The Tatmadaw, the military of Myanmar, which has dominated the country’s politics almost since independence, has finally achieved what no one believed was still possible: It has managed to unite all the people of Myanmar, across ethnic and religious divides… against itself.
Just under five years ago, the Tatmadaw, with the explicit backing of the civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi, decried any criticism of its brutality against the Rohingya Muslims in the western Rakhine state during its “clearance operations” as “fake news.” Now, the brutality that has been aimed toward the multitude of ethnic minorities in the contested borderlands for decades has come home and is currently being dished out against Burmese Buddhists in the heartlands of Naypyidaw, Yangon and Mandalay. And it is being dished out for the same reason: Civilians are objecting to and protesting against being ruled with an iron fist by the Tatmadaw.
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For decades, the borderland minorities have been brutalized for asking for some degree of autonomy and self-governance. Now, the ordinary Burmese citizens in the heartlands are asking for the same thing in the form of a democratic voice. And they are being met with the same brutality.
In some ways, it is almost a positive surprise that the military does not appear to have been discriminating along ethnic and religious lines quite like we believed it was. And an even more positive surprise to come from this is that the Burmese majority in the country has been quick to empathize with groups like the Rohingya now that they themselves have experienced the true nature of the Tatmadaw. This was something that should have happened anyway, but it was not necessarily going to happen in response to the events of the past two months. There has been an outpouring of belated, but nonetheless welcome, sympathy and remorseful outreach by ordinary Burmese on social media, apologizing to the Rohingya for not believing them when they were being attacked by the Tatmadaw.
Qatar Charity (QC) has said it is preparing to provide relief aid to Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh during the holy month of Ramadan.The food aid will come as part of Qatar Charity’s ‘Ramadan of Hope’ drive to alleviate the suffering of the refugees and help them meet their needs during this blessed month, especially in light of the continued coronavirus pandemic, QC has said in a statement.
This assistance comes within the framework of the relief aid allocated by Qatar Charity for crisis-stricken areas. Refugees, the displaced and the poor are expected to benefit from the relief aid in 25 countries, especially in Syria and neighbouring countries, in addition to the Rohingya refugees.
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This relief is expected to benefit the Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar and Bhasan Char, a remote island in Noakhali district of Bangladesh.
In response to the heartbreaking situation of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, Qatar Charity has recently distributed urgent relief aid to 4,380 refugees in the Bhasan Char island, in the presence of local officials, the statement notes.
QC’s team in Bangladesh distributed the aid, which included daily basic foodstuffs, while taking precautionary measures against the coronavirus.
Mohamed Amin Hafiz Omar, country director of Qatar Charity’s Bangladesh office, said the Rohingya refugees are facing various humanitarian crises in the country, emphasizing that QC stands by the Rohingyas to improve their living conditions by regularly delivering relief aid that includes food and daily essentials, in addition to medical and shelter assistance.
Qatar Charity recently distributed relief aid to 4,000 fire-affected Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar, which displaced nearly 50,000 refugees from their camps. The aid included clothes, safe drinking water and free medical services. In recent months, hundreds of thousands of refugees were taken to Bhasan Char from Teknaf Upazila in Cox’s Bazar.
Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh are living in renewed fear after deadly fires broke out more than 30 times in the southeastern Cox’s Bazar district in recent weeks.Rights activists said these fires are part of a “very worrying trend” in the overcrowded, sprawling shantytown that is home to dozens of interconnected makeshift refugee settlements.
“Every day and night Rohingyas across the camp are living in fear that fire will break out again somewhere in the camp,” a Cox’s Bazar-based Rohingya rights activist who goes by Hussain told VOA. Many Rohingya use only one name.
“Fires are breaking out time and again,” he said, “at least 32 times in different parts of the Rohingya camp in Cox’s Bazar in the past 17 days, after the devastating March 22 fire.”
The rights activist said the perpetrators in recent fires were caught and turned over to authorities.
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“We caught seven or eight people red-handed while they were setting ablaze some shacks,” he said. “They were all handed over to police.”
About 1 million Rohingya Muslim refugees have been living in the bamboo and tarpaulin shanties in the congested Cox’s Bazar district since fleeing military clampdowns in neighboring Myanmar in recent years, according to the United Nations. There are 34 encampments within in the district where Rohingya refugees have settled, which are collectively identified as one expansive settlement, including the Balukhali and nearby Kutupalong refugee camps, according to the International Organization for Migration.
On March 22, a fire ripped through the Balukhali area of the camp, killing at least 15 refugees, authorities said. Sanjeev Kafley, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies delegation head in Bangladesh, told Reuters that more than 17,000 shelters were destroyed, and thousands of people were displaced in the area because of the fire. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimated that the fire injured around 550 refugees and left more than 48,000 homeless.
A Turkish charity on Monday distributed 15,000 food packets to Rohingya refugees and their hosts in Bangladesh for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan set to begin this week, said officials of the group, which is tied to Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate or Diyanet.
“For the 2021 Ramadan program we distributed 11,800 food packets for the Rohingya community. But we didn’t forget the host community. We distributed 3,200 food packages for our Bangladeshi brothers and sisters,” Oguzhan Adsiz, the Bangladesh coordinator for Turkey’s Diyanet Foundation (TDF), told Anadolu Agency on Monday night.
Every package for a single family contains 16 items including dates, soybean oil, chickpeas, milk powder, sugar, salt, flour, and other necessities.
The packets are benefiting 80,000 persecuted Rohingya along with thousands of locals, as on an average there are seven members per Rohingya family in Bangladesh’s camps, according to official data.
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South Korea has decided to provide emergency support of $1.0 million to the International Organization of Migration (IOM) to support the Rohingya community in Cox’s Bazar.These funds will contribute to the massive humanitarian efforts required to respond to the devastating fire that broke out on March 22 in several Rohingya refugee camps, said a press statement of IOM on Sunday.
IOM is implementing its emergency response in affected camps in close collaboration with the government of Bangladesh, the Inter-Sector Coordination Group (ISCG), other UN agencies, INGOs and NGOs.
Referring to the group’s special packages for various occasions including the holy Eid-al-Adha, Ramadan, and winter, Adsiz added: “The Turkiye Diyanet Foundation has been working since 2012 in Bangladesh. From the start of the Rohingya crisis in August 2017 till now we have done many projects for the Rohingya community.”
For the holy month of Ramadan, he said they have another project to donate 5,000 copies of the holy Quran among the host community.
The group is also producing Eid clothing for Rohingya at its sewing centers where young Rohingya women work.
Earlier, the group produced 45,000 bottles of liquid soap in its camp-based factory and distributed those among the persecuted people to ensure safety during the pandemic, Adsiz said.
Some one million Rohingya took refuge in neighboring Bangladesh amid persecution in Myanmar.
South Korea has decided to provide emergency support of $1.0 million to the International Organization of Migration (IOM) to support the Rohingya community in Cox’s Bazar.These funds will contribute to the massive humanitarian efforts required to respond to the devastating fire that broke out on March 22 in several Rohingya refugee camps, said a press statement of IOM on Sunday.
IOM is implementing its emergency response in affected camps in close collaboration with the government of Bangladesh, the Inter-Sector Coordination Group (ISCG), other UN agencies, INGOs and NGOs.
Moving forward, IOM’s response is focused on both critical life-saving interventions as well as long-term recovery efforts.
Through its interventions, IOM aims to provide safe and dignified living conditions for those affected by using a participatory site planning approach and environmentally conscious and sustainable construction.
IOM will also focus on the rehabilitation and construction of vital water points, latrines and shower areas, which will ensure that the most basic human rights of the affected population are respected.
The construction of shelters will employ a community-led approach, which will include the participation of affected families and Cash-for-Work activities related to distributions, porter support and construction works.
New liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cylinders will be provided to replace those that were destroyed in the fire as well as refills for all the affected families. LPG enables families to be self-reliant and cook for themselves according to their likes and needs, the statement continued.
“We are extremely grateful for the support received today from the Government of the Republic of Korea,” declared IOM’s Deputy Chief of Mission in Bangladesh Manuel Marques Pereira. “This assistance will be vital for our efforts to rebuild these camps from the ground up and to ensure that those most vulnerable have access to crucial services.”
Prime minister sheikh hasina to be recognized for bangladesh’s leadership in tackling climate crisis.The US remains very focused on helping all concerned in finding a solution to the Rohingya crisis and restoring democracy in Myanmar, John Kerry, the US special presidential envoy for climate, said on Friday.
He appreciated Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s leadership in demonstrating “extraordinary active generosity” which, he thinks, is very expensive for Bangladesh.
Kerry made the remarks while responding to a question at a joint briefing at state guesthouse Padma after his meeting with Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen in Dhaka.
He said the global community needed to step up in demonstrating their responsibility.
Democracy must be restored in Myanmar to ease the Rohingya refugee burden on Bangladesh, U.S. special envoy John Kerry said Friday during a lightning visit to the South Asian nation to drum up support for a Washington-hosted climate summit.
The American diplomat heaped praise on Bangladesh for its “extraordinary” generosity in sheltering the refugees from Myanmar, and even mentioned Dhaka’s controversial decision to relocate thousands to a flood-prone island.
Bangladesh is hosting over 1.1 million Rohingyas in Cox’s Bazar and Bhashan Char and has sought US support for sustainable and dignified return of Rohingyas to Myanmar.
Kerry arrived in Dhaka on Friday morning to convey President Joe Biden’s commitment to move forward “aggressively” to deal with the global climate crisis.
Foreign Minister Dr Momen and his wife Selina Momen received Kerry upon his arrival at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport at 11:30am. US Ambassador to Bangladesh Earl Miller was also present there.
Kerry, who arrived in Dhaka after wrapping up his four-day India visit, is scheduled to hand over the US president’s invitation to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in person to attend the Leaders Summit on Climate, to be held virtually on April 22-23.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will be recognized at the summit for Bangladesh’s leadership of countries especially vulnerable to climate impacts.
Democracy must be restored in Myanmar to ease the Rohingya refugee burden on Bangladesh, U.S. special envoy John Kerry said Friday during a lightning visit to the South Asian nation to drum up support for a Washington-hosted climate summit.
The American diplomat heaped praise on Bangladesh for its “extraordinary” generosity in sheltering the refugees from Myanmar, and even mentioned Dhaka’s controversial decision to relocate thousands to a flood-prone island.
He called the current situation in Myanmar “one of the great moral challenges of the planet today,” in referring to a coup and deadly violence against civilians by the same military that caused hundreds of thousands of traumatized Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh in 2017.
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“Bangladesh has been one of the greatest helping hands, you’ve given them an island. You’ve helped people to be able to find a future, but that’s not a long-term future, and that doesn’t resolve the issue,” Kerry, President Joe Biden’s special envoy for the climate, told reporters in Dhaka.
“So the new administration, Secretary [of State] Tony Blinken, is very cognizant of this issue, and very focused on it, and I know that he and the administration are going to do everything in their power to try to restore democracy to Myanmar, and in the doing of that, to try to be able to help relieve the pressure and the challenges that the Rohingya represent,” Kerry said in responding to a question from a BenarNews correspondent.Bangladesh Foreign Minister A.K. Abdul Momen, who appeared at a press conference with Kerry, asked Washington’s special envoy for help in repatriating the Rohingya – about 1 million of whom are sheltering at densely crowded refugee camps in southeastern Cox’s Bazar district.
The vast majority crossed the border into Bangladesh while escaping a brutal military offensive in their home state of Rakhine in 2017.
“We hope that the U.S.’s proactive initiative can help with a safe and dignified return,” Momen said.
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India’s Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a plea to stop the government from deporting to Myanmar some 150 Rohingya Muslims police detained last month, paving the way for them to be sent to a country where hundreds have been killed following a military coup.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has been trying to send back Rohingyas, a Muslim minority from Myanmar who have found refuge in India after fleeing persecution and waves of violence over the years.
Two refugees petitioned the Supreme Court for the release of Rohingya men and women detained in the northern Jammu region last month, and block the government from deporting them.
But Chief Justice Sharad Arvind Bobde said the deportations could go ahead as long as officials followed due process. “It is not possible to grant the interim relief prayed for,” the judge said in his order.
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“Regarding the contention raised on behalf of the petitioners about the present state of affairs in Myanmar, we have to state that we cannot comment upon something happening in another country,” he added.
Hundreds of people have been killed in Myanmar since the army seized power in a coup on Feb. 1.
The ruling has triggered panic among refugees in India, a Rohingya community leader in New Delhi said, declining to be named out of fear of reprisals.
“This is a terrifying order made by the highest court in India,” he said. “Given the horrifying situation in Myanmar, I had really hoped the judge would rule in our favour.”
The Modi government says the Rohingya are in the country illegally and a security threat. At least a dozen Rohingya have been deported since 2017, according to community leaders.
Last week, officials tried deporting a 16-year-old Rohingya girl here and drove her to the border, but that attempt failed as authorities in Myanmar were not reachable, officials said.
Many of the Rohingya in India carry identity cards issued by the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) recognising them as refugees, but the country is not a signatory to the U.N. Refugee Convention. India also rejects a U.N. position that deporting the Rohingya violates the principle of refoulement – forcible return of refugees to a country where they face danger.
Staff Correspondent: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday urged the D-8 leaders to come forward for a sustainable solution to the Rohingya crisis and address the challenges posed by climate change alongside laying emphasis on trade, investment, cooperation and harnessing the power of youth.
“I would like to urge you (D-8 leaders) to put pressure on Myanmar for taking back the Rohingyas,” she said, expressing her concern that if the crisis is not resolved, it may create security concerns in the region and beyond.
She mentioned the Rohingya crisis as an urgent issue for Bangladesh as it is causing severe impact on the country’s environment, society and the economy. The premier was addressing the 10th D-8 Summit virtually as chair. Bangladesh hosted and chaired this summit at a unique time when the country is celebrating the birth centenary of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Golden Jubilee of its independence.
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Shikh Hasina said Bangladesh gave shelter to 1.1 million Rohingyas of Myanmar on humanitarian grounds, but it insisted from the beginning that they (Rohingya) have to go back to the Rakhine State in Myanmar in a safe, dignified, voluntary and sustainable manner.
“Unfortunately, it has been more than three years after their influx into Bangladesh, and the repatriation process is yet to be started,” she noted.
On the outset of the summit, Bangladesh took over the term chairmanship of D-8 from Turkey for the second time.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivered the opening remark and then handed over the Chairmanship to Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina
was also in the Chair when Bangladesh hosted the 2nd D-8 Summit in Dhaka in 1999.
In the summit, Sheikh Hasina made an urgent call to the leaders for a meaningful cooperation among the D-8 member countries for adaptation and mitigation measures, referring to Bangladesh’s experiences regarding the issues of climate changes.
Cox’s Bazar Rohingya Refugee Camp had one of highest rates of primary and secondary age children out of school. Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the multilateral global fund dedicated to education in emergencies and protracted crises, immediately allocated millions to urgently scale up learning spaces for displaced Rohingya children. ECW is preparing an additional multi-year allocation to support continuous learning opportunities for Rohingya children in 2021 and beyond.
– Although learning centres in Cox’s Bazar Kutupalong Refugee Camp are closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mariom Akhter, a Rohingya mother of four, is grateful not only for the schooling her children have had but the training sessions she as a parent was able to attend. The skills she learnt has helped her assist her children with their education at home in a crisis.
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It’s something she’s likely needed to help her children with over the last few weeks after a Mar. 22 fire spread through the camp, destroying the shelters of at least 45,000 people as well as important infrastructure, including hospitals, learning centres, aid distribution points and a registration centre. At least 15 people were reported dead and 400 missing.
“I have learnt many things from the sessions about the education assistance of the children that should be given in any crisis. The sessions played a significant role in ensuring education of the children during this crisis period when all the learning centres are closed due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic,” Akhter told IPS before the fire
In 2017, Bangladesh became host to 1.1 million Rohingya when 750,000 people fled a brutal military crackdown in Myanmar’s Rakhine State. [Some 300,000 Rohingya had already taken refuge in the country after various insurgencies in earlier years.]
And as families settled in the Cox’s Bazar Kutupalong Refugee Camp, the area had one of highest rates of primary and secondary age children out of school.
