File photo
A leading human rights group said on Tuesday that international monitoring was vital in the repatriation of thousands of Rohingya Muslims as Myanmar authority has tortured and imprisoned returnees from Bangladesh.
Since Aug. 25, 2017, more than 750,000 refugees, mostly children and women, have fled Myanmar and crossed into Bangladesh after Myanmar forces launched a crackdown on the minority Muslim community, according to Amnesty International.
More than 24,000 Rohingya Muslims have been killed by Myanmar’s state forces since August 2017, said a new report by Ontario International Development Agency.
Myanmar has promised a safe return to the Rohingya refugees but the latter have expressed doubt about their safety.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday that “the reality is that Rohingya who go back still face the persecution and abuses they were forced to flee” despite the promised by the Myanmar government.
“The torture of Rohingya returnees puts the lie to Myanmar government promises that refugees who return will be safe and protected,” said HRW’s deputy Asia director Phil Robertson.
HRW said in a statement that three Rohingya men and three boys said Myanmar’s border guard police "repeatedly interrogated them at gunpoint [...]".
The officers used stress positions; beatings with fists, sticks, and rods and burning and electric shock to force them to confess to an affiliation with Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), it said.
HRW said they were among 58 Rohingya returnees who, according to statement of the State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi’s Office, Myanmar President Win Myint pardoned.
“The treatment of these Rohingya refugees should be a warning sign to those who believe the Myanmar authorities are ready to ensure safe returns,” Robertson said.
“Myanmar has a long way to go before it can demonstrate it is serious about making the necessary reforms for voluntary, safe, and dignified returns.”
The Rohingya, described by the UN as the world's most persecuted people, have faced heightened fears of attack since dozens were killed in communal violence in 2012.
The UN documented mass gang rapes, killings -- including of infants and young children -- brutal beatings, and disappearances committed by security personnel.
In a report, UN investigators said such violations may have constituted crimes against humanity.
A Turkish charity will distribute meat among 5,250 Rohingya families in the Rakhine State in Myanmar as part of its efforts during the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha.The Cansuyu Charity and Solidarity Organization officials arrived in Rakhine State from Istanbul on Monday.Rohingya Muslims struggle against famine as world watches silentlyBayram Numan Koksal from the organization told Anadolu Agency they will distribute meat among Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State villages and camps like they did before.Koksal said the charity organization will also distribute meat in Turkey and worldwide such as Africa, Asia, Middle East, Far East and the Balkans."We took the road to deliver Eid meat [of sacrificial animals] in Turkey, Africa, Asia, Palestine, Gaza, all oppressed people. Today, we are in Myanmar's Rakhine State and trying to deliver Eid meat to 5,250 families living in this region," Koksal said and added that Rohingya Muslims are not alone as Turkey is caring about them materially and morally.The Rohingya, described by the UN as the world's most persecuted people, have faced heightened fears of attack since dozens were killed in communal violence in 2012.The UN documented mass gang rapes, killings -- including of infants and young children -- brutal beatings, and disappearances committed by security personnel.In a report, UN investigators said such violations may have constituted crimes against humanity.
Turkish charity to distribute meat among Rohingya
Myanmar’s persecuted Rohingya minority continues to struggle against famine, disease and lack of access to clean water in sprawling camps in neighboring Bangladesh as the Muslim world remains silent in the face of their plight, exacerbated by an unsparing monsoon season that batters their flimsy improvised shelters.Turkey tops list of donors Turkey leads the list of most generous countries that donated humanitarian aid since the start of the Rohingya crisis, providing close to $850 million in aid through its agencies, followed by Qatar, Lebanon and Bangladesh as the world continues to turn a blind eye to the plight of hundreds of thousands of Muslims who have to struggle with famine amid shortages of drinking water.Absent from the list are global superpowers such as the U.S., failing to provide direct humanitarian assistance to Rohingya Muslims.Myanmar army killed over 24,000 Rohingya: reportThe Rohingya lists: refugees compile their own record of those killed in MyanmarChildren are the biggest victims Rohingya children living in sprawling camps in neighboring Bangladesh remain among the most vulnerable as famine continues to claim lives while the world watches on in silence. Children routinely have to struggle with finding clothes to cover their tiny bodies as they walk barefoot for miles in the rain and mud in the midst of an unsparing monsoon season that exacerbated their plight under recurring food shortages and lack of proper shelters.Galeri: Rohingya Muslims struggle against famine as world watches silentlySince Aug. 25, 2017, more than 750,000 refugees, mostly children and women, have fled Myanmar and crossed into Bangladesh after Myanmar forces launched a crackdown on the minority Muslim community, according to Amnesty International.More than 40 percent of the displaced Rohingya are under age 12, according to the UN, and many others are elderly people requiring additional aid and protection.The settlements in Kutupalong and Nayapara in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district host nearly all who arrived from Myanmar.The Rohingya, described by the UN as the world's most persecuted people, have faced heightened fears of attack since dozens were killed in communal violence in 2012.The UN documented mass gang rapes, killings -- including of infants and young children -- brutal beatings, and disappearances committed by security personnel.In a report, UN investigators said such violations may have constituted crimes against humanity.
Rohingya Muslims struggle against famine as world watches silently
More than 24,000 Rohingya Muslims have been killed by Myanmar’s state forces since August 2017, according to a new report.The figures were revealed in the report -- Forced Migration of Rohingya: The Untold Experience -- released by the Ontario International Development Agency, which involved researchers and organizations from Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, Norway and the Philippines.Rohingya refugees who fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar said more than 40,000 Rohingya had suffered bullet wounds, the report said.The research brought the estimated number of murdered Rohingya up to 23,962 (± 881) from its previously provided number of 9,400 by the Doctors Without Borders.More than 34,000 people were thrown into fire and more than 114,000 others were beaten, according to the research.It also says 17,718 (±780) Rohingya women and girls were raped since Myanmar army and police systematically targeted the world’s most persecuted group.The research showed that more than 115,000 Rohingya houses were burnt down and 113,000 others were vandalized.A previous report by the Doctors Without Borders had said at least 9,400 Rohingya were killed in Rakhine from Aug. 25 to Sept. 24 last year.The humanitarian group said the number included 730 children below the age of 5.- Disturbing evidenceThe new study gave examples of brutality by the Myanmar army and the inhumane treatment on the Rohingya minority.One of the most disturbing accounts reported by the study group is of a 21-year-old Rohingya woman, Hasina Begum who was “lucky enough to survive and fled to Bangladesh”.In her village Tolatuli (Moungdaw), Begum heard gunshots and saw the military burning down her village and killing people. She and her family, together with others, took refuge at a riverbank but the army personnel surrounded them and started firing, killing 50-60 of them in the first fire.Some of them jumped into the river but only a few survived.The army killed all men in the next four to five hours and burned their bodies in holes dug in the ground. The army members then took Begum’s four-month-old baby and threw it into the burning fire.The soldiers raped young women, including Begum, before setting fire on the building they were in before leaving.Begum and her sister-in-law later managed to reach the Bangladesh-Myanmar border in the following few days. - Most persecuted minoritySince Aug. 25, 2017, more than 750,000 refugees, mostly children and women, have fled Myanmar and crossed into Bangladesh after Myanmar forces launched a crackdown on the minority Muslim community, according to Amnesty International.More than 40 per cent of the displaced Rohingya are under age 12, according to the UN and many others are elderly people requiring additional aid and protection.The settlements in Kutupalong and Nayapara in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district host nearly all who arrived from Myanmar.The Rohingya, described by the UN as the world's most persecuted people, have faced heightened fears of attack since dozens were killed in communal violence in 2012.The UN documented mass gang rapes, killings -- including of infants and young children -- brutal beatings, and disappearances committed by security personnel.In a report, UN investigators said such violations may have constituted crimes against humanity.
Myanmar army killed over 24,000 Rohingya: report
M ohib Bullah is not your typical human rights investigator. He chews betel and he lives in a rickety hut made of plastic and bamboo. Sometimes, he can be found standing in a line for rations at the Rohingya refugee camp where he lives in Bangladesh.Yet Mohib Bullah is among a group of refugees who have achieved something that aid groups, foreign governments and journalists have not. They have painstakingly pieced together, name-by-name, the only record of Rohingya Muslims who were allegedly killed in a brutal crackdown by Myanmar's military.The bloody assault in the western state of Rakhine drove more than 700,000 of the minority Rohingya people across the border into Bangladesh, and left thousands of dead behind.Aid agency Médecins Sans Frontières, working in Cox's Bazar at the southern tip of Bangladesh, estimated in the first month of violence, beginning at the end of August 2017, that at least 6,700 Rohingya were killed. But the survey, in what is now the largest refugee camp in the world, was limited to the one month and didn't identify individuals.The Rohingya list makers pressed on and their final tally put the number killed at more than 10,000. Their lists, which include the toll from a previous bout of violence in October 2016, catalogue victims by name, age, father's name, address in Myanmar, and how they were killed."When I became a refugee I felt I had to do something," says Mohib Bullah, 43, who believes that the lists will be historical evidence of atrocities that could otherwise be forgotten.Myanmar government officials did not answer phone calls seeking comment on the Rohingya lists. Late last year, Myanmar's military said that 13 members of the security forces had been killed. It also said it recovered the bodies of 376 Rohingya militants between Aug. 25 and Sept. 5, which is the day the army says its offensive against the militants officially ended.Rohingya regard themselves as native to Rakhine State. But a 1982 law restricts citizenship for the Rohingya and other minorities not considered members of one of Myanmar's "national races". Rohingya were excluded from Myanmar's last nationwide census in 2014, and many have had their identity documents stripped from them or nullified, blocking them from voting in the landmark 2015 elections. The government refuses even to use the word "Rohingya," instead calling them "Bengali" or "Muslim."Now in Bangladesh and able to organise without being closely monitored by Myanmar's security forces, the Rohingya have armed themselves with lists of the dead and pictures and video of atrocities recorded on their mobile phones, in a struggle against attempts to erase their history in Myanmar.The Rohingya accuse the Myanmar army of rapes and killings across northern Rakhine, where scores of villages were burnt to the ground and bulldozed after attacks on security forces by Rohingya insurgents. The United Nations has said Myanmar's military may have committed genocide.Myanmar says what it calls a "clearance operation" in the state was a legitimate response to terrorist attacks."NAME BY NAME"Clad in longyis, traditional Burmese wrap-arounds tied at the waist, and calling themselves the Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace & Human Rights, the list makers say they are all too aware of accusations by the Myanmar authorities and some foreigners that Rohingya refugees invent stories of tragedy to win global support.But they insist that when listing the dead they err on the side of under-estimation.Mohib Bullah, who was previously an aid worker, gives as an example the riverside village of Tula Toli in Maungdaw district, where - according to Rohingya who fled - more than 1,000 were killed. "We could only get 750 names, so we went with 750," he said."We went family by family, name by name," he added. "Most information came from the affected family, a few dozen cases came from a neighbour, and a few came from people from other villages when we couldn't find the relatives."In their former lives, the Rohingya list makers were aid workers, teachers and religious scholars. Now after escaping to become refugees, they say they are best placed to chronicle the events that took place in northern Rakhine, which is out-of-bounds for foreign media, except on government-organised trips."Our people are uneducated and some people may be confused during the interviews and investigations," said Mohammed Rafee, a former administrator in the village of Kyauk Pan Du who has worked on the lists. But taken as a whole, he said, the information collected was "very reliable and credible."SPRAWLING PROJECTGetting the full picture is difficult in the teeming dirt lanes of the refugee camps. Crowds of people gather to listen - and add their comments - amid booming calls to prayer from makeshift mosques and deafening downpours of rain. Even something as simple as a date can prompt an argument.What began tentatively in the courtyard of a mosque after Friday prayers one day last November became a sprawling project that drew in dozens of people and lasted months.The project has its flaws. The handwritten lists were compiled by volunteers, photocopied, and passed from person to person. The list makers asked questions in Rohingya about villages whose official names were Burmese, and then recorded the information in English. The result was a jumble of names: for example, there were about 30 different spellings for the village of Tula Toli.Wrapped in newspaper pages and stored on a shelf in the backroom of a clinic, the lists that Reuters reviewed were labeled as beginning in October 2016, the date of a previous exodus of Rohingya from Rakhine. There were also a handful of entries dated 2015 and 2012. And while most of the dates were European-style, with the day first and then the month, some were American-style, the other way around. So it wasn't possible to be sure if an entry was, say, May 9 or September 5.It is also unclear how many versions of the lists there are. During interviews with Reuters, Rohingya refugees sometimes produced crumpled, handwritten or photocopied papers from shirt pockets or folds of their longyis.The list makers say they have given summaries of their findings, along with repatriation demands, to most foreign delegations, including those from the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission, who have visited the refugee camps.A LEGACY FOR SURVIVORSThe list makers became more organised as weeks of labour rolled into months. They took over three huts and held meetings, bringing in a table, plastic chairs, a laptop and a large banner carrying the group's name.The MSF survey was carried out to determine how many people might need medical care, so the number of people killed and injured mattered, and the identity of those killed was not the focus. It is nothing like the mini-genealogy with many individual details that was produced by the Rohingya.Mohib Bullah and some of his friends say they drew up the lists as evidence of crimes against humanity they hope will eventually be used by the International Criminal Court, but others simply hope that the endeavour will return them to the homes they lost in Myanmar."If I stay here a long time my children will wear jeans. I want them to wear longyi. I do not want to lose my traditions. I do not want to lose my culture," said Mohammed Zubair, one of the list makers. "We made the documents to give to the U.N. We want justice so we can go back to Myanmar."Matt Wells, a senior crisis advisor for Amnesty International, said he has seen refugees in some conflict-ridden African countries make similar lists of the dead and arrested but the Rohingya undertaking was more systematic. "I think that's explained by the fact that basically the entire displaced population is in one confined location," he said.Wells said he believes the lists will have value for investigators into possible crimes against humanity."In villages where we've documented military attacks in detail, the lists we've seen line up with witness testimonies and other information," he said.Spokespeople at the ICC's registry and prosecutors' offices, which are closed for summer recess, did not immediately provide comment in response to phone calls and emails from Reuters.The U.S. State Department also documented alleged atrocities against Rohingya in an investigation that could be used to prosecute Myanmar's military for crimes against humanity, U.S. officials have told Reuters. For that and the MSF survey only a small number of the refugees were interviewed, according to a person who worked on the State Department survey and based on published MSF methodology.MSF did not respond to requests for comment on the Rohingya lists. The U.S. State Department declined to share details of its survey and said it wouldn't speculate on how findings from any organization might be used.For Mohammed Suleman, a shopkeeper from Tula Toli, the Rohingya lists are a legacy for his five-year-old daughter. He collapsed, sobbing, as he described how she cries every day for her mother, who was killed along with four other daughters."One day she will grow up. She may be educated and want to know what happened and when. At that time I may also have died," he said. "If it is written in a document, and kept safely, she will know what happened to her family."Facebook says it was 'too slow' to fight hate speech in MyanmarBangladeshi delegation visits Myanmar’s Rakhine stateMyanmar upholds blockade of aid to Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine
The Rohingya lists: refugees compile their own record of those killed in Myanmar
Myanmar has sought for Bangladesh to replace the term “Forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals” to “Displaced persons from Rakhine State” on registration cards issued to Rohingya refugees in Cox's Bazar.Myanmar made the demand during a meeting last week, Bangladeshi officials have said.A 15-member Bangladeshi delegation led by Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali visited Myanmar between Thursday and Saturday.It was the first state-sponsored visit to Myanmar since the Rohingya fled to Bangladesh a year ago.Human Rights Watch (HRW), however, said in a statement on Wednesday that Bangladesh had “agreed” to the change.“While changing a few words on a refugee's ID card may seem inconsequential, for the 700,000 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh who fled ethnic cleansing in Myanmar a year ago, it is essential,” said Bill Frelick, director of Refugee Rights Program of HRW.Facebook says it was 'too slow' to fight hate speech in Myanmar"This change signals that Myanmar doesn't intend to honour the citizenship rights of Rohingyas, nor acknowledge the cause of their displacement – security force operations that included murder, widespread rape, mass arson, and pillage," HRW added at the statement.The commissioner of the Bangladesh Refugee Relief Repatriation Commission (RRRC) Mohammad Abul Kalam told Anadolu Agency on Thursday that Myanmar raised the ID card issue. “The Foreign Ministry is the authority to take final decision to bring the change. We have yet to get any formal decision or instruction on the matter,” he said.Bangladeshi delegation visits Myanmar’s Rakhine stateRohingya refugees have long expressed doubts on whether they would benefit from rights as citizens if repatriation were to occur.Executive director of Transparency International Bangladesh, Iftekhar Zaman, on Thursday told Anadolu Agency that identifying Rohingya refugees as Myanmar nationals was necessary for them to acquire their rights as citizens.“The international community has failed to pay due importance to the humanitarian crisis created by Myanmar on Rohingya people which [puts] Bangladesh in a trap.”Since Aug. 25, 2017, more than 750,000 refugees, mostly children and women, have fled Myanmar and crossed into Bangladesh after Myanmar forces launched a crackdown on the minority Muslim community, according to Amnesty International.At least 9,400 Rohingya were killed in Rakhine from Aug. 25 to Sept. 24 last year, according to Doctors Without Borders.The Rohingya, described by the UN as the world's most persecuted people, have faced heightened fears of attack since dozens were killed in communal violence in 2012.The UN has documented mass gang rapes, killings -- including of infants and young children -- brutal beatings, and disappearances committed by security personnel. In a report, UN investigators said such violations may have constituted crimes against humanity.
Myanmar seeks removal of 'national' tag in Rohingya IDs