12-year-old boy from Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim community, who had carried 3,350 [contraband drug] tablets to the capital, Dhaka.
      Bangladesh has said an influx last year of Rohingya fleeing Buddhist-majority Myanmar is partly to blame for soaring methamphetamine use. But many Rohingya say their young people are being pushed into crime because they cannot legally work or, in many cases, get access to aid.
      The 86 deaths occurred when police defended themselves in confrontations with suspected drug traffickers, said Mufti Mahmud Khan, a director of the police Rapid Action Battalion.
      “It’s their legal right to save themselves from the attack,” Mufti told Reuters.
      Human rights activists are worried the Bangladesh campaign is taking a page from the Philippine drugs war, in which thousands of people have been killed in the past two years.
    (same topic, other info at:
    - Dhaka Tribune (Bangladesh) )

• 2018 May 30 - Wednesday

  • Myanmar military
    could be investigated
    over Rohingya abuses.
        - Sky News (U.K.)
      The refugees are arguing that without getting justice, the crimes will continue and spread to other ethnic groups.
      Lawyers for 400 Rohingya refugees are to urge the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate the Myanmar military.
      The refugees are arguing that without getting justice for what has happened to them, the crimes will continue and spread to other ethnic groups. ...
      * * *
      But the lawyers intend to argue on Wednesday that the ICC [(International Criminal Court)] should investigate and possibly prosecute authorities in Myanmar for the crime of forcibly deporting the Rohingya population to Bangladesh, using means of mass murder, sexual violence, and ethnic cleansing.
      The ICC can't act unless a state is unwilling or unable to prosecute grave crimes against international law.
      But Myanmar is neither a party to the ICC nor has it accepted the court's jurisdiction, so it's currently down to the UN Security Council to refer the situation to the court - an unlikely situation when Myanmar's allies, China and Russia, have already blocked such moves.
      The argument is now being made that because the crimes of the Myanmar military cross the border into Bangladesh, a country that is a member of the Court, Myanmar can be held accountable. ...
      * * *
      If this case is won, its impact will be far-reaching.
      Syria is also not party to the ICC, but the seven-year conflict has created a refugee population of nearly 700,000 in Jordan, an ICC member state.
      If the precedent is set that transnational crimes committed by a country can be tried in The Hague, the Assad regime and rebel groups may be held responsible for the atrocities of the Syrian civil war in years to come. ...
     

  • 400 Thumbprints:
    Behind the Push to
    Prosecute Myanmar for Atrocities
        - New York Times
      In a request submitted to the International Criminal Court on Wednesday, lawyers included an unusual annex: 20 pages of purple thumbprints.
      These are the equivalent of signatures from 400 Rohingya women and girls, most of them illiterate refugees who were driven out of Myanmar last year after thousands of Rohingya Muslims were massacred.
      The request urges the International Criminal Court in The Hague to open a criminal investigation into continuing atrocities, including genocide, against the Rohingya, the latest twist in a brewing dispute about whether the international court has the authority to intervene in what the United Nations and United States have called a clear case of ethnic cleansing. ...

• 2018 May 31 - Thursday

  • UN reaches deal with Myanmar
    to repatriate Rohingya refugees.
        - CNN (Cable News Network)
      Myanmar and the United Nations have reached a deal to work together to repatriate hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims who have fled violence in the country in the past year.
      In a statement Thursday, the UN said the agreement aims to create the conditions required for the "voluntary, safe, dignified and sustainable" return of Rohinyga to their former homes or wherever they choose. ...
      (NOTE: This topic is focus of multiple articles over next several days, listed below)

    ---

• 2018 June 1 - Friday

  • UN, Myanmar agree
    on first steps toward
    return of Rohingya.
        - AP / Washington Post
      Myanmar and the United Nations agreed to take steps to create conditions for the safe return of about 700,000 Rohingya Muslims who have fled military-led violence into Bangladesh.
      The agreement announced by the government and two U.N. agencies on Thursday calls for a framework of cooperation that will lead to the “voluntary, safe, dignified and sustainable” repatriation of Rohingya refugees “to their places of origin or of their choosing.”
      The U.N. refugee agency said that the conditions for voluntary return are not conducive yet. The memorandum of understanding — which is expected to be signed next week — “is the first and necessary step to support the government’s efforts to change that situation and is also intended to support recovery and resilience-based development for the benefit of all communities living in Rakhine state,” UNHCR said in a statement. ...

  • PODCAST memoir:
    Rohingyas Were Shot,
    Hacked With Machetes,
    and Then They Made for the Border.
        - Foreign Policy (U.S. political journal)
      700,000 ethnic Rohingya Muslims fled violence in Myanmar for Bangladesh last fall. The influx created the world’s fastest-growing humanitarian disaster.
      Pavlos Kolovos, the head of mission for Médecins Sans Frontières in Bangladesh, was on the ground as they arrived. He describes what he saw on our podcast this week.
    

  • INTERACTIVE MEDIA:
    Race Against the Rains
        - New York Times
      The race to prevent mass loss of life in Rohingya refugee camps, as monsoons approach.
    (also see: "Teaching Activities for
    ‘Race Against the Rains’:" )

• 2018 June 2 - Saturday

  • Myanmar willing to take back
    all Rohingya refugees,
    top [Myanmar] official says.
        - TheIndependent (U.K.)
      Myanmar is willing to take back all 700,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees who have fled to Bangladesh if they volunteer to return, [Myanmar]’s national security adviser U Thaung Tun said on Saturday.
      He was speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue, a regional security conference in Singapore, where he was asked if the situation in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, where most Rohingya live, could trigger use of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) framework of the United Nations.
      The R2P framework was adopted at the 2005 U.N. World Summit in which nations agreed to protect their own populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, and accepted a collective responsibility to encourage and help each other to uphold this commitment. ...
      * * *
      Myanmar signed an agreement with the United Nations on Thursday aimed at eventually allowing the Rohingya sheltering in Bangladesh to return safely and by choice.
      It also said it would set up an independent commission to investigate “the violation of human rights and related issues” in Rakhine State following the army operation there in response to attacks by Rohingya insurgents on security posts. ...
    (same topic at: Straits Times (Singapore) )
    

• 2018 June 3 - Sunday

  • Even in Safety of Malaysia,
    Rohingya Migrants Face Bleak Prospects
        - New York Times
      For refugees from Myanmar who have reached Malaysia, life may well be better than the grim marginalization and persecution they fled. But even here, poverty and exclusion threaten to rob them of a voice in determining their own future. ...

• 2018 June 4 - Monday

  • Yaba: The Red Pills
    and the Rohingya
        - The Diplomat
      Bangladesh’s cities are awash with red methamphetamine pills that come in from Myanmar.
      ...it’s been an open secret for many years now that Bangladesh’s cities are awash with red methamphetamine pills that come in from Myanmar. And denied of any other legal means of earning a living, the Rohingyas — especially women and children — have been working as willing and cheap drug mules.
      But things seem to be moving beyond just the ferrying of drugs from the camp to the cities. The quantity of stock being moved has increased. As the trade has gathered speed, the first threads of territorial violence have begun emerging inside the camps.
      * * *
      “Yaba is big — very big,” Rashed Didarul of Nongor, an NGO headquartered in Cox’s Bazar, explained. His organization runs a rehab clinic and almost all of its residents are Yaba addicts. “There’s not one village in the country that has been left unaffected by the drug.”
      Yaba started off as a party drug, a fix for the rich urbane of Dhaka. It gained popularity through the vibrant music scenes of the city. But then the supply and prices stabilized and now it’s a drug everyone can afford.
      While traditional substances like nicotine, alcohol, and cannabinoids continue to make up the biggest share of addictions among the Bangladeshi population, Yaba has been the fastest growing drug in the past decade.
      According to a report published by the National Institute of Mental Health, Dhaka, in 2016, 42 percent of addicts seeking treatment in rehabs and hospitals across the country were hooked on Yaba. Since many addicts are polysubstance — meaning they use more than one — in gross consumption figures, Yaba ranks third in a list topped by tobacco, followed by alcohol tied with cannabis at second place.
      * * *
      “The Rohingyas are a group that are in the right place and the right time,” an officer in the Bangladesh Border Guard said, on condition of anonymity. His unit had been recently decorated for fending off a Myanmar Border Guard Police (BGP) assault. The BGP were said to be providing cover to a group infiltrating the international border on the densely forested Kawang-Singpa route.
      “The meth trade is booming and the Rohingyas are the only ones crossing the border,” he continued. “Join the dots!”
      The drug trade is already spawning a violent drug war between the state and the dealer-distributor network. In keeping with the “zero tolerance” approach declared by the Ministry of Home Affairs, increasing numbers of crossfires have been happening across the country.
      The two principal armed offensive units in Bangladesh are the Rapid Action Battalion (affiliated with the military) and the Counter Terrorism Center (civilian police affiliated). Both have overlapping duties of tackling both drug crimes and fighting Islamist terrorism, have next to no judicial or legislative overview, and have been known for frequent use of lethal force.
      Bangladesh is already reeling under a spell of extrajudicial killings that have resulted from the war on Islamist terror front. With the opening up of the Rohingya-drug theater, the body count is likely to grow much bigger.
      In fact, within the first six months of 2018, unconfirmed reports put the number of people killed in the crossfire at several hundred. ...

  • Confine illegal Rohingya
    to designated camps:
    ~Centre to states
        - Times of India
      The Centre [India's central government] has asked [state governments in] Jammu & Kashmir and other states to confine illegal Rohingya settlers to pre-identified locations within their respective jurisdictions, record their personal particulars, including biometric details, and not to issue them Aadhaar number or any other identity proof.
      The meticulous preparation of their personal particulars has been sought so that these details can eventually be shared with Myanmar for likely repatriation, said a government source.
      This indicates the government’s intent to prevent a wider diffusion of Rohingya in India beyond the camps, and the Centre’s concern over possible presence of radical elements among them and their involvement in crime. ...

  • 'I didn't want this baby':
    Rohingya rape survivors
    face a harrowing choice.
        - Los Angeles Times on MSN.com
      ...thousands of Rohingya Muslims who were sexually assaulted during a systematic campaign of brutality by Myanmar security forces that international investigators and human rights groups have described as crimes against humanity. The army has denied committing atrocities.
      In the overcrowded refugee camps in Bangladesh where more than 900,000 Rohingya have sought shelter — many having watched their homes burned, children mutilated and family members shot — the mass rapes have produced untold numbers of unwanted pregnancies and confronted survivors with a terrible choice.
      Many women and girls have quietly terminated their pregnancies in relief clinics or by ingesting cheap drugs, sometimes resulting in medical complications, doctors say.
      Others have weighed the stigma of bearing a child out of wedlock in a deeply conservative society — and of caring for one in the midst of a humanitarian emergency where families live on handouts — and opted to give birth despite the uncertainty. ...

• 2018 June 5 - Tuesday

  • Rohingya say Myanmar
    targeted the educated
    in genocide.
        - AP / ABC News
    (same topic at:
    - AP / The Independent (U.K.)
    - AP / Bangkok Post (Thailand)
    - AP / The Hindu (India)
    - AP / Economic Times (India) (VIDEO) )
    “We are being targeted because people listen to us,” ...said... Rohingya refugee Rahamat Ullah, 53, a mullah from Koe Fan Kauk village. Associated Press interviews with [more than] a dozen Rohingya teachers, elders and religious leaders... reveal that educated Rohingya were already subject to systematic and widespread harassment, arrests, torture and -- in some cases -- killings [before the August 2017 violence began the current crisis].
      [They say they] were singled out [as] part of Myanmar's operation to drive the Muslim Rohingya from majority Buddhist Myanmar.
      Soldiers targeted the educated, they said, so there would be no community leaders left willing to speak up against the pervasive abuse.
      It's an old tactic, according to those who study genocide -- and often a precursor to killing.
      * * *
      Interviews with about 65 refugees in a September report by the UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner indicate that “the Myanmar security forces targeted teachers, the cultural and religious leadership, and other people of influence in the Rohingya community in an effort to diminish Rohingya history, culture and knowledge.”
      The Buddhist majority has long reviled the Rohingya as “Bengali interlopers” in northern Rakhine state and suppressed their ability to maintain their culture and go to school.
      An Amnesty International report from November documented a system of institutionalised discrimination and segregation of the Rohingya that was meant to erase their identity. Since an outbreak of Buddhist-Muslim violence in 2012, Rohingya children have been prevented from attending Buddhist schools, and official government teachers often refuse to come to Rohingya villages because of purported safety worries, the report said.
      In the months before Aug 25, informers made it too dangerous to teach Rohingya language or culture, even in secret, according to a longtime headmaster at a middle school who spoke on condition of anonymity because of safety worries if he's ever allowed to return home. ...

  • [International Rescue Committee chief]
    David Miliband:
    World must step up support
    for Rohingya refugees.
        - The Guardian (U.K.)
      Ex-foreign secretary (of U.K.) warns of monsoon threat,
    and calls for issue to be raised at G7 talks.

• 2018 June 6 - Wednesday

  • Myanmar, UN sign pact
    on initial steps for Rohingya return.
        - AP / Washington Post
    (same topic at:
    - AP / ABC News
    - AP / New York Times
    - AP / Daily Star (Bangladesh)
    - AP / The Hindu (India)
    - AP / Philippine Daily Inquirer (The Philippines)
    - AFP / Channel NewsAsia (Singapore)
    - NPR (National Public Radio) )
      Myanmar and U.N. agencies signed an agreement Wednesday that could lead to the return of some of the 700,000 Rohingya Muslims who fled brutal persecution by the country's security forces and are now crowded into makeshift camps in Bangladesh.
      The memorandum of understanding promises to establish a "framework of cooperation" that aims to create conditions for "voluntary, safe, dignified and sustainable" repatriation of Rohingya refugees.
      Myanmar's security forces have been accused of rape, killing, torture and the burning of Rohingya homes in western Rakhine state, where most Rohingya lived. The U.N. and U.S. have described the army crackdown, that began in August last year, as "ethnic cleansing."
      Myanmar and Bangladesh agreed in November to begin repatriating Rohingya. But refugees feared their lives would be at risk in Myanmar, without international monitoring -- while Myanmar insisted they have identity documents, which most Rohingya have been denied.
      Knut Ostby, U.N. Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Myanmar, said the agreement is an important first step toward resolving the crisis.
      "There is a lot of work to be done... about approximately 700,000 people... have to return, but the conditions have to be right for them to return... [involving] their identity in society... their safety... services, livelihoods, a place to live, infrastructure."
      The U.N. has said the agreement provides for its refugee and development agencies to be given access to Rakhine state....
      * * *
      Rights groups remain pessimistic that the safe return of Rohingya refugees will ever be possible. They point to a lack of firm commitments from Myanmar, and its decades of hostility toward [the Rohingya] minority... denied citizenship by a 1982 law that excluded them from a list of recognized ethnic groups in the majority Buddhist nation. ...
      * * *
      Some 125,000 of the Rohingya [still] in Myanmar... are living in camps where their movement is restricted... after being forced from their villages in 2012 -- by a wave of violence led by radical Buddhists and security forces.
      Matthew Smith, the head of advocacy group Fortify Rights:
    “There’s still been no movement to ensure Rohingya have equal access to full citizenship... Discourse around repatriation now unfortunately appears to be attempt by authorities to distract from mass atrocities and crimes [that have] taken place.”
    (Official U.N. statement at:
    "UN agencies and Myanmar ink agreement,
      setting stage for Rohingya return" )

  • An emotional Bob Rae
    tells [Canada's] Senate
    of rape, oppression of Rohingya
    as UN strikes repatriation deal.
      Canada's special envoy to Myanmar relates brutal stories of violence, calls assignment 'gruelling'.
        - CBC News (Canada)
      The United Nations and Myanmar signed a landmark agreement to repatriate thousands of Rohingya Muslims today, but Canada's special envoy to Myanmar says many victims of rape and oppression don't want to go home.
    (VIDEO of statement at: YouTube.com )

• 2018 June 7 - Thursday

  • Press Statement:
    U.S. Support of Memorandum of Understanding between UNHCR, UNDP, and the Government of Burma
    to Create the Conditions for the Voluntary Return of Rohingya Refugees from Bangladesh
        - U.S. State Dept.

    

  • Facebook blacklists
    Myanmar hardline Buddhist group.
        -AFP / Straits Times (Singapore)
      Facebook has blacklisted a group of Myanmar Buddhist hardliners, including monks notorious for bilious hate speech against Rohingya Muslims, the company said on Thursday (June 7), as it scrambles to show it is tackling inflammatory content.

• 2018 June 8 - Friday

  • Myanmar Army, Government
    Hold Rare Meeting
    Over Rohingya Crisis.
        - The Globe Post
    (an unvalidated international source)
     

  • ESSAY:
    Just Relations:
    Rohingya provide a snapshot
    of immigrant strength, resilience.
        - Chicago Sun Times (U.S.A.)
     

• 2018 June 9 - Saturday

  • Rohingya upset
    UN agreement
    didn't address citizenship
        - AP / ABC News
      Rohingya Muslim refugees who fled attacks in Myanmar said they were disappointed that a U.N. agreement signed earlier this week did not address one of their key demands: Citizenship.
      Most refugees say they are desperate to go home, but fear going back unless they are given protection and citizenship. ...

  • Rae to discuss Rohingya crisis
    with Bangladesh PM after G7
        - CTV (Canada)
      Bob Rae, Canada's special envoy to Myanmar, is planning to discuss the Rohingya crisis with the prime minister of Bangladesh following the G7 summit. Rae has been an outspoken proponent of Myanmar’s persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority.

  • 'Benefits of destroying
    the Rohingya population
    exceed the costs' for Myanmar,
    former [U.S.] UN ambassador warns.
        - The Independent (U.K.)
      Samantha Power calls for diplomatic pressure to be applied on government

• 2018 June 10 - Sunday

  • [Bangladesh] PM urges G7 leaders
    to take definite actions
    on Rohingya issue
        - Daily Star (Bangladesh)
      Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has urged the G7 leaders to take definite actions to pursue Myanmar to implement the bilateral agreements with Bangladesh for safe and sustainable return of the forcibly displaced Rohingyas

• 2018 June 11 - Monday

  • UK's Johnson Repeated Concerns
    About Rohingya Treatment
    in Call With Myanmar Leader.
        - Reuters News Service
      Britain's Foreign Minister Boris Johnson said on Monday he had reiterated concerns about the treatment of the Rohingya Muslims in a call with Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
    (same topic at:
    - Reuters / U.S. News
    - Reuters / Channel NewsAsia )

  • Rohingya refugees fish
    in troubled waters
    to earn living in Bangladesh
        - Reuters News Service
      Some Rohingya refugees who fled from Myanmar are finding work in the fishing industry in neighboring Bangladesh, earning a tiny daily income and occasional share of the catch, all under the official radar.
      * * *
      Although the refugees cannot work legally, some find jobs on fishing boats or help push them out to sea. The vessels are similar to the craft that carried thousands of Rohingya across the waters to Bangladesh.
      * * *
      Others in the camp earn money by shattering ice blocks to preserve the catch in the searing heat, mending nets or repairing boats.
      * * *
      Some Rohingya women have found work drying fish... under a blistering noon sun...
    (same topic, PHOTO ESSAY, at:
    - Reuters / The Guardian (U.K.)
    - Reuters / ABS-CBN (Philippines) )

  • First monsoon rains
    pound Rohingya camps.
        - AFP/ Channel NewsAsia (Singapore)
      The first monsoon rains have hit camps in Bangladesh housing around a million Rohingya refugees, triggering floods and landslides but no casualties or major damage so far, officials said on Sunday (Jun 10).
      DHAKA: The first monsoon rains have hit camps in Bangladesh housing around a million Rohingya refugees, triggering floods and landslides but no casualties or major damage so far, officials said on Sunday (Jun 10).
      Aid agencies have been warning that the monsoon season could prompt a humanitarian catastrophe in coming months at what is the world's biggest refugee camp, sheltering people fleeing violence in Myanmar.
      The sites in southeastern Bangladesh are predicted to be hit by powerful cyclones and by more than 2.5 metres [(8 feet)] of rainfall over the coming three months of monsoon...
      Bangladesh's meteorological office said the Cox's Bazar area -- where many of the refugees live in makeshift shelters on bare hillsides -- had 138 millimetres [(5 inches)] of rain since Saturday evening.
      "Some areas... are flooded. Some houses have been inundated with water. There have been a few landslides. The conditions are bad," UN refugee agency spokesperson Caroline Gluck told AFP.
      * * *
      "It's just the beginning and the entire monsoon season is ahead of us. Some people have been relocated but the majority are still living under risk," said Mohammad Mohibullah, another community leader.
      Last year heavy rain triggered mudslips in Cox's Bazar and the nearby Chittagong Hill Tracts, killing at least 170 people....
      * * *
      Gluck said that so far nearly 29,000 refugees have been relocated to new areas out of an estimated 200,000 people at very high risk of landslides and flood, who need to be moved to safer areas.
      There are fears that heavy flooding could also cause latrines to overflow and spread disease in the crowded camps [where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have fled].
      * * *
      Many of the hillsides were cleared of trees to make way for shelters, making the land highly unstable.
     

  • OPINION ESSAY:
    Rohingya crisis receiving
    scant international attention lately.
        - Financial Express (Bangladesh) in OurTimeBD.com
     
     

• 2018 June 12 - Tuesday

  • Three Rohingya refugees killed
    as monsoon rains hit Cox's Bazar
        - The Guardian (U.K.)
      At least three Rohingya refugees have died and more have been made homeless after lethal mudslides in camps in Bangladesh
      A 3-year-old Rohingya boy died and his mother was injured when the mud walls of their house in Kutupalong settlement collapsed while they were sleeping. Two Rohingya refugees were killed in Balukhali camp. Mohammad Ali, 20, died after he was crushed by an uprooted tree on Tuesday morning, while a Rohingya woman died after she was crushed in her shack when the rain triggered a landslide.
      Over the weekend the Bangladeshi region received more than a third of the rainfall it typically receives during the entire monsoon period, damaging thousands of tents and leaving several refugees homeless.
      * * *
      Noor Hossain, a local Rohingya reporter, told the Guardian at least 500 refugees had been injured after their shacks collapsed in the heavy rain.
      * * *
      There have been 37 landslides so far and agencies are scrambling to move those families in vulnerable areas before there are more casualties. In the Kutupalong settlement, 22 families, totalling 81 people, have been relocated in the past few days.
      Bangladesh’s refugee relief and rehabilitation commissioner, Mohammad Abul Kalam, said that 30,000 of the 55,000 vulnerable refugees had been relocated and that monsoon preparations in the past weeks had already prevented a much bigger death toll
    (same topic at:
    - Reuters News Service   (reporting 12 dead) )

  • Boy Dies, Thousands At Risk
    As Monsoon Rains Lash
    Rohingya Refugee Camps.
        - NPR (National Public Radio)
      Monsoon rains set in over the weekend in Bangladesh, flooding refugee camps and leading to the death of a Rohingya boy, who died when a mud wall of his shelter fell on top of him, according to media reports. His mother also was injured in the collapse.
      Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya — a persecuted Muslim minority — have been living in makeshift shelters of earth, bamboo and plastic. Their homes are huddled on steep hillsides in southeastern Bangladesh that have been cleared of vegetation.
      * * *
      The monsoon season started last weekend with about 15 inches of rain and winds of up to 43 miles per hour. According to the United Nations, 37 landslides occurred and more than 1,000 shelters were damaged, in addition to infrastructure — a health facility, a food distribution site, water points and hundreds of latrines. The UN estimates that 11,000 people have been affected so far.
    (same topic at:
    - AFP / NDTV (India)   (reporting 11 dead)
    - AFP/ Channel NewsAsia (Singapore)
    - MSN (Microsoft Network VIDEO) )

  • Dhaka uses confidential mode
    of submission to ICC
    [(International Criminal Court) about crimes against the Rohingya]
        - Dhaka Tribune (Bangladesh)
      "It is, therefore, anticipated that Bangladesh made this submission concurring with the main arguments put forward by the office of the Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda of ICC," reads the observations sent to the ICC.

  • The U.N. and Burma signed a deal
    to resettle Rohingya refugees,
    but no one knows what’s in it.
        - Washington Post
      ...The agreement has been kept unusually secret.
      The three parties that signed the memorandum of understanding — the U.N. refugee agency, or UNHCR; the U.N. Development Program; and the Burmese government — have declined to make the text of the agreement available to those who have asked to see it, including journalists, other U.N. officials and U.N. donor countries such as the United States.
      Nongovernmental organizations, including Refugees International, have urged that the text be made public and warned in a statement that “conditions for Rohingya in Myanmar remain appalling,” referring to Burma by its official name. A statement from about two dozen Rohingya organizations across the world also raised concerns about keeping the text secret.
      “All previous records showed that the U.N. agencies, including UNHCR as the agent of the interest of the international community, could not provide adequate protection to the Rohingya returnees due to obstinacy of the Myanmar government,” the groups said. “We are intrinsically aware of the false promises of the Myanmar authorities who are characterized by cheating and brutality.” ...

  • Nearly 40 percent of
    Rohingya children
    in Cox’s Bazar
    are stunted:
    ~new study
        - Save The Children / ReliefWeb.int
      ...The study -- which compares health data in the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar from October 2017 to May 2018 -- reveals that while stunting rates have dropped from 44% to 38% in the main camp, this is still near the World Health Organisation's (WHO) critical health emergency threshold of 40%.
      * * *
      Save the Children nutrition expert Caroline Chiedo warned that despite the improvement, the health situation for Rohingya refugee children remains dire.
      * * *
      “Stunting—which is caused by poor nutrition, repeated infection, and a lack of psychosocial stimulation in the first years of a child's life—is linked to terrible long-term outcomes for children, including impaired intellectual development. The situation is still on a knife edge, particularly as we’re at the start of the monsoon season, bringing a heightened risk of an outbreak of disease.”
      * * *
      “Along with landslides and floods, children are particularly vulnerable to diseases like serious respiratory infections and diarrhoea. Malnourished children are much more likely to die if they contract diarrhoea, sometimes within days. Knowing that the nutrition situation for Rohingya refugee children, while seeing some improvements, is still at a critical stage, underlines the need for support to children to be ramped up.”

  • Govt to issue special visa
    for relief workers
    in Rohingya camps:
    ~ PM
        - Daily Star (Bangladesh)
      [Bangladesh Prime Minister] Sheikh Hasina said the government is aware of the intrusion of many foreign nationals in the guise of relief workers which may lead the situation to child and women trafficking, sexual abuse, terrorism and many other social problems.

  • ESSAY:
    First They Came
    For the Rohingya Muslims...
        - Forbes (U.S.A.)
      In April 2018, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (the ICC)... sought a ruling... on the question of the ICC’s jurisdiction in the case: ‘whether the Court may exercise jurisdiction over the alleged deportation of the Rohingya people from Myanmar to Bangladesh.’
      While the ICC consideration is pending -- and the Burmese government continues to deny any involvement in the mass atrocities -- further news of mass atrocities being perpetrated against other religious groups has surfaced.
      A Sky News investigation into the situation in Kachin state -- a mostly Christian region -- revealed that Christian minority groups are also being subjected to mass atrocities at the hands of the Burmese military...
      * * *
      The situation of Rohingya Muslims, Christians, and all other minorities requires an urgent and comprehensive response: to stop the ongoing violence and to help the victims with all their needs before the minorities disappear from the region. The response must include an adequate investigation of the alleged crimes and prosecution. The time for dialogue is over.

  • ESSAY:
    Radio Free Asia Takes a Stand
    for the Word 'Rohingya'
        - National Review
        (U.S. conservative opinion journal)
      [U.S. propaganda broadcaster, "Radio Free Asia," loses Myanmar outlet over insistence on continued use of the name "Rohingya."]
    (AP news report on same topic at:
        - AP / New Jersey Herald (U.S.)
        - AP / News Observer (N. Car., U.S.)
    same topic at: 2018 June 16
    (Washington Post "ESSAY..."),
    below. )

• 2018 June 13 - Wednesday

  • Rohingya refugees land [back] in Myanmar
    as escape boat breaks up.
        - The Guardian (U.K.) in Nigeria
      Scores of Rohingya refugees leaving Bangladeshi camps by boat have accidentally returned to the crisis-hit area of Myanmar they originally fled from, after their vessel broke up on the sea route south. ...
      * * *
      On Monday morning a boat carrying 104 Bangladeshis and Rohingya ran into trouble off the coast of Rakhine state, a Myanmar government spokesman told AFP, eventually breaking apart and forcing the passengers to head for shore.
      * * *
      Photographs showed the passengers — including women and young children — walking barefoot into Myanmar police trucks with virtually no possessions and drenched under heavy rains.
      * * *
      They were taken to Nga Khu Ya camp in Rakhine’s Muangdaw district – a purpose-built facility meant to process refugees returning under a discredited repatriation deal with Bangladesh.

• 2018 June 14 - Thursday

  • PRESS RELEASE:
    Monsoon rains hit Rohingya refugee camps ,
    raising risks for thousands of children
        - UNICEF: United Nations Childrens Emergency Fund
      Torrential rain and strong winds hit Rohingya refugee camps and makeshift settlements in the past week, threatening the health and safety of thousands of children as the first major storm of the monsoon season arrived in south-eastern Bangladesh.

• 2018 June 15 - Friday

  • Bangladesh's Rohingya Refugee Camps
    Prepare for More Monsoonal Rains
    After 3 Die.
        - The Weather Channel (U.S.)
      Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees are at risk as the monsoon season takes a firm hold of southern Bangladesh.
      Last week, the refugee camps were hard hit by the first rains of the season, which reportedly killed three people and triggered at least 131 landslides. An estimated 12 inches of rain fell within a 24-hour period that began June 9 and continued through the weekend.
      * * *
      UNHCR spokesperson... said... the deluge earlier in the week was a preliminary test for the nearly 200,000 refugees at risk and the humanitarian agencies working to support the Government of Bangladesh on the response efforts.
      [He] noted that 41,000... are in particular danger from the threat of landslides. ...
      * * *
      The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees says much of the camp was underwater after the deluge. At least 3,000 make-shift shelters were either destroyed or damaged, according to a UHNCR statement. ...
    (same topic at:
    - TIME Magazine (U.S.)
    - SBS News (Australia) )

• 2018 June 16 - Saturday

  • UN, World Bank chiefs
    likely to visit Rohingya camps
    in Bangladesh.
        - Daily Star (Bangladesh)
      United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim are likely to make a two-day official visit to Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar district of Bangladesh on July 1. ...
      * * *
      The World Bank may provide Bangladesh with a grant worth around $200 million to help tackle the ongoing Rohingya crisis, the sources said. ...

  • EDITORIAL: Myanmar is now erasing
    the Rohingya’s very name.
        - Washington Post
      ...In recent weeks, the Burmese information ministry has detected the word “Rohingya” in television broadcasts by Radio Free Asia, a private, nonprofit news organization, funded by the U.S. government, which brings news to closed societies in Asia, and the BBC. Both organizations used “Rohingya” in shows that were shared with Democratic Voice of Burma, which operates on the state’s MRTV channel. The information ministry said that RFA and BBC could no longer air their content if they continued to use the word “Rohingya,” which is “strictly prohibited.” Both RFA and the BBC refused to censor their programs, and quit their partnership, although both will continue to be available to Burmese by shortwave, social media and websites. ...
      * * *
      ...Many people are questioning why Aung San Suu Kyi has let this happen. ... Aung San Suu Kyi has appealed to people not to use either “Rohingya” or “Bengali,” saying they are emotive terms, which is hardly a courageous response. She must be asked why her government is acting as a censor. Surely she remembers during her long years of house arrest tuning in to RFA and the BBC to hear the truth. It is distressing to see it suppressed on her watch.
    (same topic at: 2018 June 12 (last "ESSAY..."), above. )

  • Rohingya refugees mark first Eid
    since Myanmar crackdown.
        - AFP / Channel NewsAsia (Singapore)
    [NOTE: Eid is to Muslims, roughly, what Christmas or Easter is to Christians, and Hanukhah is to Jews. ~RH]
      As Muslims around the world celebrated Eid with feasting and gift-giving, Rohingya refugees -- in squalid Bangladesh camps -- marked the festival Saturday with a peaceful demonstration, demanding justice and dignified repatriation.
      For the hundreds of thousands of the Muslim minority who have fled neighbouring Myanmar since an army crackdown last August, this is the first Eid-al-Fitr they have spent in the cramped tent cities.
    (same topic at:
    - Arab News
    - The Hindu (India) )

  • Most Canadians support helping Rohingya,
    split on border crossings:
    ~ Nanos survey
        - CTV News (Canada)
      The majority of Canadians support government efforts to help Rohingya refugees fleeing violence and persecution in Myanmar, but the country is divided over how to handle asylum seekers illegally entering from the United States, a new Nanos Research survey conducted for CTV News suggests.
      * * *
      When asked how welcoming the Canadian government should be to asylum seekers crossing into the country from the U.S., almost half of respondents, or 43 per cent, said “less welcoming.”

• 2018 June 17 - Sunday

  • Rohingya men in Bangladesh
    revel in the newfound right
    to wear pants
        - Washington Post
      In 28 years, Abdul Aziz had never known the pleasure of wearing pants.
      Rohingya Muslim men like him were restricted to wearing traditional sarongs, or longyis, in their native Myanmar. It was an unofficial uniform that identified Muslims as inferior, Rohingya refugees said. Wearing pants, outside cities and towns, was restricted by local authorities, and Rohingya who did so could be arrested and fined.
      * * *
      Rohingya faced several restrictions in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, including on marriage, childbirth or even making repairs to their homes. Cellphones, sunglasses, motorcycles, anything suggestive of wealth or high status could also get Rohingya fined, arrested or beaten. ... (same article at:
    - NDTV (India) )

  • Bangladesh Launches Deadly Drug Crackdown as Rohingya Crisis Fuels Smuggling
        - Wall Street Journal
      ...a new crackdown on drugs in Bangladesh, marked by an aggressive campaign since mid-May in which police have arrested some 13,000 people and killed more than 100 in raids, according to the government. ...

• 2018 June 18 - Monday

  • UN for sustained
    HR monitoring on ground
    before Rohingya repatriation.
        - United Nations India office
      UN for sustained HR monitoring on ground before Rohingya repatriation. ...

  • New UN Envoy Visits Myanmar's
    Troubled Maungdaw Township
    in Rakhine State.
        - Radio Free Asia
          (U.S. propaganda radio)
      The new United Nations special envoy to Myanmar visited Rakhine state’s Maungdaw township on Monday where she toured repatriation facilities and villages affected by violence during a brutal military crackdown targeting Rohingya Muslims last year.
      Christine Schraner Burgener, who was appointed to her post on April 26 by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, is spending two days in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state.
      [Article reports things told to her by Rohingya and others.]

  • ESSAY:
    Helping the Rohingya return home
      by James Lynch, U.N. Refugee Agency Southeast Asia regional representative.
        - Washington Post

  • US endorses Myanmar and UN MoU
    on Rohingya return.
    [U.S. aid contributions noted]
        - Daily Star (Bangladesh)
      The United States yesterday welcomed the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the UN and Myanmar government for the safe and voluntary return of Rohingya refugees to Myanmar. ...
      * * *
      The United States has contributed nearly $204 million to the Rakhine crisis response since the outbreak of violence in August 2017, reports the Voice of America.
      The total US humanitarian assistance for displaced people in and from Myanmar comes to more than $299 million since the beginning of fiscal year 2017.
      The United States encourages the Burmese government to fulfill its commitment to work with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the UN Development Program, and implement the recommendations of the Kofi Annan-led Advisory Commission on Rakhine State.

  • Myanmar officer in Reuters case
    broke police code
    by copying statements:
    ~lawyer.
        - Reuters News Service
      A police witness in the case against two Reuters reporters accused of possessing state secrets in Myanmar is “unreliable,” the reporters’ lawyer said on Monday, because he obtained testimony from previous witnesses, in violation of police code. ...
      * * *
      The code says when an officer is a witness in a case, “he will not be present in the court while the inquiry or trial is proceeding”, otherwise the magistrate may object to his evidence “on the ground that he has heard all that the other witnesses have said, and will naturally adapt the details of his narrative to the irs”. ...

• 2018 June 19 - Tuesday

  • 5 important stories that deserve more attention:
     #3. Landslides, flooding from monsoon rains threaten Rohingya refugees.
        - PBS News Hour
    VIDEO of topic (and full news hour) at:
    PBS News Hour June 19 VIDEO
    (NOTE: Vivid footage of camp's vulnerabilities to monsoon. Appears near end of hour-long program).

  • Rohingya Leader Killed
    in Bangladesh Refugee Camp:
    ~ Police.
        - Radio Free Asia
          (U.S. propaganda radio)
      A Rohingya leader who had criticized ARSA insurgents, and often interacted with Bangladeshi officials and visiting foreign dignitaries, due to his language skills, was slain in a refugee camp in southeastern Bangladesh, police and local sources said Tuesday.
      The news came as the Bangladeshi foreign ministry confirmed to BenarNews that the U.N. secretary general and president of the World Bank would both visit Rohingya refugee camps in the southeast next month. ...

• 2018 June 20 - Wednesday

  • Rohingya girls face
    'prison-like' conditions
    in refugee camps
        - CNN
      Adolescent Rohingya girls are being kept in stifling conditions in refugee camps in Bangladesh, unable to go out, deprived of education and facing prospects of early marriage whether they want it or not, according to a report by the charity Plan International launched on World Refugee Day. ...

• 2018 June 21 - Thursday

  • ICC gives Myanmar deadline
    over Rohingya case jurisdiction.
        - Reuters News Service
      Judges at the International Criminal Court have given Myanmar a deadline to respond to a prosecution request that they consider hearing a case on the alleged deportation of Rohingya minorities to Bangladesh. ...
      * * *
      The world’s first permanent war crimes court does not have automatic jurisdiction in Myanmar because [Myanmar] is not a member state [of the ICC]. However, the prosecutor asked the court to look into the Rohingya crisis and a possible prosecution through Bangladesh, which is a member. ...

  • ESSAY & ANALYSIS:
    Will Indonesia bring Rohingya
    to Security Council?
        - Jakarta Post (Indonesia)
      On June 9... Indonesia secured a non-permanent seat in the UN Security Council for the 2019-2020 period.
      * * *
      However, under the slogan of a “true partner for world peace”, can we expect Indonesia to bring in the conflict in the Rakhine state in Myanmar as a Council agenda? To date, the Security Council lacks any resolution addressing the plight of the Rohingya Muslim minority. ...

  • Rohingya Crisis
    Is Making Some In Myanmar
    Rethink Their Views of
    Aung San Suu Kyi.
        - NPR (National Public Radio)
      ... "Our hope was that she can make the country a peaceful country, a democratic country, which is good for all people," says Kyaw Min, an ethnic Rohingya and president of the opposition Democracy and Human Rights Party. "But in practice, when she came in power, we found a different Aung San Suu Kyi." ...

• 2018 June 22 - Friday

  • Gang raped and set on fire:
    ICC pushes to investigate
    Myanmar Rohingya atrocities.
      Exclusive report: Evidence of horrific treatment emerges as the Hague gives Myanmar deadline to respond to claims.
        - The Guardian (U.K.)
      Harrowing accounts of Rohingya women tied to trees and raped for days by Myanmar’s military and men being pushed into mass graves, doused with petrol and set alight have been sent to the international criminal court.
      The evidence has been sent by a coalition of Bangladesh organisations to ICC prosecutors who are pushing to investigate allegations of forced deportation from a country where it has no jurisdiction.
      ICC judges met behind closed doors at the Hague this week to begin their discussions and documents seen exclusively by the Guardian will form part of the case for an investigation. ...

  • Mural Painting Brings Smiles
    To Rohingya Children
    Healing From Trauma.
        - UNICEF USA / Forbes (U.S.)

• 2018 June 23 - Saturday

  • UN for addressing root causes
    of Rohingya crisis.
      Bangladesh gov't and people biggest donors to Rohingya response, U.N. says.
        - Daily Star (Bangladesh)
      The United Nations today
    • Commended the commitment demonstrated by the government of Bangladesh in supporting the Rohingya refugees;
    • Highlighted that the root causes of the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar must be addressed.
      UN Under-Secretary-General and Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide Adama Dieng: "The Bangladeshi people demonstrated very early on its solidarity towards the Rohingya people, providing them with shelter and support when they arrived."
      * * *
      Dieng... stressed the importance of ensuring that Rohingya refugees are given opportunities to uplift themselves educationally and have access to livelihood opportunities in Bangladesh until they can return to Myanmar.
      ...Dieng said religious leaders can play a very important role by promoting messages of peace and tolerance and by fostering dialogue between the Rohingya refugees and host communities. ...

• 2018 June 24 - Sunday

  • World Cup a welcome respite
    at Rohingya camps.
        - Dhaka Tribune (Bangladesh)
      ...Uprooted from home and trapped in a foreign land, the refugees seemed to find respite in the frenzy of the World Cup. Football fever has taken over the densely populated camps of displaced Rohingyas in Cox’s Bazar. ...

• 2018 June 25 - Monday

  • EU, Canada,
    sanction Myanmar generals
    over Rohingya;
    Myanmar says two are fired.
        - Reuters News Service
      The European Union and Canada imposed sanctions on seven senior military officials from Myanmar on Monday, including the general in charge of an operation accused of driving more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to Bangladesh
      Within hours of the EU announcement, the Myanmar military announced that one of the sanctioned generals had been fired on Monday and another had left the army last month after being removed from his post.
    (same topic at: Bangkok Post (Thailand) )

• 2018 June 26 - Tuesday

  • Myanmar fires general
    who led violence
    against Rohingya.
        - The Guardian (U.K.)
    (same topic at:
    - AFP / Straits Times (Singapore)
    - CNN (Cable News Network)
    - Wall Street Journal )
      Myanmar has fired the military general who led the campaign of violence against the Rohingya, after the EU imposed direct sanctions on him and six other officers. ...
      * * *
      In a rare example of Myanmar bowing to pressure from the west over the actions of the military, the government responded to the sanctions with an announcement that Major General Maung Maung Soe was being removed from his position. ...

  • Australia Urged to Cut Ties
    with Myanmar Military
    over Rohingya Atrocities.
        - The Guardian (U.K.)
    ( same topic, prior background at:
    - The Guardian (U.K.) - March 5, 2018 )

  • Myanmar: Soldiers accused
    of raping Rohingya women.
        - BBC
      Since 700,000 Rohingya refugees fled Myanmar last year there have been widespread reports of sexual assaults by the Burmese military. Aid agencies warned that unwanted pregnancies would result in hundreds, perhaps thousands of babies being given up for adoption. Here's one woman's story.

• 2018 June 27 - Wednesday

  • Amnesty accuses Burma's
    top military brass
    of Rohingya atrocities.
        - [London] Daily Telegraph (U.K.)
    (same topic at:
    - SBS News (Australia)
    - VOA (U.S. propaganda radio) )
      The 190-page document... is based on a nine month investigation, involving more than 400 interviews and corroborating evidence including satellite images, photos and videos.
      The group names 13 officials it alleges played a key role in the murder, rape and deportation of Rohingya, including accusing Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the Burmese military Commander-in-Chief, of being implicated in ethnic cleansing during a brutal army crackdown that began on August 25
      Amnesty Int'l senior crisis adviser, Matthew Wells:
      “The explosion of violence - including murder, rape, torture, burning and forced starvation – perpetrated by Myanmar’s security forces in villages across northern Rakhine State was not the action of rogue soldiers or units.” ...
      “There is a mountain of evidence that this was part of a highly orchestrated, systematic attack on the Rohingya population.”
    Also see
    OFFICIAL REPORT:
      “We Will Destroy Everything”:
    Military Responsibility for Crimes against Humanity
    in Rakhine State, Myanmar [Burma],"
      by Amnesty International
      ...which notes:
      "...new details about the Myanmar military’s command structure and troop deployments, ...arrests, enforced disappearances and torture of Rohingya men and boys in the weeks directly before the current crisis unfolded.
      "...abuses by the armed group the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), before and after it launched coordinated attacks on security posts on 25 August 2017. ...killings of people from different ethnic and religious communities in northern Rakhine State, as well as the targeted killings and abductions of suspected Rohingya informants to the authorities." ...
      * * *
      In the weeks leading up to 25 August, the Tatmadaw [(the Burmese Army)] brought in battalions from... combat divisions that Amnesty International had implicated in war crimes in Kachin and northern Shan State in late 2016 and mid-2017...
      In some Rohingya villages, the incoming military commanders made their intentions clear from the start. Around 20 August 2017, five days before the bulk of the violence erupted, a field commander... threatened that if there was ARSA activity in the area, or if villagers did any “wrong,” his soldiers would shoot at the Rohingya directly, without any distinction.
      [Also, in] an audio recording... of a telephone call between a Rohingya resident of Inn Din, Maungdaw Township, and a Myanmar military officer based in the area. ...the officer says, “We got an order to burn down the entire village if there is any disturbance. If you villagers aren’t living peacefully, we will destroy everything.” ...
      [That village was later the site of military executions. After that was discovered and reported by Reuters News Service, some of the soldiers were prosecuted by the military, as were the reporters. ~Editor]
      ...more...

• 2018 June 28 - Thursday

  • 'Our men are leaving us':
    the Rohingya women
    facing life alone
        - The Guardian (U.K.)
      On top of the trauma caused by gang rapes in Myanmar, and pressure for girls to get married at a young age, a new issue is emerging for women in the camps: abandonment. Those working there report a rising number of husbands simply leaving – either to slip off into the black economy of Bangladesh beyond the Rohingya settlements, or with other women.
      [NOTE: Thousands of Rohingya women are desperate widows. Thousands more are single girls who have lost their families in the violence in Myanmar. ~RCN Editor]
      The ramshackle and chaotic camps are already beset by violence. Men routinely beat their wives -- and girls are now forbidden to leave their sweltering huts unless in full burqa, in the hope that it will make them less likely targets for rape.
      The problems associated with abandonment are so common, with such grave ramifications, that it is classified as gender-based violence.
      Women who do not have husbands are at greater risk of harassment and attack, and have to undertake – single-handedly – a huge number of arduous tasks to help their often large families survive.... cooking, collecting water, monsoon-proofing their huts, fixing roofs, breastfeeding, chopping and carrying firewood, and collecting rations. ...

• 2018 June 29 - Friday
  
  • China offers aid to Bangladesh
    for Rohingya refugee crisis.
        - AP / ABC News
      China will offer humanitarian assistance to Bangladesh to help shelter and feed hundreds of thousands of Muslim Rohingya refugees from neighboring Myanmar, the foreign minister said Friday.
      Wang Yi also told reporters that China hoped repatriation of refugees could begin "as early as possible," ...
      * * *
      China maintains close ties to Myanmar's powerful military, and has refused to join international condemnation of the campaign of organized violence. ...

  • VIDEO:
    Naming names in
    Myanmar's Rohingya crisis.
        - Fortify Rights / ABC News
      [Identification of alleged war criminals.]

  • Atrocities against the Rohingya:
    How we built the case
    to implicate
    Myanmar military officials
    in crimes against humanity.
        - Amnesty International
      The 186-page report is the result of more than 400 interviews as well as reams of corroborating evidence, including satellite imagery, photos, verified videos, forensic medical examination of injury photographs and confidential documents on the Myanmar military.

• 2018 June 30 - Saturday

  • UN's Guterres to visit Bangladesh
    on Rohingya crisis.
        - AFP / Channel NewsAsia (Singapore)
      UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will visit Bangladesh on Sunday (Jun 29), with World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, to assess needs for dealing with hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees who fled from Myanmar, leading to a humanitarian crisis.
      The two-day visit will "highlight the generosity of Bangladesh in hosting the largest refugee influx of 2017, and the need of the international community to do more," said a statement from the UN. ...
      * * *
      The delegation also includes UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi, and Natalia Kanem, executive director of the UN Population Fund.
      They will study prospects for "a safe, voluntary and dignified return" of refugees to Myanmar, the UN said. ...

  • World Bank to provide up to
    US$480 million
    to aid Rohingya refugees
    in Bangladesh.
        - Reuters / Channel NewsAsia (Singapore)
      * * *
      The World Bank's board approved a US$50 million grant to add to an existing health-sector support project in Bangladesh, the first in a series that could total US$480 million.
      The health-sector grant included contributions based on a partnership between Canada and the World Bank's International Development Association (IDA) arm.
      It will help Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh receive maternal, neonatal, infant, child, and adolescent health and nutrition services, reproductive healthcare and family planning support, the World Bank said. ...

  • Rohingya 'transit camp' lies empty.
        - AFP / Bangkok Post (Thailand)
      The transit camp in Rakhine state stands ready to welcome back 150 Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh every day. But on most days it lies completely empty, as members of the stateless minority dread returning to a place they were violently driven from by the military, and Myanmar makes little effort to reassure them things will be different this time.

  • Hindu Rohingya refugees
    also wait for a home.
        - The Hindu (India)
     

    ---

• 2018 July 1 - Sunday

  Widow Ayesha Begum, 45 -- mother of 7 children -- fears her home, on a steep hillside, is at risk of landslides, as the monsoon season bears down on Kutapalong refugee settlement near Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Homes above and below her, on the hill, compound the risk. © UNHCR / Adam Dean. Click on photo to enlarge.

  • Monsoon rains highlight needs of Rohingya refugees
      UN and World Bank chiefs head to Bangladesh to seek support for nearly a million Rohingya refugees facing ongoing displacement from Myanmar
        - United Nations (UNHCR)
      “It would take just one storm to wash us all away,” the Rohingya widow says, rain drumming on the tarpaulin roof of the flimsy shack she shares with her five sons and two daughters. “I’m terrified for my children. We are at the mercy of God,” she says.
      Ayesha, 45, is among hundreds of thousands of women, children and men who have escaped deadly violence in Myanmar since last August – and whose lives remain at risk from monsoon flooding and landslides at the world’s largest refugee settlement in Bangladesh. ...
      * * *
      ...a push by the Bangladesh government, UN agencies and humanitarian partners is in full swing to safeguard up to 42,000 people at greatest risk in the monsoon season. Some 18,000 refugees have already been relocated to safer ground.
      Storms have so far caused at least 315 reported incidents, including 140 landslides, that have injured 33 and killed at least one refugee. More than 29,000 in the sprawling refugee settlement have so far been affected by lashing rains and strong winds, buffeting their fragile shelters. Nearly 2,900 have been displaced. ...
    (official report:
    - U.N. News )

• 2018 July 2 - Monday

  • Myanmar Not Safe
    for Rohingya Returnees:
    Red Cross chief.
        - Channel NewsAsia (Singapore)
    (same topic at:
    - Reuters News Service
    - The Star (Malaysia) )

  • UN chief says he heard
    'unimaginable' stories
    from Rohingya.
        - AP / Fox News
    (same topic at:
    - AP / CTV News (Canada) )
      U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said Monday that he heard "unimaginable accounts of killing and rape" from Rohingya refugees who have fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh since last August to escape violence.
      Guterres said in a tweet Monday, after visiting sprawling refugee camps in Bangladesh... that the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims who have taken shelter there want "justice and a safe return home." ...
      * * *
      He said... the refugees had to live under terrible conditions in the camps because of massive violations of their human rights in Myanmar. He praised Bangladesh's government for being generous toward the refugees. ...
      * * *
      He said the solidarity the international community was demonstrating toward the crisis was not necessarily being translated into reality when it comes to funding. ...he was worried about the potential threats of flooding and mudslides because of monsoon rains, and urged the international community to step up with funding.
      On Sunday, Guterres met Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and assured her of the U.N.'s continuing support for the Rohingya.
      World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi also visited the camps.
      Kim promised to continue to work with Bangladesh's government to support the refugees. ...
    (semi-official statements of
    U.N. Secretary General
    Antonio Guterres:
    - Twitter account )

• 2018 July 3 - Tuesday
  
  --------------
  

• 2018 July 4 - Wednesday

  • Rohingya still fleeing violence,
    persecution in Myanmar.
    Series of unexplained killings
    in Bangladesh refugee camps
    adds to fear and desperation.
        - Reuters / CBC News (Canada)
    (same topic at:
    - Reuters / Straits Times (Singapore)
    - Daily Star (Bangladesh) )
      Rohingya Muslims continue to flee Myanmar's Rakhine state, many testifying about violence, persecution, killings and burning of their homes by soldiers and Buddhists, the United Nations human rights chief said on Wednesday.
      [So far this year, 11,432 have arrived in Bangladesh -- where more than 700,000 have fled, since an August 2017 military crackdown in Myanmar's northern Rakhine state. ~Reuters / Straits Times]
      [UN High Commissioner for Human Rights] Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, in his final remarks to the Human Rights Council before stepping down on Aug. 31, questioned a top Myanmar official's assertion that the government was committed to defending the rights of all, not those of any one community:
      "In my four years as high commissioner I have heard many preposterous claims. That claim is almost in its own category of absurdity," Zeid said. "Have you no shame, sir, have you no shame? We are not fools. ...
      "...No amount of rhetoric can whitewash these facts. People are still fleeing persecution in Rakhine — and are even willing to risk dying at sea to escape."
      * * *
      Meanwhile, Bangladesh is deploying thousands of extra police to Rohingya refugee camps in the south, officials said, after a series of mostly unexplained killings that have sown fear among hundreds of thousands of people who have fled from Myanmar.
      Since August,... 19 people, some of them community leaders, have been killed.

  • Killings sow fear
    inside Rohingya refugee
    camps in Bangladesh
        - Reuters News Service
    (same topic at:
    - Reuters / Channel NewsAsia (Singapore) )
      Bangladesh is deploying thousands of extra police to Rohingya refugee camps in the south, officials said, after a series of mostly unexplained killings that have sown fear among hundreds of thousands of people who have fled from neighboring Myanmar
      Since August, when a military crackdown in Myanmar forced many of the Muslim minority to cross the border into Bangladesh and seek shelter in the crowded camps, 19 people, some of them community leaders, have been killed.
      Police have made a number of arrests in connection with some of the killings, but say the motives often remain unclear.
      Conducted after dark and often by groups of men wielding pistols, knives, and sticks, the killings have sent a chill through the camps -- which are guarded by the Bangladesh army during the day, but manned by fewer police officers at night. ...

  • VIDEO:
    (requires Flash player browser plugin)
    Myanmar:
    The Rohingya villages
    UN investigators can't visit
        - BBC   The country has refused to allow access to UN investigators, but officials recently took a group of journalists to Rakhine on a tightly-controlled visit. BBC Myanmar Correspondent Nick Beake joined the trip.

• 2018 July 5 - Thursday

  • Rohingya refugees reject
    UN-Myanmar
    repatriation agreement
      Leaders say agreement does not address concerns and will not help in repatriation of refugees
        - The Guardian (U.K.)
      Rohingya community leaders have rejected an agreement between the United Nations and government of Myanmar for the return of refugees who fled violence in Rakhine state.
      Having seen a leaked text, the leaders say it does not address their concerns and will not help in the repatriation of the refugees. ...
      * * *
      Bangladesh-based Rohingya political activist Ko Ko Linn:
      The agreement is on the issue of return of the Rohingya to their homes. Strangely, they did not bother to consult the Rohingya community before going for the deal... We have long been seeking a guarantee from the Burmese government of restoration of our citizenship rights before we return. But, they have skirted this issue of citizenship...
      (Although the [Rohingya] community has lived in Myanmar for generations, a 1982 [Myanmar] law stripped the Rohingya of their citizenship and made most of them stateless. In [that] Buddhist majority country, Rohingya Muslims are now identified as interlopers from Bangladesh. Myanmar’s government refers to them as "Bengali," not "Rohingya.")
      * * *
      Rohingya rights activist Tun Khin, president of Burmese Rohingya Organisation [in the] U.K.:
      The Rohingya have the right to know about the details of the agreement relating to the process of repatriation, restoration of the citizenship rights, rehabilitation, reintegration and rebuilding of their bulldozed homes and their future. Our community members are extremely angry and disappointed to know of the details of the MoU, after it has leaked. They are also angry because the Burmese government did not make the the details of the agreement public...

  • Out of the shadows:
    Rohingya rape survivors'
    babies arrive.
        - AP / ABC News
      * * *
      ...More than 10 months have passed since Myanmar's security forces launched a sweeping campaign of rape and other brutalities against the Rohingya, and the babies conceived during those assaults have been born. For many of their mothers, the births have been tinged with fear — not only because the infants are reminders of the horrors they survived, but because their community often views rape as shameful, and bearing a baby conceived by Buddhists as sacrilege.
      Theirs is a misery spoken of only in murmurs. Some ended their pregnancies early by taking cheap abortion pills available throughout the camps. Others gave birth to unloved babies; some agonized over whether to give them away. One woman was so worried about her neighbors discovering her pregnancy that she suffered silently through labor in her shelter, stuffing a scarf in her mouth to swallow her screams. ...
      * * *
      Ten such women and girls agreed to interviews with The Associated Press....

  • Hyderabad: 3 Rohingya Muslims
    with Aadhaar, ID cards held.
        - Times of India
      HYDERABAD: Three Rohingya Muslims, including a woman, have been arrested at Balapur here for obtaining Aadhaar cards, voter ID cards, PAN cards and Indian passports by allegedly submitting fake documents, police said... The trio migrated to Hyderabad in 2013 from Myanmar as refugees...

• 2018 July 6 - Friday

  • U.N. PRESS RELEASE:
    New identity cards
    deliver recognition and protection
    for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.
        - UN News / United Nations
      Charlie Yaxley, spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR):
      "[It] will help consolidate a unified database for the purposes of protection, identity management, documentation, provision of assistance, population statistics and ultimately solutions for an estimated 900,000 refugees who have fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh in successive waves of forced displacement...
      "Biometric data, including iris scans and fingerprints as well as photographs, are used in the exercise to confirm individual identities for all refugees over the age of 12." ...
    (same topic at:
    - UNHCR office
    - Daily Star (Bangladesh) )

  • $100M Grant to Improve
    Rohingya Camps in Bangladesh
        - VOA (Voice of America)
          (U.S. propaganda radio)
      Bangladesh is getting help from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to improve the camps where Rohingya refugees fleeing neighboring Myanmar have sought shelter.
      The bank has approved a $100 million grant to Bangladesh. It’s the first half of a $200 million package. ...

• 2018 July 7 - Saturday

  • When a Baby
    Is an Everyday Reminder
    of Rohingya Horror:
        - New York Times
      Everyone in the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh knows of the rapes and how the Myanmar military has, for decades, used sexual violence as a weapon of war, particularly against ethnic groups that are not from the nation’s Buddhist majority.
      They know that it is not the fault of the Rohingya women and girls, who were often gang-raped at gunpoint, their mothers, sisters or daughters sobbing and screaming nearby.
      Nevertheless, in traditional Rohingya Muslim society, rape brings shame to households. Any resulting pregnancies are viewed as heaping even more disgrace on families, according to counselors working in the refugee camps.
      As a result, many survivors are made to suffer twice — first from the trauma of sexual violence and again from the ostracism of a conservative society that abandons them when they most need support. ...
      * * *
      Traffickers have moved in, spreading the word that they can relieve women of unwanted newborns. ...
      * * *
      While many survivors of rape terminated their pregnancies after arriving in Bangladesh, half of the Rohingya treated for rape in the refugee camp clinics run by Doctors Without Borders, the medical aid group, were 18 or younger. Several had not reached 10 years old. ... [Many did not know they were pregnant until too late for an available abortion option.]
      * * *
      ...some women in the camps have relied on mystery potions or back-room abortions that can result in septic shock.
      “Women who are desperate will do anything,” said Dildar Begum, a Rohingya midwife who said she knows of at least two women who died because of botched abortions. ...

  • Two Charged For Building Homes
    Near Torched Rohingya Village
    in Myanmar’s Rakhine.
        - Radio Free Asia (U.S. propaganda radio)
      Authorities have charged two ethnic Rakhine villagers with “threatening public tranquility” for building homes without official permission beside a burned-out community once occupied by Rohingya Muslims in northern Rakhine state’s Maungdaw district, villagers said. ...

  • OPINION ESSAY:
    Why isn’t the Dalai Lama
    speaking out
    in defense of the Rohingya?
      by Sally Quinn, columnist,
        - Washington Post
     

• 2018 July 8 - Sunday

  • China urges Myanmar to start
    Rohingya refugee repatriation
    soon.
        - Daily Star (Bangladesh)
      China, as part of its three-phase steps -- stop local violence, promote repatriation, and development of Rakhine State -- has urged Myanmar to start repatriation of Rohingyas as soon as possible saying it attaches great importance to Rohingya crisis.
      * * *
      The Chinese Ambassador said they want to see active role from Bangladesh, too, in promoting repatriation process.

  • Crimes in Rohingya Camps;
    Govt to deploy 2,000 more cops.
        - Daily Star (Bangladesh)

  • When Europe, Canada slapped
    new sanctions on Myanmar
    over Rohingya treatment,
    where was U.S.?
        - AP / ABC News
      The Trump administration has a list of between six and nine senior Myanmar officials to sanction over the Rohingya crisis, but the effort has stalled amid internal debates over sanctions’ effectiveness and U.S. leadership, two sources tell ABC News. ...

• 2018 July 9 - Monday

  • Why the hush hush?
        - Daily Star (Bangladesh)
      UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, has expressed extreme concern that a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed in June between the UN and Myanmar has been kept secret.
      * * *
      A few weeks after hearing the news of the MoU signed between Myanmar, UNDP and UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), she sent a request to Myanmar through its permanent mission in Geneva for a copy of the MoU, she said.
      Instead of giving her the copy, Myanmar shared with her a summary of the MoU prepared by the UN.
      “Over the last three weeks, I also made requests in person to senior officials of the UN, who despite promises, have not shared a copy of the MoU with me,”
      * * *
      The Reuters [News Service] recently reported that Rohingya refugees returning to Myanmar would have no explicit guarantee of citizenship, or freedom of movement throughout the country -- under a secret agreement between the [Myanmar] government and the UN, seen by Reuters.
      * * *
      UN human rights officlal Yanghee Lee:
      “As it is now clear that the government of Myanmar has made no progress or shown any real will to dismantle the system of discrimination in the country's laws, policies and practices, and to make northern Rakhine state safe, the Rohingya refugees will not be returning to Myanmar in the near future.”
      * * *
      “Systemic violence targeted against the remaining Rohingya population continues.” ...

  • Reuters Reporters
    To Face Trial In Myanmar
    After Covering Rohingya Massacre.
        - NPR (National Public Radio)
      Half a year after Myanmar prosecutors announced they'd seek charges against two Reuters reporters for allegedly violating state secrets, a court in Yangon has ruled that the controversial case can proceed. The decision Monday means Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, will stand trial.
      The two journalists were in Myanmar reporting on a massacre of members of the country's Rohingya Muslim minority. ...
    (same topic at:
      BBC
      New York Times
      Fox News
      TIME Magazine
      CNN (Cable News Network)
      VOA (U.S. propaganda radio) )

• 2018 July 10 - Tuesday

  • ESSAY:
    The Rohingya are victims
    of ethnic cleansing.
    The world has failed them.
    by United Nations Secretary General
    António Guterres
        - Washington Post
      Small children butchered in front of their parents. Girls and women gang-raped while family members were tortured and killed. Villages burned to the ground.
      Nothing could have prepared me for the bone-chilling accounts I heard last week in Bangladesh from Rohingya refugees who had fled widespread killings and violence in Rakhine state, Myanmar....
      * * *
      These victims of what has been rightly called ethnic cleansing are suffering an anguish that can only stir a visitor’s heartbreak and anger. Their horrific experiences defy comprehension, yet they are the reality for nearly 1 million Rohingya refugees. ...
      * * *
      After a harrowing journey to safety, these refugees are now trying to cope with the harsh conditions in the Bangladesh district of Cox’s Bazar that have naturally resulted from the world’s fastest-growing refugee crisis.
      Bangladesh is a developing country with resources stretched to the limits. Yet, while larger and wealthier countries around the world are closing doors to outsiders, the government and people of Bangladesh have opened their borders and hearts to the Rohingya.
      The compassion and generosity of the Bangladeshi people show the best of humanity and have saved many thousands of lives.
      But the response to this crisis must be a global one. ...
      * * *
      ...The crisis will not be solved overnight. At the same time, the situation cannot be allowed to continue indefinitely.
      Myanmar must create the conditions for the return of the refugees with full rights and the promise of living in safety and dignity. This requires a massive investment — not only in reconstruction and development for all communities in one of Myanmar’s poorest regions, but also in reconciliation and respect for human rights.
      Unless the root causes of the violence in Rakhine state are addressed comprehensively, misery and hatred will continue to fuel conflict. The Rohingya people cannot become forgotten victims. We must answer their clear appeals for help with action.
    (same topic at: U.N. News office
    (critique at: Washington Post (July 16) )

• 2018 July 11 - Wednesday

  • Amanpour on PBS:
    Victoria Nuland
    and
    Dr. Homer Venters
        - PBS (Amanpour on PBS)
      In the second half of this 30-minute news show (following her interview about NATO affairs with former U.S. ambassador Victoria Nuland), journalist Christiane Amanpour interviews Dr. Homer Venters from "Physicians for Human Rights" (PHR)
      They discuss how PHR has recently documented injuries inflicted at the village of Chut Pyin "not consistent with fighting terrorists," and discusses his work documenting crimes committed against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.
      Extraordinary footage from the refugee camps, showing their vulnerability to flooding, and rare detailed footage of injuries and scars on Rohingya victims.

  • She is a Rohingya,
    and she doesn't want your pity
      There is a quiet but remarkable transformation taking place among Rohingya women in the refugee camps of Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar
        - The Hindu (India)
      ...For much of their lives, they suffered domestic abuse and lacked access to basic reproductive health services. But post-genocide, they are talking gender equality and injectible contraceptives. ...
      * * *
      Given the dire economic situation in the camps, women have mobilised as taking part in non-traditional informal work activities outside the household and are becoming more economically and socially empowered as a result.” ...
      * * *
      As [violence against women in the camps] kept happening, the women decided to band together. ...
      * * *
      When the women noticed that the police couldn’t help them, they took matters in their own hands. Zaheeda has since devised a few ‘punishments’ that seem to be working rather well. ... “We have been very successful. The number of domestic violence cases in our camp has come down by 90%."
      CiC Pavel confirms... “Earlier we would spend all our days solving domestic feuds... Now we rarely see such cases in my camp,” he says.
      * * *
      “Every one who comes here wants to talk to rape, rain and repatriation,” Zaheeda says. “They are all important issues and you should go back to your countries and write about what is happening to us. I hope it will help us get justice. But in our every day lives, we want power. Not your pity.”

  • ESSAY:
    Rising criminality in
    Rohingya refugee camps:
    ~Daily Star
        - Daily Star (Bangladesh)
    in the Straits Times (Singapore)

• 2018 July 12 - Thursday

  • PHOTO ESSAY:
    Wearing thanaka in a
    Rohingya refugee camp
    – in pictures
        - The Guardian (U.K.)
      [Rohingya refugees find comfort in an ancient, traditional cosmetic-and-protective adornment...]

• 2018 July 13 - Friday

  • 'We are always missing you':
    Torn apart by violence,
    Rohingya families connect
    through letters.
        - Reuters News Service
      Scraps of paper carried between prisons in Myanmar and the camps by the International Committee of the Red Cross are a rare source of hope for families torn apart by the largest and fastest refugee influx in the region in the past twenty years, the refugees say.
      More than 1,600 notes have been gathered from the Bangladeshi camps since August, the Red Cross says. About 160 have been delivered to jails in Rakhine and the replies sent back to Bangladesh.
      * * *
      Reuters saw copies of seven notes...
      * * *
      The letters often serve as the first proof of life of loved ones. ....

• 2018 July 14 - Saturday
  
  --------------
  

• 2018 July 15 - Sunday

  • [Indian Union home minister]
    Rajnath offers more aid
    to Dhaka [Bangladesh]
    for Rohingya.
        - Times of India
      [India's] Union home minister Rajnath Singh, on Saturday, praised [Bangladesh's Prime Minister for fighting terrorism, and promised aid to help feed and shelter Rohingya refugees]...
      Sources said the “humanitarian” aid to Bangladesh to maintain camps [was to keep the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh from crossing over into India]...
      [India is building "homes" for Rohingya in Myanmar's Rakhine state -- the place from which the Rohingya have recently fled for their lives...]

• 2018 July 16 - Monday

  • EDITORIAL LETTER:
    Call the crimes
    against the Rohingya
    what they are:
    Genocide.
        - Washington Post
      U.N. Secretary General António Guterres was right in his July 11 op-ed, “The chilling stories of the Rohingya,” to indict the international community for failing the Rohingya. ...
      * * *
      However... he failed to name the crimes against the Rohingya for what they are: genocide.
      * * *
      Under the harshest light, the omission is gender-discriminatory, ignoring the genocidal acts committed against Rohingya women. ...

  • Jailed Reporter in Myanmar
    Challenges Prosecution’s Version
    of His Arrest.
        - New York Times
      A Reuters reporter jailed for months by Myanmar’s government has challenged the prosecution’s account of how he and a colleague were arrested, the latest twist in a closely watched trial that highlights the government’s tense relationship with the news media. ...

• 2018 July 17 - Tuesday

  

  • Myanmar police
    focused interrogation
    on Rohingya story:
    ~Reuters journalist.
        - Reuters News Service
      A Reuters reporter on trial in Myanmar said the police questioning after he and a colleague were arrested in December centered on their reporting of a massacre of Rohingya Muslims, not on secret state documents they are accused of obtaining.
      * * *
      In hours of testimony, delivered over two days before a court in Yangon, Wa Lone also described what he called the police “trap” to arrest him. His account was the most comprehensive challenge heard so far to the prosecution’s accusation...

  • Nowhere to run:
    Rohingya hunker down
    as monsoon arrives.
        - AP / CTV News (Canada)
      The hill on which the young woman's shelter is being built is so unstable that the earth crumbles under your feet. The threat of landslides is so dire that her neighbours have evacuated. Though living here could spell doom as the monsoon rains fall, she will live here anyway. ...there is no other option.
      Hers is a dilemma repeated over and over for many of the 900,000 Rohingya refugees living in ramshackle huts across this unsteady landscape: With the long-dreaded monsoon season now upon them, they have run out of places to run. ...
    (same topic at:
    - AP / Seattle Times (U.S.)
    - Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
      (PHOTOS)
    - AP / Economic Times (India)
      (VIDEO) )

  • The world ‘must rally’ to support
    one million Rohingya refugees,
    UN Migration chief says.
        - UN News
      A failure to remain focused on the Rohingya refugee crisis in Bangladesh “would have tragic outcomes” for the nearly one million children, women and men living in Cox’s Bazar, said William Lacy Swing, Director General of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), on Tuesday...

• 2018 July 18 - Wednesday

  • Rohingya want
    to return to Myanmar
    as citizens:
    ~UN.
        - Daily Star (Bangladesh)
      In a statement Tuesday, the U.N. said that Myanmar's Rohingya refugees, in Bangladesh, have told a UN envoy, who visited their camp this week, that they will return home if it is safe and if they are granted citizenship rights. ...

  • UN seeks political solution
    to Rohingya crisis.
        - The Independent (Bangladesh)
      United Nations Special Envoy of the Secretary-General on Myanmar Christine Schraner Burgener has said the Rohingya crisis requires a political solution and stressed the importance of accountability for the crimes committed.
      During her three-day visit to Bangladesh, she underlined the need for greater international assistance to the refugees and host communities for addressing the harsh conditions they continue to face and also in terms of mitigating the monsoon risks.
      Burgener plans to visit New York next week to brief the Security Council...

• 2018 July 19 - Thursday

  • Myanmar’s Military
    Planned Rohingya Genocide,
    Rights Group Says.
        - New York Times
      Myanmar’s military systematically planned a genocidal campaign to rid the country of Rohingya Muslims, according to a report -- released on Thursday by the advocacy group Fortify Rights -- based on testimony from 254 survivors, officials and workers over a 21-month period. ...
    (same topic at:
    - The Guardian (U.K.)
    - Radio Free Asia (RFA)
      (U.S. propaganda radio)
    - Council on Foreign Relations (U.S.)
      (July 23) )
    (Official report by Fortify Rights:
    "They Gave Them Long Swords":
    Preparations for Genocide
    and Crimes Against Humanity
    Against Rohingya Muslims
    in Rakhine State, Myanmar. )

• 2018 July 20 - Friday

  • Bangladeshi community trying
    to open Western eyes
    to Rohingya 'ethnic cleansing'
        - CBC News (Canada)
      New Brunswick (Canada) residents trying to raise awareness and education of Rohingya 'ethnic cleansing'...

• 2018 July 21 - Saturday

  • Kobsak quits Rohingya panel.
        - AFP / Bangkok Post (Thailand)
      Former Foreign Ministry official Kobsak Chutikul has quit an international advisory panel on strife-torn Rakhine state, saying the body risks becoming "part of the problem" in the conflict that has forced 700,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee.
      Mr Kobsak was the secretary of the panel hand-picked by State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi...

  • Monsoon Rains Threaten Rohingya.
        - AP / Voice of America (VOA)
          (U.S. propaganda radio)
      * * *
      The intensity and speed of the rain causes landslides and serious flooding in the camps. The problem is made worse because many refugees take shelter on hills. But trees no longer hold the soil in place. They have been cut down to clear space and provide wood for shelters. The roots have been cut for firewood. When the rains come, the water turns the soil into heavy mud that slides down the hill and covers anything in its way.
      * * *
      The most intense rain is expected over the next few months.
      Officials have been able to clear some land in the camp and make it flat, but the area does not have enough space for everyone. About 34,000 people have moved to new shelters farther away. However, many now struggle to find firewood because they live far from the mountains, and they do not have money for travel to the markets. ...

• 2018 July 22 - Sunday

  • Myanmar's Rohingya panel head
    refutes criticism by
    outgoing secretary.
        - Reuters News Service
      The chairman of an international panel set up by Myanmar, to advise on the Rohingya crisis, has rebutted criticism by the body’s ecretary -- saying (instead) that the panel is effective and the government has acted on its recommendations.
      * * *
      His comments follow the resignation of Kobsak Chutikul -- a retired ambassador and former member of Thailand’s parliament -- as secretary of the panel.
      Kobsak told Reuters on Friday that the group had “been kept on a short leash” and achieved little in the six months since its formation in January. ...

  • Finding The Right Words
    To Help Rohingya Refugees
        - NPR (National Public Radio)
      Many local aid workers in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh — home to nearly 1 million Rohingya refugees — are not native Rohingya speakers...
      A November 2017 study... reported that almost two-thirds of... Rohingya refugees surveyed... were unable to communicate with aid providers.
      That can be particularly dangerous when it comes to health care... "If you can't explain to your doctor what's going on, and the doctor can't explain the diagnosis and prescription, it's impossible to [help]."
      ...a new glossary is being developed...
      In June, a nonprofit group called Translators Without Borders, in partnership with Oxfam and UNICEF, created a special online glossary for humanitarians working in Rohingya camps in Bangladesh.
      The app, which aid workers can download on their mobile phones, includes terms with translations in five languages spoken in the camps: English, Bangla, Rohingya, Chittagonian and Burmese. ...

• 2018 July 23 - Monday

  • Extensive Report Suggests
    Myanmar Military
    Thoroughly Planned
    Crimes Against Humanity
    in Rakhine State.
      - Council on Foreign Relations (U.S.)
    (same topic, other media: July 19)
    (Official report by Fortify Rights:
    "They Gave Them Long Swords":
    Preparations for Genocide
    and Crimes Against Humanity
    Against Rohingya Muslims
    in Rakhine State, Myanmar. )

  • UN Urges Myanmar
    to Create Conditions
    for Rohingya Return.
        - AP / Bloomberg News (U.S.)
      The U.N. Security Council urged Myanmar's government, on Monday, to step up efforts to create conditions that will allow Rohingya Muslims -- who fled a violent crackdown -- to safely return to the country from neighboring Bangladesh.
      The council stressed... that progress is also needed by Myanmar on implementing agreements on relations with the U.N. refugee and development agencies, and with Bangladesh, on returning Rohingya.
      * * *
      Security Council members again stressed "the importance of undertaking transparent and independent investigations in allegations of human rights abuses and violations."
      * * *
      Several Security Council members have called for the U.N.'s most powerful body to impose sanctions to pressure the government on the Rohingya issue -- but China, a close ally of Myanmar and a veto-wielding council member, is highly unlikely to ever agree. ...
    (same topic at:
    - AP / Washington Post
    - AFP / Channel NewsAsia (Singapore)
    - The Hindu (India)
    - AP / News-Observer
      (Raleigh, N.Car., USA) )

• 2018 July 24 - Tuesday

  • PRESS RELEASE:
    Over 1,000 New Shelters
    Built for Rohingya Refugees
    Threatened by Landslides.
        - International Organization for Migration (IOM)
    (United Nations agency)
      Shelter teams from IOM, the UN Migration Agency, working with over 19,000 Rohingya refugee and local labourers, this week completed the construction of over 1,000 new shelters as part of a rapid response project to help move refugee families most at risk from landslides during the monsoon.

• 2018 July 25 - Wednesday

  • Landslides, floods kill five children
    in southeastern Bangladesh.
        - Reuters News Service
      Heavy monsoon rains triggered landslides and flooding in southeastern Bangladesh on Wednesday, killing five children and forcing a thousand people to relocate, including in the Rohingya refugee camps.

• 2018 July 26 - Thursday
  
  ---------
  

• 2018 July 27 - Friday

  • Rohingya Refugees Reject Bangladesh Plan
    to Move Them to a Remote Island.
        - VOA (U.S. propaganda radio)
      Rohingya refugees say they will not accept a plan proposed by Bangladesh to relocate to a remote island, for fear it is unsafe.
      "We will not find a way to move to a safer place if the island, which is surrounded on all sides by water, gets flooded," said Rohingya refugee Masuda Begum, who lives in Jamtoli refugee camp in Cox's Bazar. "We do not want to go to that island."
      * * *
      "Any attempts to force people to go to the island, or create conditions requiring movement there for any reason, is totally unacceptable and will result in a major outcry by the world community against Bangladesh," said Phil Robertson, deputy director of Asia Division of Human Rights Watch. ...
      * * *
      One local land department official told VOA that most of the island gets submerged during the high tide. Another forest department official, who did not want to be identified for fear of reprisals from authorities, said the land is unstable and it would take at least 20 years for a small part to be arable.
      * * *
      Rohingya refugees said they are scared to move to Bhasan Char.
      "We knew from many sources that most parts of the island often get drowned when tidal waves hit," Rohingya refugee Nurul Kader told VOA. "For survival, around us we need farm lands and forests which do not exist in that island. Bangladesh is a congested country. Yet, people have not moved to the island to set up villages in Bhasan Char. It's clear the island is unsafe and unlivable." ...
      * * *
      Deputy director of Asia Division
    of Human Rights Watch,
    Phil Robertson:
      "If Bangladesh starts moving refugees to Bhasan Char against their will, the new story of the refugee crisis will not be what Myanmar has done, but rather what [Bangladesh] is doing."

• 2018 July 28 - Saturday
  
  ---------
  

• 2018 July 29 - Sunday

  • We pose no threat to India,
    says Rohingya militant group.
      Appreciates India for providing shelter to refugees.
        - The Hindu (India)
      An armed group blamed for attacks against the Myanmar military has said that it poses no threat to India and expressed “heartfelt appreciation” for Indian support to the Rohingya refugees.
      In a statement released to the media, Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) said that its struggle is to ensure the rights of the Rohingya refugees and that it is not connected to the Islamic State (IS) or Pakistan’s intelligence agencies.
      * * *
      The statement was issued following reports in an Indian daily that the group had targeted the Assam Rifles recently near the India-Myanmar border and that it aims to build training camps in the Myanmar territories close to Indian frontiers. ARSA denied the attack and termed the news report as “blatant manipulation”.
      The group also claimed that it opposes terrorist attacks and gave assurances of peace to Bangladesh. “ARSA has never carried out and will not carry out any military activity in the territories of any State except in its ancestral home land (Arakan State)...” it said. 

• 2018 July 30 - Monday

  • Myanmar appoints panel
    to probe Rohingya abuses.
        - Reuters / Channel NewsAsia (Singapore)
      Myanmar has established a commission of inquiry to probe allegations of human rights abuses in conflict-torn Rakhine state, authorities said on Monday (Jul 30), as the country faces growing calls for accountability over accusations of ethnic cleansing against Rohingya Muslims. ...
    (same topic at:
    - Reuters / Channel NewsAsia (Singapore) )
    (also see global reaction next day)

  • India threatens 4 Million
    Muslim Residents in Assam.
        - BBC News (World)
      "What happened to the Rohingya in Myanmar could happen to us here. We are afraid."
      Villagers in the Indian state of Assam fear for their future...
    (details at:
    Assam register:
    Four million risk losing India citizenship.
      in
    BBC News )

• 2018 July 31 - Tuesday

  • Myanmar forms
    ‘independent’ inquiry commission.
      Rohingya rights activists and Diasporas
    criticize the move taken after
    a year of military crackdown
    -- calling it a smokescreen.
        - Dhaka Tribune (Bangladesh)
    also at:
    - RFA (Radio Free Asia)
      (U.S. propaganda radio)
      Myanmar’s new commission of inquiry to probe reported atrocities in Rakhine state drew criticism Tuesday from groups inside the country who deny abuses took place, while rights experts said they feared the panel would be another effort to evade accountability over alleged ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims. ... (RFA)
    (also see panel announcement previous day)

    

  • "Shoot Bangladeshi, Rohingya
    If They Don't Leave":
    - BJP Lawmaker's Shocker
      BJP (India's ruling party) legislator Raja Singh's demand comes against the backdrop of Assam National Register of Citizens excluding nearly 4 million people from the draft list. ...
        - NDTV (India)
      A BJP lawmaker T Raja Singh has waded into the political row over Assam's citizens' list with a shocking demand to keep the country safe. The lawmaker from Hyderabad said Bangladeshis and Rohingya Muslims are a "danger to India" and they should be shot down if they don't leave the country voluntarily. ...

  • "Is Insaniyat [(humanitarian aid)]
    Only For Rohingya In Bangladesh?"
    - Trinamool, Centre Spar
    [in India's Congress].
        - NDTV (India)
      Trinamool Congress member Sugata Bose raised the issue saying [India's] Ministry of External Affairs is carrying out "Operation Insaniyat" (Operation Humanity) in Bangladesh while on the other hand it started the process of deportation of Rohingyas from India. ...

    ---