International Shia News Agency
Featured

Myanmar refugee exodus nears 300,000

SHAFAQNA-

The United Nations has appealed for aid to deal with a humanitarian crisis unfolding in southern Bangladesh after the number of Muslim Rohingya fleeing Myanmar neared 300,000, just two weeks after violence erupted there, Reuters reported.

The wave of hungry and traumatized refugees is “showing no signs of stopping,” overwhelming agencies in the Cox’s Bazar region already helping hundreds of thousands displaced by ongoing Myanmar security forces crackdown on Muslims in Rakhine state, the UN said.

“It is vital that aid agencies working in Cox’s Bazar have the resources they need to provide emergency assistance to incredibly vulnerable people who have been forced to flee their homes and have arrived in Bangladesh with nothing,” the UN Resident Coordinator in Bangladesh Robert Watkins said.

He said in a statement late on Saturday that agencies urgently needed $77 million (£58.3 million) to cope with an emergency that was triggered when armed groups attacked police posts and an army base on Aug. 25, prompting a military counter-offensive.

The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) declared a month-long unilateral cease-fire, starting on Sunday, to enable aid groups to bring humanitarian aid to those still in the northwestern state of Buddhist-majority Myanmar.

Thousands of displaced people in Rakhine have been stranded or left without food for weeks. Many are still trying to cross mountains, dense bush and rice fields to reach Bangladesh.

Red Cross organizations are scaling up their operations in Rakhine after the UN had to suspend activities there following government suggestions that its agency had supported the armed groups.

In its cease-fire statement, ARSA called on the military to lay down arms and allow humanitarian aid to all affected people.

About a dozen Muslim villages were burned down on Friday and Saturday in the ethnically mixed Rathedaung region of Rakhine, two sources monitoring the situation said.

“Slowly, one after another, villages are being burnt down – I believe that Rohingyas are already wiped out completely from Rathedaung,” said one of the sources, Chris Lewa of the Rohingya monitoring group, the Arakan Project.

Three Rohingya were killed by landmines on Saturday as they tried to cross from Myanmar, a Bangladeshi border guard said, and an official with a non-government organization said two more were injured on Sunday.

In Cox’s Bazar, a Reuters reporter saw about 40 Rohingya, mainly women and children, arriving early on Sunday after a four-day trek and then a border crossing by fishing boat.

The International Crisis Group said in a report that the strife in Rakhine is causing more than a humanitarian crisis.

“It is also driving up the risks that the country’s five-year-old transition from military rule will stumble, that Rohingya communities will be radicalized, and that regional stability will be weakened,” it said.

Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi has come under international pressure to halt the violence. Critics complain that Suu Kyi, who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for championing democracy, has failed to speak out for a minority of her country that has long complained of persecution.

Related posts

India: Government’s citizenship law denying Muslim rights in run-up to general elections

leila yazdani

Survey claimed HNWI planning to invest $2 billion in Mecca-Medina properties

leila yazdani

USA asks Israel to let Muslims worship at Al-Aqsa Mosque during Ramadhan

leila yazdani

Germany: Lawmaker calls for Islamophobia laws in constitution

nasibeh yazdani

Vatican: Pope Francis prays for people of Ukraine-Palestine-Myanmar

nasibeh yazdani

Myanmar: Rohingya Muslims flee to Bangladesh amid escalating clashes

nasibeh yazdani

Leave a Comment