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U.S. weighs calling Myanmar’s Rohingya crisis ‘ethnic cleansing’

U.S. weighs calling Myanmar's Rohingya crisis 'ethnic cleansing'

By Patricia Zengerle and Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The State Department is considering formally declaring the crackdown on Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims to be ethnic cleansing, U.S. officials said on Tuesday, as lawmakers called for sanctions against the Southeast Asian country’s military.

Pressure has mounted for a tougher U.S. response to the Rohingya crisis ahead of President Donald Trump’s maiden visit to Asia next month when he will attend a summit of Southeast Asian countries, including Myanmar, in Manila.

U.S. officials are preparing a recommendation for Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that would define the military-led campaign against the Rohingya as ethnic cleansing, which could spur new sanctions, the U.S. government sources said.

The proposal – part of an overall review of Myanmar policy – could be sent to Tillerson as early as this week, and he would then decide whether to adopt it, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

More than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Rakhine state in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, mostly to neighboring Bangladesh, since security forces responded to Rohingya militants’ attacks on Aug. 25 by launching a crackdown. The United Nations has already denounced it as a classic example of ethnic cleansing.

Three U.S. officials testifying at a Senate hearing on Tuesday declined to say whether the treatment of the Rohingya was ethnic cleansing, but listed new measures including targeted sanctions that Washington is considering.

Those steps, however, stopped short of the most drastic tools at Washington’s disposal such as reimposing broader economic sanctions suspended under the Obama administration.

“I’m not in a position … to characterize it today, but to me this very closely resembles some of the worst kind of atrocities that I’ve seen during a long career,” Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Mark Storella said when pressed to say whether he viewed the situation as ethnic cleansing.

Senator Ben Cardin, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, said he considered the treatment of the Rohingya “genocide” and is working on bipartisan legislation that could spell out whether additional sanctions are needed.

Myanmar, also known as Burma, insists that action was needed to combat “terrorists.”

The recommendation to Tillerson – first reported by the Associated Press – is not expected to include a determination on whether “crimes against humanity” have been committed, as this would require further legal deliberations, one U.S. official said.

The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Some U.S. lawmakers criticized Aung San Suu Kyi, head of Myanmar’s civilian-led government and a Nobel peace laureate once hugely popular in Washington, for failing to do more.

Senator Bob Corker, Republican chairman of the committee, chided Suu Kyi for what he called “dismissiveness” toward the plight of the Rohingya and said it might be time for a “policy adjustment” toward Myanmar.

At the hearing, Patrick Murphy, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian And Pacific Affairs, said additional sanctions were being considered, but cautioned that doing so could lessen Washington’s ability to influence Myanmar.

(Additional reporting by John Walcott and Jason Szep; editing by Susan Thomas)

U.S. says it is considering sanctions over Myanmar’s treatment of Rohingya

U.S. says it is considering sanctions over Myanmar's treatment of Rohingya

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States is taking steps and considering a range of further actions over Myanmar’s treatment of its Rohingya Muslim minority, including targeted sanctions under its Global Magnitsky law, the State Department said on Monday.

“We express our gravest concern with recent events in Myanmar’s Rakhine state and the violent, traumatic abuses Rohingya and other communities have endured,” it said in a statement.

It added: “It is imperative that any individuals or entities responsible for atrocities, including non-state actors and vigilantes, be held accountable.”

Rohingya Muslims have fled Myanmar in large numbers since late August when Rohingya insurgent attacks sparked a ferocious military response, with the fleeing people accusing security forces of arson, killings and rape.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Wednesday the United States held Myanmar’s military leadership responsible for its crackdown on the Rohingya Muslim minority.

Tillerson stopped short of saying whether the United States would take any action against Myanmar’s military leaders over an offensive that has driven more than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims out of the country, mostly to neighboring Bangladesh.

The State Department made the announcement ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump’s maiden visit to the region early next month when he will attend a summit of ASEAN countries, including Myanmar, in Manila.

It marked the strongest U.S. response so far to the months-long Rohingya crisis but came short of applying the most drastic tools at Washington’s disposal such as reimposing broader economic sanctions suspended under the Obama administration.

Critics have accused the Trump administration of acting too slowly and timidly in response to the Rohingya crisis.

The State Department said on Monday: “We are exploring accountability mechanisms available under U.S. law, including Global Magnitsky targeted sanctions.”

Measures already taken include ending travel waivers for current and former members of the military in Myanmar, also known as Burma, and barring units and officers in northern Rakhine state from U.S. assistance, it said.

“We have rescinded invitations for senior Burmese security forces to attend U.S.-sponsored events; we are working with international partners to urge that Burma enables unhindered access to relevant areas for the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission, international humanitarian organizations, and media,” the statement said.

In addition, Washington is “consulting with allies and partners on accountability options at the UN, the UN Human Rights Council, and other appropriate venues,” it said.

AIMED AT TOP GENERALS?

Interviews with more than a dozen diplomats and government officials based in Washington, Myanmar’s capital, Yangon, and Europe have revealed that punitive measures aimed specifically at top generals were among a range of options being discussed in response to the Rohingya crisis.

Such measures could include the possibility of imposing asset freezes and prohibiting American citizens from doing business with them.

Washington has worked hard to establish close ties with Myanmar’s civilian-led government led by Nobel laureate and former dissident Aung San Suu Kyi in the face of competition from strategic rival China.

Forty-three U.S. lawmakers urged the Trump administration to reimpose U.S. travel bans on Myanmar’s military leaders and prepare targeted sanctions against those responsible for the crackdown.

The Magnitsky Act, originally passed in 2012, imposed visa bans and asset freezes on Russian officials linked to the 2009 death in prison of Sergei Magnitsky, a 37-year-old Russian whistleblower. It has since been expanded to become the Global Magnitsky Act, which could be used against the generals in Myanmar.

(Reporting by Eric Walsh and Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Mohammad Zargham and Peter Cooney)

U.N. says still determining if Myanmar crisis is genocide

U.N. says still determining if Myanmar crisis is genocide

By Tom Miles

GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations has yet to determine whether violence against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar meets the legal definition of genocide, Jyoti Sanghera, Asia Pacific chief at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Wednesday.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein has called the situation “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing”, but he has not used the word genocide.

“We are yet looking at the legal boundaries of that,” Sanghera said. “It could meet the boundaries, but we haven’t yet made that legal determination at OHCHR.”

A U.N. team took witness statements from Rohingya refugees last month, and another human rights mission is currently on the ground, gathering evidence from some of the 582,000 Rohingya who have fled into Bangladesh in the last two months.

“The testimony gathered by the team referred to unspeakable horrors,” Sanghera told an audience at Geneva’s Graduate Institute. “Even as I speak this evening the world is witnessing a horrific spectacle of massive forced displacement and suffering.”

A few hundred thousand Rohingya are thought to remain in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine state, she said.

The refugees described massive detention and systematic rape by Myanmar security forces, deliberate destruction of Rohingya villages so that people could not return, and deliberate targeting of cultural and religious leaders that aimed to “diminish Rohingya history, culture and knowledge”, she said.

Imams had their beards shaved or burnt off, and women and girls were raped inside mosques. Some refugees said their non-Rohingya neighbors had been given weapons and uniforms and worked in concert with the security forces.

“Unsettled post-colonial questions and tensions fueled by colonial powers of the past have been exploited by the military junta in Myanmar to keep ethnic rivalries simmering,” Sanghera said.

“Systematic and acute discrimination of the Rohingya Muslims continues to be kept alive by the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, to a point referred to recently by the High Commissioner for Human Rights as ‘ethnic cleansing’ of an entire people.”

Designating the Rohingya as victims of genocide under a 1948 U.N. convention would increase pressure on the international community to take action to protect them, and could expose Myanmar officials to a greater threat of international justice.

The U.N. convention, passed in the wake of the Nazi holocaust, requires countries to act to prevent and punish genocide, which it defines as any of a number of acts committed with the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part” a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.

It is one of four categories of crimes subject to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; editing by Ralph Boulton and Peter Graff)

Myanmar army opens probe amid reports of killings, abuse of Rohingya Muslims

Aerial view of a burned Rohingya village near Maungdaw, north of Rakhine state, Myanmar September 27, 2017. REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun

By Wa Lone and Simon Lewis

YANGON (Reuters) – Myanmar’s military has launched an internal probe into the conduct of soldiers during a counteroffensive that has sent more than half a million Rohingya Muslims fleeing to Bangladesh, many saying they witnessed killings, rape and arson by troops.

Coordinated Rohingya insurgent attacks on 30 security posts on Aug. 25 sparked a ferocious military response in the Muslim-majority northern part of Rakhine state that the United Nations has said was ethnic cleansing.

A committee led by military Lieutenant-General Aye Win has begun an investigation into the behavior of military personnel, the office of the commander in chief said on Friday, insisting the operation was justified under Buddhist-majority Myanmar’s constitution.

According to a statement posted on Senior General Min Aung Hlaing’s Facebook page, the panel will ask, “Did they follow the military code of conduct? Did they exactly follow the command during the operation? After that (the committee) will release full information.”

Myanmar is refusing entry to a U.N. panel that was tasked with investigating allegations of abuses after a smaller military counteroffensive launched in October 2016.

But domestic investigations – including a previous internal military probe – have largely dismissed refugees’ claims of abuses committed during security forces’ so-called “clearance operations”.

Thousands of refugees have continued to arrived cross the Naf river separating Myanmar’s Rakhine state and Bangladesh in recent days, even though Myanmar insists military operations ceased on Sept. 5.

Aid agencies now estimate that 536,000 people have now arrived in Cox’s Bazar district, straining scarce resources of aid groups and local communities.

About 200,000 Rohingya were already in Bangladesh after fleeing persecution in Myanmar, where they have long been denied citizenship and faced restrictions on their movements and access to basic services.

Myanmar’s de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has pledged accountability for human rights abuses and says Myanmar will accept back refugees who can prove they were residents of Myanmar.

The powerful army chief has taken a harder stance, however, telling the U.S. ambassador in Myanmar earlier this week that the exodus of Rohingya – who he said were non-native “Bengalis” – was exaggerated.

In comments to Japan’s ambassador carried in state media on Friday, Min Aung Hlaing denied ethnic cleansing was taking place on the grounds that photos showed Muslims “departing calmly rather than fleeing in terror”.

(Additional reporting by Krishna N. Das in New Delhi; Editing by Nick Macfie)

‘I can’t take this any more’ – Rohingya Muslims flee Myanmar in new surge

Rohingya refugees, who arrived from Myanmar last night, walk in a rice field after crossing the border in Palang Khali near Cox's Bazaar, Bangladesh

By Tom Allard and Nurul Islam

COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh (Reuters) – Thousands of Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar fled to Bangladesh on Monday in a new surge of refugees driven by fears of starvation and violence the United Nations has denounced as ethnic cleansing.

Reuters reporters on the Bangladeshi side of the border, in Palong Khali district, saw several thousand people crossing from Myanmar’s Rakhine state, filing along embankments between flooded fields and scrubby forest.

“Half of my village was burnt down. I saw them do it,” said Sayed Azin, 46, who said he had walked for eight days carrying his 80-year-old mother in a basket strung on a bamboo pole between him and his son.

Soldiers and Buddhist mobs had torched his village, he said.

“I left everything,” he said, sobbing. “I can’t find my relatives … I can’t take this any more.”

Some new arrivals spoke of bloody attacks by Buddhist mobs on people trekking toward the border.

Rohingya refugees who fled from Myanmar make their way through the rice field after crossing the border in Palang Khali, Bangladesh

Rohingya refugees who fled from Myanmar make their way through the rice field after crossing the border in Palang Khali, Bangladesh October 9, 2017. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj

About 519,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar since Aug. 25, when attacks by Rohingya militants on security posts in Rakhine sparked a ferocious military response.

Refugees and rights groups say the army and Buddhist vigilantes have engaged in a campaign of killing and arson aimed at driving the Rohingya out of Myanmar.

Myanmar rejects accusations of ethnic cleansing and has labeled the militants from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army who launched the initial attacks as terrorists who have killed civilians and burnt villages.

Among those fleeing were up to 35 people on a boat that capsized off the Bangladesh coast on Sunday. At least 12 of them drowned while 13 were rescued, Bangladeshi police said.

“We faced so many difficulties, for food and survival,” Sayed Hossein, 30, told Reuters, adding that his wife, three children, mother and father in law had drowned.

“We came here to save our lives.”

 

‘GETTING WORSE’

The Myanmar government has said its “clearance operations” against the militants ended in early September and people had no reason to flee. But in recent days the government has reported large numbers of Muslims preparing to leave, with more than 17,000 people in one area alone.

The government cited worries about food and security as their reasons.

Some villagers in Rakhine said food was running out because rice in the fields was not ready for harvest and the state government had closed village markets and restricted the transport of food, apparently to cut supplies to the militants.

“The situation’s getting worse. We have no food and no guarantee of security,” said a Rohingya resident of Hsin Hnin Pyar village on the south of the state’s Buthidaung district.

He said a lot of people were preparing to flee.

“While the Myanmar military has engaged in a campaign of violence, there is mounting evidence that Rohingya women, men and children are now also fleeing the very real threat of starvation,” rights group Amnesty International said.

Senior state government official Kyaw Swar Tun declined to go into details when asked about the food, except to ask, “Have you heard of anyone dying of hunger in Buthidaung?”

The reports of food shortages will add to the urgency of calls by aid agencies and the international community for unfettered humanitarian access to the conflict zone.

The insurgents declared a one-month ceasefire from Sept. 10 to enable the delivery of aid but the government rebuffed them, saying it did not negotiate with terrorists.

The ceasefire is due to end at midnight on Monday but the insurgents said in a statement they were ready to respond to any peace move by the government.

The ability of the group to mount any sort of challenge to the army is not known, but it does not appear to have been able to put up resistance to the latest military offensive.

Students of a local madrasa watch from inside their classroom as bodies of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, who were killed when their boat capsized on the way to Bangladesh, are brought to their school in Shah Porir Dwip, in Teknaf, near Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh, October 9, 2017.

Students of a local madrasa watch from inside their classroom as bodies of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, who were killed when their boat capsized on the way to Bangladesh, are brought to their school in Shah Porir Dwip, in Teknaf, near Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, October 9, 2017. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj

COMING, GOING

Bangladesh was already home to 400,000 Rohingya who had fled earlier bouts of violence.

Mostly Buddhist Myanmar does not recognize the Rohingya as citizens, even though many have lived there for generations.

But even as refugees arrive, Bangladesh insists they will all have to go home. Myanmar has responded by saying it will take back those who can be verified as genuine refugees.

Many Rohingya fear they will not be able to prove their right to return.

Myanmar leader and Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has faced scathing international criticism for not doing more to stop the violence, although she has no power over the security forces under a military-drafted constitution.

The United States and Britain have warned Myanmar the crisis is putting at risk the progress it has made since the military began to loosen its grip on power in 2011.

 

(Additonal reportin by Damir Sagolj in COX’S BAZAR, Wa Lone in YANGON; Writing by Robert Birsel; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Nick Macfie)

 

Bangladesh carving out forest land to shelter desperate Rohingya

Bangladesh carving out forest land to shelter desperate Rohingya

By Ruma Paul

DHAKA (Reuters) – Hard-pressed to find space for a massive influx of Rohingya Muslim refugees, Bangladesh plans to chop down a swathe of forest to extend a tent city sheltering destitute families fleeing ethnic violence in neighboring Myanmar.

More than half a million Rohingya have arrived from Myanmar’s western state of Rakhine since the end of August in what the United Nations has called the world’s fastest-developing refugee emergency.

The exodus began after Myanmar security forces responded to Rohingya militants’ attacks on Aug. 25 by launching a brutal crackdown that the United Nations has denounced as ethnic cleansing.

Myanmar has rejected that accusation, insisting that the military action was needed to combat “terrorists” who had killed civilians and burnt villages.

But it has left Bangladesh and international humanitarian organizations counting the cost as they race to provide life-saving food, water and medical care for the displaced Rohingyas.

Simply finding enough empty ground to accommodate the refugees is a huge problem.

“The government allocated 2,000 acres when the number of refugees was nearly 400,000,” Mohammad Shah Kamal, Bangladesh’s secretary of disaster management and relief, told Reuters on Thursday.

“Now that the numbers have gone up by more than 100,000 and people are still coming. So, the government has to allocate 1,000 acres (400 hectares) of forest land.”

Once all the trees are felled, aid workers plan to put up 150,000 tarpaulin shelters in their place.

Swamped by refugees, poor Bangladeshi villagers are faced with mounting hardships and worries, including the trafficking of illegal drugs, particularly methamphetamines, from Myanmar.

“The situation is very bad,” said Kazi Abdur Rahman, a senior official in the Bangladesh border district of Cox’s Bazar, where most of the Rohingya are settled.

“People in Cox’s Bazar are concerned, we are also concerned, but there’s nothing we can do but accommodate them.”

The pressure on the land is creating another conflict, this time environmental rather than ethnic.

Last month, wild elephants trampled two refugees to death last month and Rahman said more tragic encounters between animals and people appears inevitable as more forest is destroyed.

OVER A MILLION PEOPLE IN NEED

U.N. agencies coordinating aid appealed on Wednesday for $434 million to help up to 1.2 million people, most of them children, for six months.

Their figure includes the 509,000 who have arrived since August, 300,000 Rohingya who were already in Bangladesh, having fled earlier suppression, a contingency for another 91,000 and 300,000 Bangladesh villagers in so-called host communities who also need help.

The Save the Children aid group warned of a malnutrition crisis with some 281,000 people in need of urgent nutrition support, including 145,000 children under the age of five and more than 50,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women.

“In over 20 years as a humanitarian worker I’ve never seen a situation like this, where people are so desperate for basic assistance and conditions so dire,” Unni Krishnan, director of Save the Children’s Emergency Health Unit, said in a statement.

U.N. agencies are wary of planning beyond six-months for fear or creating a self-perpetuating situation.

Myanmar has promised to take back anyone verified as a refugee but there’s little hope for speedy repatriation.

There is long-simmering communal tension and animosity toward the Rohingya in Myanmar, most of whom are stateless and derided as illegal immigrants.

“This crisis isn’t going to end soon,” said a Bangladeshi interior ministry official who declined to be identified.

(Writing by Robert Birsel; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

Aid groups seek $434 million to help up to 1.2 million Rohingya Muslims fleeing Myanmar

Aid groups seek $434 million to help up to 1.2 million Rohingya Muslims fleeing Myanmar

By Rahul Bhatia

COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh (Reuters) – Humanitarian organizations helping Rohingya Muslim refugees in Bangladesh said on Wednesday they need $434 million over the next six months to help up to 1.2 million people, most of them children, in dire need of life-saving assistance.

There are an estimated 809,000 Rohingya sheltering in Bangladesh after fleeing violence and persecution in Myanmar, more than half a million of whom have arrived since Aug. 25 to join 300,000 Rohingya who are already there.

“Unless we support the efforts of the Bangladesh government to provide immediate aid to the half million people who have arrived over the past month, many of the most vulnerable – women, children and the elderly – will die,” said William Lacy Swing, director general of the International Organization for Migration, which is coordinating the aid effort.

“They will be the victims of neglect.”

About 509,000 Rohingya have arrived in Bangladesh since attacks by Rohingya militants in August triggered a sweeping Myanmar military offensive that the United Nations has branded ethnic cleansing.

Myanmar rejects accusations of ethnic cleansing. It says its forces are fighting insurgents of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) who claimed responsibility for attacks on about 30 police posts and an army camp on Aug. 25.

The insurgents were also behind similar but smaller attacks in October last year that led to a brutal Myanmar army response triggering the flight of 87,000 Rohingya to Bangladesh.

The agencies’ plan for help over the next six months factors in the possibility of another 91,000 refugees arriving, as the influx continues, Robert Watkins, U.N. resident coordinator in Bangladesh, said in a statement.

“The plan targets 1.2 million people, including all Rohingya refugees, and 300,000 Bangladeshi host communities over the next six months,” Watkins said..

Half a million people need food while 100,000 emergency shelters are required. More than half the refugees are children, while 24,000 pregnant women need maternity care, the agencies said.

U.N. appeals for funds to help with humanitarian crises are generally significantly under-funded.

GROUP REPORTS MASSACRE

The Rohingya are regarded as illegal immigrants in Buddhist-majority Myanmar and most are stateless.

Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi has faced scathing criticism for not doing more to stop the violence, although she has no power over the security forces under a military-drafted constitution.

She has condemned rights abuses and said Myanmar was ready to start a process agreed with Bangladesh in 1993 under which anyone verified as a refugee would be accepted back.

But many Rohingya are pessimistic about their chances of going home, partly because few have official papers confirming their residency.

Most are also wary about returning without an assurance of citizenship, which they fear could leave them vulnerable to the persecution and discrimination they have endured for years.

Human Rights Watch said it had found evidence that the Myanmar military had summarily executed dozens of Rohingya in a village called Maung Nu in Rakhine state, on Aug. 27, two days after the insurgent attacks triggered the violence.

The rights group said it had spoken to 14 survivors and witnesses who were now refugees in Bangladesh. They described how soldiers entered a compound where people had gathered in fear of military retaliation.

“They took several dozen Rohingya men and boys into the courtyard and then shot or stabbed them to death. Others were killed as they tried to flee,” said the rights group, which has accused Myanmar of crimes against humanity.

Spokesmen for the government, the military and police did not answer their telephones and were not available for comment. Wednesday is a holiday in Myanmar.

Reuters was not able to independently verify the report.

The U.N. committees for women’s and children’s rights called on Myanmar to immediately stop violence in Rakhine, saying violations “being committed at the behest of the military and other security forces” may amount to crimes against humanity.

The United States and Britain have warned that the crisis risked derailing Myanmar’s progress in its transition to democracy after decades of military rule.

The World Bank said it could hit foreign investment, though it did not factor the violence into its latest forecast for Myanmar’s growth, which it cut by 0.5 percentage points for both 2017 and 2018, to 6.4 percent and 6.7 percent, respectively.

The bank said businesses appeared to have delayed investment as they awaited a clearer government economic agenda.

(Addtional reporting by Shoon Naing in YANGON, Tom Miles in GENEVA, Michelle Nichols in NEW YORK; Writing by Robert Birsel; Editing by Paul Tait and Nick Macfie)

Rohingya refugees scoff at Myanmar’s assurances on going home

Newly arrived Rohingya refugees make their way to a camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, October 2, 2017. REUTERS/Cathal McNaughton

By Rahul Bhatia

COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh (Reuters) – Rohingya Muslims in Bangladesh were skeptical on Tuesday about their chances of ever going home to Myanmar, even though the government there has given an assurance it would accept people verified as refugees.

More than half a million Rohingya have fled from a Myanmar military crackdown in Rakhine State launched in late August that has been denounced by the United Nations as ethnic cleansing.

Myanmar denies ethnic cleansing, saying it is fighting Rohingya terrorists who have claimed attacks on the security forces. The government has said anyone verified as a refugee will be allowed to return under a process set up with Bangladesh in 1993.

Bangladesh and Myanmar agreed on Monday to work on a repatriation plan, and a Myanmar government spokesman confirmed it would go along with it, provided people could verify their status with paperwork.

But many refugees in camps in Bangladesh are scornful.

“Everything was burned, even people were burned,” said a man who identified himself as Abdullah, dismissing the chances that people would have documents to prove a right to stay in Myanmar.

At the root of the problem is the refusal by Buddhist-majority Myanmar to grant citizenship to members of a Muslim minority seen by a mostly unsympathetic, if not hostile, society as interlopers from Bangladesh.

Though Myanmar has not granted Rohingya citizenship, under the 1993 procedure, it agreed to take back people who could prove they had been Myanmar residents.

But a day after Bangladesh and Myanmar announced apparent progress, a Bangladeshi foreign ministry official appeared resigned to a difficult process.

“This is still a long procedure,” said the official, who declined to be identified as he was not authorized to speak to media.

There were already nearly 400,000 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh before the latest exodus, but Myanmar had said it would only accept, “subject to verification”, those who arrived after October 2016, when a military offensive in response to Rohingya insurgent attacks sent 87,000 Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh, the Bangladeshi official said.

“We said that many Rohingya refugees have no documents, so this process should be flexible. Myanmar said they will decide who will get involved in the verification,” the official said, adding that Bangladesh wanted international agencies to be involved.

Myanmar’s government spokesman said under the 1993 pact, even a hospital record was enough to prove residency, but it was only Myanmar, not Bangladesh, that could verify citizenship.

“We have a policy for the repatriation process and we will go along with that,” the spokesman, Zaw Htay, told Reuters.

‘BREAK THEIR PROMISE’

But even if refugees have documents, many are wary about returning without an assurance of full citizenship, which they fear could leave them vulnerable to the persecution and curbs they have endured for years.

Amina Katu, 60, laughed at the thought of returning.

“If we go there, we’ll just have to come back here,” she said. “If they give us our rights, we will go, but people did this before and they had to return.”

Last month, Anwar Begum told Reuters she had fled from Myanmar three times. The first time was to escape a 1978 crackdown, and she returned the following year. She fled again in 1991 and returned in 1994.

“I don’t want to go back,” the 55-year-old added. “I don’t believe the government. Every time the government agrees we can go back, then we’re there and they break their promise.”

Investigators appointed by government leader Aung San Suu Kyi and led by former U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan recommended in August that Myanmar review a 1982 law that links citizenship and ethnicity and leaves most Rohingya stateless.

U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi told a meeting in Geneva on Monday that the link between statelessness and displacement was nowhere more evident than with the Rohingya.

“Denial of citizenship is a key aspect of the discrimination and exclusion that have shaped their plight,” he said.

Grandi called for a two-track approach to tackle issues of citizenship and rights and inclusive development to stamp out poverty in Rakhine State.

Separately, the U.N. refugee agency and Bangladesh authorities are working to contain an outbreak of diarrhoeal diseases in the camps, UNHCR spokesman Andrej Mahecic told a briefing in Geneva.

Refugees are still crossing into Bangladesh, though at a slower rate, a spokesman for the International Organisation for Migration said. A Reuters photographer saw smoke plumes on the Myanmar side of the border but it was not clear what was alight.

Rights groups say more than half of more than 400 Rohingya villages in the north of Rakhine State have been torched.

Myanmar officials have said they have attempted to reassure groups of fleeing Rohingya but they could not stop people who were not citizens from leaving.

(Additional reporting by Ruma Paul in DHAKA, Tommy Wilkes in COX’S BAZAR, Shoon Naing in NAYPYITAW, Stephanie Nebehay and Tom Miles in GENEVA; Writing by Robert Birsel; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

More than 60 Rohingya feared drowned as U.S. steps up pressure on Myanmar

More than 60 Rohingya feared drowned as U.S. steps up pressure on Myanmar

By Tommy Wilkes and Michelle Nichols

COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh/UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – More than 60 Rohingya Muslim refugees from Myanmar are believed to have drowned when their boat capsized, the latest victims in what the United Nations says is the world’s fastest-developing refugee emergency.

The refugees drowned in heavy seas off Bangladesh late on Thursday, part of a new surge of people fleeing a Myanmar military campaign that began on Aug. 25 and has triggered an exodus of some 502,000 people.

International anger over the crisis is growing.

In New York, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley called on countries to suspend providing weapons to Myanmar over the violence.

It was the first time the United States had called for punishment of Myanmar’s military, but she stopped short of threatening to reimpose U.S. sanctions which were suspended under the Obama administration.

Buddhist-majority Myanmar rejects accusations of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity and has denounced rights abuses.

Its military launched a big offensive in response to coordinated attacks on the security forces by Rohingya insurgents in the north of Rakhine state on Aug. 25.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council the violence had spiraled into the “world’s fastest-developing refugee emergency, a humanitarian and human rights nightmare”.

Colonel Anisul Haque, head of the Bangladeshi border guards in the town of Teknaf, told Reuters more refugees had arrived over the past day or two after the number had seemed to be tailing off, with about 1,000 landing at the main entry point on the coast on Thursday.

The refugee boat capsized in driving rain and high seas as darkness fell.

An official with the International Organization for Migration said 23 people were confirmed dead and 40 were missing. Seventeen survived.

“We’re now saying 40 missing, which suggests the total fatality rate will be in the range of 63,” the official, Joe Millman, told a news briefing in Geneva.

One survivor, Abdul Kalam, 55, said his wife, two daughters and a grandson were among the dead, who were buried at tearful funerals on Friday.

Kalam said armed Buddhists came to his village about a week ago and took livestock and food. He said villagers were summoned to a military office and told there were no such people as Rohingya in Myanmar.

After that he decided to leave and headed to the coast with his family, avoiding military camps on the way.

A spokesman for the U.N. refugee agency said a fifth of new arrivals were suffering from acute malnutrition.

The Bangladeshi Red Crescent said its clinics were treating increasing numbers of people with acute diarrhea. The World Health Organization has said one of the diseases it is particularly worried about is cholera.

“We’re seeing the absolute perfect breeding ground for a major health crisis,” said Unni Krishnan, director of Save the Children’s Emergency Health Unit.

‘BRUTAL CAMPAIGN’

In a ramping up of the pressure on Myanmar, also known as Burma, Haley echoed U.N. accusations that the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people in Rakhine state was ethnic cleansing.

“We cannot be afraid to call the actions of the Burmese authorities what they appear to be – a brutal, sustained campaign to cleanse the country of an ethnic minority,” Haley told the U.N. Security Council.

The United States said earlier the army response to the insurgent attacks was “disproportionate” and the crisis raised questions about Myanmar’s transition, under the leadership of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, after decades of military rule.

Suu Kyi has no power over the generals under a military-drafted constitution. She has nevertheless drawn scathing criticism from around the world for not stopping the violence.

The public in Myanmar, where Buddhist nationalism has surged over recent years, largely supports the offensive against the insurgents.

Haley said the military must respect rights and fundamental freedoms, and those who had been accused of abuses should be removed from command and prosecuted.

“And any country that is currently providing weapons to the Burmese military should suspend these activities until sufficient accountability measures are in place,” she said.

There was no ethnic cleansing or genocide in Myanmar, its national security adviser, Thaung Tun, said at the United Nations, adding that Myanmar had invited Guterres to visit.

China and Russia, which have veto powers in the Security Council, expressed support for Myanmar.

The U.N. Human Rights Council extended the mandate of a Myanmar fact-finding mission by six months, until September 2018, over the objections of Myanmar, China and the Philippines.

Myanmar’s representative said the mission was “not helpful, was not in line with the situation on the ground and would do no good to finding a solution to Rakhine issues”.

Myanmar says it will not grant visas to mission investigators.

(Additional reporting by Serajul Quadir in DHAKA, Nurul Islam, Rahul Bhatia in COX’S BAZAR, Stephanie Ulmer-Nebehay and Tom Miles in GENEVA; Writing by Robert Birsel; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Nick Macfie)

Eating leaves to survive in Myanmar’s ‘ethnic cleansing’ zone

Eating leaves to survive in Myanmar's 'ethnic cleansing' zone

MAUNGDAW, Myanmar (Reuters) – Along the main road that stretches nearly 40 kilometers north from Maungdaw town in Myanmar’s violence-riven Rakhine State, all but one of the villages that were once home to tens of thousands of people have been turned into smouldering ash.

Hundreds of cows roam through deserted settlements and charred paddy fields. Hungry dogs eat small goats. The remains of local mosques, markets and schools – once bustling with Rohingya Muslims – are silent.

Despite strict controls on access to northern Rakhine, Reuters independently traveled to parts of the most-affected area in early September, the first detailed look by reporters inside the region where the United Nations says Myanmar’s security forces have carried out ethnic cleansing.

Nearly 500 people have been killed and 480,000 Rohingya have fled since Aug. 25, when attacks on 30 police posts and a military base by Muslim militants provoked a fierce army crackdown. The government has rejected allegations of arson, rape and arbitrary killings leveled against its security forces.

“We were scared that the army and the police would shoot us if they found us … so we ran away from the village,” said Suyaid Islam, 32, from Yae Khat Chaung Gwa Son, near the area visited by Reuters north of Maungdaw. He was speaking by phone from a refugee camp in Bangladesh after leaving his village soon after the attacks.

Residents of his village told Reuters it had been burned down by security forces in an earlier operation against Rohingya insurgents late last year. Those that did not flee have been surviving since in makeshift shacks, eating food distributed by aid agencies.

Satellite photos showed that tens of thousands of homes in northern Rakhine have been destroyed in 214 villages, New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said. The U.N. detected 20 sq km (8 sq miles) of destroyed structures.

The government said more than 6,800 houses have been set on fire. It blames the Rohingya villagers and the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), which staged the Aug. 25 attacks.

“The information we obtained on this side is that terrorists did the burnings,” said Zaw Htay, spokesman for national leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Reuters reporters have made two trips to northern Rakhine, visiting the townships of Maungdaw, Buthidaung and Rathedaung, and driving from Maungdaw through the most affected area along the main road north to the town of Kyein Chaung. (For a graphic of the area, click: http://tmsnrt.rs/2y8FgQ8)

The reporters talked briefly to residents but, because many were scared of being seen speaking to outsiders, most interviews were carried out by phone from outside the army operation area.

FOOD RUNNING LOW

Little aid has made it to northern Rakhine since the U.N. had to suspend operations because of the fighting and after the government suggested its food was sustaining insurgents. Convoys organized by the Red Cross have twice been stopped and searched by hostile ethnic Rakhines in the state capital Sittwe.

In U Shey Kya, where last October Rohingya residents accused the Myanmar army of raping several women, a teacher who spoke to Reuters from the village by phone said only about 100 families out of 800 households have stayed behind.

Those who remain are playing a cat-and-mouse game with the soldiers, who come to the village in the morning prompting the residents to hide in the forest and return at night.

“We don’t even have food to eat for this evening. What can we do?” said the teacher. “We are close to the forest where we have leaves we can eat and find some water to survive.” He refused to give his name because he had been warned by the authorities not to talk to reporters.

The man said escaping through bush in monsoon rain with his elderly parents, six children and pregnant wife was not an option.

Zaw Htay said the government has prioritized humanitarian assistance to the area.

“If there are any locations where aid has not reached yet, people should let us know, we will try to reach them as soon as we can,” he said.

About 30,000 non-Muslim residents of northern Rakhine have also been displaced.

Before the latest exodus there were around 1.1 million Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, mostly living in Rakhine, where they are denied citizenship and are regarded as interlopers from Bangladesh by the Buddhist majority.

“HAPPY THEY’RE GONE NOW”

Rohingya who have fled to Bangladesh and human rights organizations say ethnic Rakhine vigilantes have aided the military in driving out the Muslim population.

Kamal Hussein, 22, from Alel Than Kyaw, south of Maungdaw town said his village was destroyed in early September, after which he fled to Bangladesh, where he spoke to Reuters.

Hussein said Rakhine mobs “poured petrol on the houses. Then, they came out and the military fired a grenade launcher at a house to set it alight”.

Government spokesman Zaw Htay said some empty buildings in the area had been burned by ethnic Rakhines. “We told the regional government to take action on that,” he said.

The damage caused by the fires, Reuters interviews and satellite pictures show, is by far the largest in Maungdaw, where the bulk of insurgent attacks took place. Across the mostly coastal area, stretching more than 100 km (60 miles) through thick bush and monsoon-swollen streams, most villages have been burned.

Maungdaw town itself, until recently ethnically mixed with Rakhine Buddhists, Muslims and some Hindus, is now segregated, with the remaining Rohingya shuttered in their homes. Some 450 houses in Rohingya parts of the town were burned down in the first week after the attacks, HRW said citing satellite photographs.

“Those who stored food, sold it and raised money to flee to Bangladesh,” Mohammad Salem, 35, who used to sell cosmetics at the market, told Reuters by phone from the town.

In ethnically-mixed Rathedaung township, 16 out of 21 Rohingya villages have been burned, according to residents and humanitarian workers.

Of the remaining five, two villages in the south are now cut off from food and threatened by hostile Rakhine neighbors.

In many places people have no access to medicines, residents said.

Reuters talked to two Rakhine Buddhist officials who corroborated the scale of the damage.

Tin Tun Soe, a Rakhine administrator in Chein Khar Li, where a security post had come under attack, said the army response was rapid and all the Rohingya had been driven out. Nearly 1,600 houses were burned down a day after the attacks, he said, though he blamed the fires on the insurgents.

“They have so many people. If they are here, we’re afraid to live,” said Tin Tun Soe. “I am very happy that now all of them are gone.”

(Reporting by Wa Lone and Shoon Naing in Yangon; Additional reporting by Simon Lewis in Cox’s Bazar; Writing by Antoni Slodkowski; Editing by Alex Richardson)