The Jim Bakker Show

Rohingya widows find safe haven in Bangladesh camp

By Damir Sagolj

COX’S BAZAR (Reuters) – Dawn hues of pink and purple reveal a dusty valley in Bangladesh’s southern hills quilted with a dense settlement of red tents home to more than 230 women and children grieving for lost husbands and fathers.

They are among more than 625,000 Rohingya Muslims who have fled to Bangladesh since late August, following a crackdown by the Myanmar military in response to attacks on security forces by Rohingya militants.

Roshid Jan, who walked for 10 days with her five children to Bangladesh after soldiers burned their village, wept when she spoke about her missing husband.

He was accused of being a member of the Rohingya militants and arrested with four other villagers 11 months ago, she said.

She had not seen him or heard about his fate since then.

Aisha Begum, a 19-year-old widow, said her husband was killed by Myanmar soldiers as their band of refugees headed for Bangladesh.

“I was sitting there by his body and just crying, crying, crying,” she said.

“He was caught and killed with knives. I found his body by the road. It was in three pieces,” she cried, recounting the events that brought her to the camp.

(Click http://reut.rs/2BHPPax for a photo essay)

Most Rohingya are stateless and seen as illegal immigrants by Buddhist-majority Myanmar.

The United Nations and United States have described the military’s actions as ethnic cleansing, and rights groups have accused the security forces of atrocities, including rape, arson and killings.

Myanmar’s government has denied most of the claims, and the army has said its own probe found no evidence of wrongdoing by troops.

There are 50 tents and no men in the camp for widows and orphans, the biggest of three sites built with donor funds from Muslim-majority Pakistan in the refugee settlement of Balukhali not far from Bangladesh’s resort town of Cox’s Bazar.

Two makeshift kitchens provide space for cooking in small holes in the ground, a new well is being dug to supplement a water pump, and a big tent serves for prayers.

“For those who can’t pray, we have learning sessions on Monday and Friday in a special room,” said 20-year-old Suwa Leha, who serves as the camp’s unofficial leader.

Praying and reading the Muslim holy book, the Koran, was one of two conditions for admittance set by religious and group leaders, Suwa said. The other was that widows and orphans be selected from among the most vulnerable and needy.

The camp is marooned amid ponds and streams of dirty water left by the washing of clothes and dishes. Behind are thousands of dwellings in a vast refugee camp that sprang up during the crisis.

Still, the women are relieved to have their own space.

“For those with no protection, a camp like this is much safer,” said 22-year-old Rabiya Khatun, who lives there with her son. “No man can enter that easily. Also, the rooms are bigger and we have more chances of receiving some aid.”

Women and girls number about 51 percent of the distressed and traumatized Rohingya population in the Cox’s Bazar camps, the U.N. Women agency said in October.

“Women and children are also at heightened risk of becoming victims of human trafficking, sexual abuse or child and forced marriage,” it added.

Women and adolescent girls aged between 13 and 20 arriving from Myanmar typically had two to four children each, it said, with some of them pregnant.

No relief agencies officially run the camp for the widows and orphans but aid groups and individuals help out.

Rihana Begum lives with her five children in a room that is bare except for a few tomatoes, some religious books and clothes. On a thin mat lies her daughter, ill with fever, but fear of missing food handouts keeps them away from the doctor.

“I’m afraid to miss aid distribution. I can’t afford to miss it,” she said on the day ration cards from the World Food Program were distributed in the camp.

This week, Myanmar said it was finalizing terms for a joint working group with Bangladesh to launch the process of safe and voluntary return of the Rohingya refugees within two months.

That may not be enough to allay Rihana Begum’s fears.

“I’m so afraid that I will never go back to Myanmar,” she said. “I would rather die here.”

(Reporting by Damir Sagolj; Writing by Clarence Fernandez; Editing by Darren Schuettler)

Rohingya refugees still fleeing from Myanmar to Bangladesh: UNHCR

By Serajul Quadir

DHAKA (Reuters) – Rohingya refugees continue to flee Myanmar for Bangladesh even though both countries set up a timetable last month to allow them to start to return home, the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR)said on Thursday.

The number of refugees appears to have slowed. 625,000 have arrived since Aug. 25. 30,000 came last month and around 1,500 arrived last week, UNHCR said

“The refugee emergency in Bangladesh is the fastest-growing refugee crisis in the world,” said deputy high commissioner Kelly Clements. “Conditions in Myanmar’s Rakhaine state are not in place to enable a safe and sustainable return … refugees are still fleeing.”

“Most have little or nothing to go back to. Their homes and villages have been destroyed. Deep divisions between communities remain unaddressed and human access is inadequate,” she said.

Bangladesh and Myanmar agreed on Nov. 23 to start the return of Rohingya within two months. It did not say when the process would be complete.

Myanmar’s security forces may be guilty of genocide against the Rohingya Muslim minority, according to the top U.N. human rights official this week. Mainly Buddhist Myanmar denies the Muslim Rohingya are its citizens and considers them foreigners.

UNHCR would make a fresh appeal to donors for funds after the end of February in next year, Kelly said.

(Reporting By Serajul Quadir; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)

Bangladesh could move some Rohingya to flood-prone island next year: official

By Krishna N. Das and Serajul Quadir

DHAKA (Reuters) – Bangladesh could start relocating Rohingya Muslim refugees to a flood-prone island off its coast in the middle of next year, a government official said on Thursday, as it pushes ahead with the plan despite criticism from aid agencies and rights groups.

Densely populated Bangladesh has seen an influx of more than 620,000 Rohingya to its southern-most district of Cox’s Bazar, fleeing violence in neighboring Myanmar, since August.

This week, it approved a $280 million plan to develop the low-lying Bhashan Char island to temporarily house some of them until they can go home.

The Bay of Bengal island, also known as Thenger Char, only emerged from the silt off Bangladesh’s delta coast about 11 years ago.

Two hours by boat from the nearest settlement, the island has no roads or buildings and it regularly floods during the rough seas of the June-September rainy season.

When the sea is calm, pirates roam the waters in the vicinity to kidnap fishermen for ransom.

“We can’t keep such a large number of people in this small area of Cox’s Bazar where their presence is having a devastating effect on the situation on the ground environmentally, population wise and economically,” H.T. Imam, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s political adviser, told Reuters on Thursday.

“So, as quickly as we can shift at least some of the burden over to Bhashan Char, that will minimize the problem.”

Rohingya have fled repression in Buddhist-majority Myanmar several times since the 1970s, and almost one most million of them live in crowded camps in Cox’s Bazar.

Mainly Muslim Bangladesh has said it aims to move about 100,000 refugees to the island.

Some aid officials speculate that by raising the island plan, Bangladesh could be trying to put pressure on the international community to find a better solution to the crisis.

But Imam, who holds the rank of cabinet minister, has denied any such tactic.

‘HUGE PROJECT’

He said the navy had started work on developing the island, money for which will come from the government.

Bangladesh, however, would need financial and other help from aid agencies to move the refugees to the island, he said.

“There are some organizations which have assured help but I won’t specify who they are,” Imam said.

“It’s a huge project and includes the development of livestock. They will be given cattle, they will be given land, they will be given houses. They will raise their livestock, there will be other vocations that will be created.”

Humanitarian agencies, however, have criticized the plan since it was first floated in 2015.

“Having opened its doors to more than 600,000 Rohingya over the past three months, the Bangladesh government now risks undermining the protection of the Rohingya and squandering the international goodwill it has earned,” said Biraj Patnaik, Amnesty International’s South Asia Director, referring to the plan to move people to the island.

“In its desperation to see the Rohingya leave the camps and ultimately return to Myanmar, it is putting their safety and well-being at risk.”

Myanmar and Bangladesh signed an accord last week on terms for the return of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya, though rights groups have expressed doubts about Myanmar following through on the agreement and have called for independent observers for any repatriation.

There are concerns about protection for Rohingya from further violence if and when they go home, and about a path to resolving their legal status – most are stateless – and whether they would be allowed to return to their old homes.

Imam said Bangladesh was working on those issues but did not give details.

“In diplomacy, there are a lot of things that happen but then you don’t pronounce them publicly,” he said. “A lot of back-door diplomatic work is being done. People are involved at the highest level.”

For a graphic on Bangladesh’s Rohingya relocation plan, click http://tmsnrt.rs/2kULcWn

(Reporting by Krishna N. Das and Serajul Quadir; Editing by Robert Birsel)

U.N. rights forum to hold special session on Myanmar Rohingya – U.N. sources

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – The U.N. Human Rights Council is expected to hold a special session on killings, rapes and other crimes committed against Muslim Rohingya in Myanmar that have driven more than 600,000 into Bangladesh since August, U.N. sources said on Monday.

“There will be a special session on December 5,” a senior United Nations source told Reuters.

Council spokesman Rolando Gomez could not confirm the date but said: “There are moves to convene a special session to address the human rights situation in the country.”

At least 16 of the 47 member states must request holding a special session of the Council, which are rare. Bangladesh and Muslim-majority countries were expected to back the call.

In March, the Council already set up a fact-finding team. The investigators reported after their first mission to Bangladesh last month that Rohingya refugees fleeing Myanmar had testified that a “consistent, methodical pattern of killings, torture, rape and arson is taking place”.

The latest Rohingya exodus from Rakhine state to Bangladesh’s southern tip began at the end of August, when Rohingya militants attacked security posts and the Myanmar army launched a counter-offensive.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein has described the army’s crackdown in Rakhine state as a textbook example of ethnic cleansing. The military has denied the accusations of murder, rape, torture and forced displacement.

Amnesty International and other activist groups, in an open letter sent last week to member states, said that a special session was “imperative to launch decisive action and ensure international scrutiny and monitoring of the situation”.

Pope Francis arrived in Myanmar on Monday on a diplomatically delicate visit for the leader of the Roman Catholic church to the majority-Buddhist country.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; editing by Gareth Jones)

Bangladesh says agreed with Myanmar for UNHCR to assist Rohingya’s return

By Ruma Paul

DHAKA (Reuters) – Bangladesh and Myanmar have agreed to take help from the U.N. refugee agency to safely repatriate hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims who had fled violence in Myanmar, Bangladesh said on Saturday.

More than 600,000 Rohingya sought sanctuary in Bangladesh after the military in mostly Buddhist Myanmar launched a brutal counter-insurgency operation in their villages across the northern parts of Rakhine State following attacks by Rohingya militants on an army base and police posts on Aug. 25.

Faced with a burgeoning humanitarian crisis, the two governments signed a pact on Thursday agreeing that the return of the Rohingya to Myanmar should start within two months.

Uncertainty over whether the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) would have a role had prompted rights groups to insist that outside monitors were needed to safeguard the Rohingya’s return.

Addressing a news conference in Dhaka, Bangladesh Foreign Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali gave assurances that the UNHCR would play some part.

“Both countries agreed to take help from the UNHCR in the Rohingya repatriation process,” Ali said. “Myanmar will take its assistance as per their requirement.”

The diplomatic breakthrough came just ahead of a visit by Pope Francis to Myanmar and Bangladesh from Nov. 26 to Dec. 2 that is aimed at promoting “reconciliation, forgiveness and peace”.

While the violence in Rakhine has mostly ceased, Rohingya have continued to stream out of Myanmar, saying they have largely lost access to sources of livelihood such as their farms, fisheries and markets.

Thousands of Rohingya, most of them old people, women and children, remain stranded on beaches near the border, waiting for a boat to take them to Bangladesh.

FROM CAMP TO CAMP

Ali said a joint working group, to be formed within three weeks, will fix the final terms to start the repatriation process.

After leaving the refugee camps in Bangladesh, Rohingya who opt to be voluntarily repatriated will be moved to camps in Myanmar, the minister said.

“Most houses were burnt down. Where they will live after going back? So, it is not possible to physically return to their homes,” Ali said.

Myanmar officials have said returnees will be moved to camps only temporarily while so-called “model villages” are constructed near their former homes.

Win Myat Aye, the minister for social welfare, relief and resettlement who heads a Myanmar government panel on rehabilitation in Rakhine, said India and China had offered to provide “modular houses” for returnees.

The U.N. and the United States have described the Myanmar military’s actions as “ethnic cleansing”, and rights groups have accused the security forces of committing atrocities, including mass rape, arson and killings.

The United States also warned it could impose sanctions on individuals responsible for alleged abuses.

Led by Nobel peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar is in the early stages of a transition to democracy after decades of military rule. But civilian government is less than two years old, and still shares power with the generals, who retain autonomy over matters of defense, security and borders.

The commander of Myanmar’s armed forces, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, has denied that soldiers committed any atrocities.

On Friday he met China’s President Xi Jinping in Beijing having been told earlier in the week by a top Chinese general that China wanted stronger ties with Myanmar’s military.

Under the deal struck with Bangladesh, Myanmar agreed to take measures to see that the returnees will not be settled in temporary places for a long time.

Myanmar plans to issue them an identity card on their return, although most Rohingya have so far rejected a scheme to give them “national verification cards”.

While the agreement says Bangladesh would seek the U.N. refugee agency’s assistance on the process, Myanmar – which has largely blocked aid agencies from working in northern Rakhine since August – only agreed “that the services of the UNHCR could be drawn upon as needed and at the appropriate time”.

Win Myat Aye told Reuters on Saturday that Myanmar would discuss “technical assistance” with the UNHCR, but had not reached a formal agreement with the agency.

There were already hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh before the latest exodus, and the Bangladesh minister said they could also be considered for the repatriation, under the terms of the agreement.

The agreement, however, says they will be “considered separately on the conclusion of the present agreement.”

Some independent estimates suggest there are still a few hundred thousand Rohingya remaining in Rakhine.

(Reporting by Ruma Paul in DHAKA and Thu Thu Aung in YANGON; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Stephen Powell)

Rohingya refugees ‘drained’ by trauma, says U.N. refugee chief

By Christine Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) – Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims who fled to Bangladesh from violence in Myanmar have been “drained” by the trauma they suffered during the crisis and a struggle to overcome desperate want, the United Nations refugee chief said on Wednesday.

More than 600,000 Rohingya have fled Buddhist-majority Myanmar since late August this year for neighboring Bangladesh, driven out by a military clearance operation in Rakhine State.

The refugees’ suffering has caused an international outcry, spurring appeals by aid agencies for millions of dollars in funds to tackle the crisis.

“I found this was a population that had almost no response. Very passive,” said Filippo Grandi, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, describing his visit late in September to camps where the refugees were staying.

“You almost felt there was nothing left and that everything had been drained by this,” he told Reuters in an interview in his first visit to the South Korean capital.

He saw the lassitude as a symptom of trauma, he added.

“We haven’t seen this kind of trauma for a very long, long time,” the Italian diplomat said. “Maybe I saw it in the ’90s in central Africa.”

Grandi coordinated UN humanitarian activities in the

Democratic Republic of Congo during its 1996-97 civil war.

The success of aid efforts by the United Nations and non-government bodies depends on the Myanmar government to defuse the hostility facing humanitarian workers in Rakhine, Grandi said.

“It’s not political work, it’s not to favor one community over the other,” he said.

“On the contrary, it’s directed to all those who are in need. And when members of the Buddhist community are in need, they certainly qualify for that. I think it’s important that they stress that, they do that more,” said Grandi.

Tension had been rising between the government and aid agencies even before the spasm of violence that began in late August.

Officials had accused the World Food Programme of aiding insurgents after high-energy biscuits were discovered in July at a forest encampment the authorities said belonged to a militant group, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army.

Longstanding antipathy among ethnic Rakhine Buddhists – who say the UN and nongovernment bodies favor the Rohingya with aid deliveries – spiked in August, with protesters demanding that aid agencies leave and the U.N. warning staff against rising hostility.

Since the Aug. 25 militant attacks in Rakhine, the government has barred most aid agencies, except for the Red Cross organizations, from working in the state’s north, and curtailed their activities elsewhere in the state.

In several cases aid deliveries have been forcibly blocked by Rakhine Buddhists.

The U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has said the World Food Programme resumed some food distribution in northern Rakhine this month, but limited access meant agencies still do not know how many people were internally displaced over the last three months.

“Access remains restricted for most humanitarian actors in northern Rakhine, preventing them from reaching many people in need,” the agency said. “In central Rakhine, humanitarian organizations also continue to face access constraints.”

(Reporting by Christine Kim; Additional reporting by Simon Daniel Lewis; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

U.S. Congress members decry ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Myanmar; Suu Kyi doubts allegations

By Antoni Slodkowski and Yimou Lee

YANGON/NAYPYITAW (Reuters) – Members of the U.S. Congress said on Tuesday operations carried out against the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar had “all the hallmarks” of ethnic cleansing, while the country’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi expressed doubts about allegations of rights abuses.

The U.S. Senate members also said they were disturbed by a “violent and disproportionate” security response to Rohingya militant attacks that have driven more than 600,000 people from Myanmar to neighbouring Bangladesh.

Human rights monitors have accused Myanmar’s military of atrocities, including mass rape, against the stateless Rohingya during so-called clearance operations following insurgent attacks on 30 police posts and an army base.

Myanmar’s government has denied most of the claims, and the army last week said its own probe found no evidence of wrongdoing by troops.

“We are not hearing of any violations going on at the moment,” Suu Kyi told reporters in response to a question about human rights abuses at the end of the Asia-Europe Meeting, or ASEM, in Myanmar’s capital Naypyitaw.

“We can’t say whether it has happened or not. As a responsibility of the government, we have to make sure that it won’t happen.”

Nobel laureate Suu Kyi said she hoped talks with Bangladesh’s foreign minister this week would lead to a deal on the “safe and voluntary return” of those who have fled.

Suu Kyi’s less than two-year old civilian government has faced heavy international criticism for its response to the crisis, though it has no control over the generals it has to share power with under Myanmar’s transition to power after decades of military rule.

HALLMARKS OF ETHNIC CLEANSING

While a top UN official has described the military’s actions as a textbook case of “ethnic cleansing”, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on a visit to Myanmar last week refused to label it as such.

In early November, U.S. lawmakers proposed targeted sanctions and travel restrictions on Myanmar military officials.

Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley, who was among the sponsors of the legislation introduced in the Senate, led a congressional delegation that visited Rakhine this week, but was blocked from traveling to the violence-hit north of the state and to Rohingya camps.

The group also traveled to Cox’s Bazar district in Bangladesh, where Rohingya refugees are huddled into makeshift camps and fed by overstretched aid agencies.

“Many refugees have suffered direct attacks including loved ones, children and husbands being killed in front of them, wives and daughters being raped, burns and other horrific injuries. This has all the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing,” Merkley told reporters in Myanmar on Tuesday.

“We are profoundly disturbed by the violent and disproportionate response against the Rohingya by the military and local groups,” he said.

The delegation called for Myanmar to allow an investigation into the alleged atrocities that would involve the international community.

“We want to emphasize that the world is watching,” Merkley said, adding that it was important Myanmar allow anyone who wants to come back to return to their homes and their farms.

Merkley said the delegation was “not here today to recommend…what the U.S. government would do or should do,” when asked about the legislation introduced in the Congress.

‘ISOLATION IN CAMPS’

Myanmar officials have so far said they plan to resettle most returnees in new “model villages”, rather than on the land they previously occupied, an approach the United Nations has criticized in the past as effectively creating permanent camps.

“Individuals cannot be coming back…simply to return to camps where there would be continued discrimination, restrictions on full participation in the economy and society,” said Merkley.

He warned that isolating people in camps creates a “two-tier society that is fundamentally incompatible with the future of democracy and it guarantees perpetuation of suspicions and misunderstandings and conflicts.”

Speaking earlier on Tuesday, Suu Kyi said discussions would be held with the Bangladesh foreign minister on Wednesday and Thursday about repatriation. Officials from both countries began talks last month on how to process the Rohingya wanting to return.

“We hope that this would result in an MOU signed quickly, which would enable us to start the safe and voluntarily return of all of those who have gone across the border,” Suu Kyi said.

The Rohingya are largely stateless and many people in Myanmar view them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

Suu Kyi said Myanmar would follow the framework of an agreement reached in the 1990s to cover the earlier repatriation of Rohingya, who had fled to Bangladesh to escape previous bouts of ethnic violence.

That agreement did not address the citizenship status of Rohingya, and Bangladesh has been pressing for a repatriation process that provided Rohingya with more safeguards this time.

“It’s on the basis of residency…this was agreed by the two governments long time ago with success, so this will be formula we will continue to follow,” Suu Kyi said.

Earlier talks between the two countries reached a broad agreement to work out a repatriation deal, but a senior Myanmar official later accused Bangladesh of dragging its feet in order to secure funding from aid agencies for hosting the refugees.

(Additional reporting by Thu Thu Aung; writing by Simon Lewis; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Hugh Lawson)

Bullets and burns: Portraits of injured Rohingya refugees

By Jorge Silva

COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh (Reuters) – The two Rohingya Muslim brothers, six-year-old Mohamed Heron and four-year-old Akhter, held each other as they showed burns on their arms and torsos that their uncle says resulted from Myanmar’s armed forces firing rockets at their village.

Two of their siblings, one seven years old and the other a 10-month-old infant, died in the attack, according to their uncle, Mohamed Inus. Their father was held by the military and has not been heard of since.

“These two children survived when our village was fired on with rockets,” Inus told Reuters at Kutupalong refugee camp, near Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh.

They were among a number of Rohingya who showed their wounds to a Reuters photographer who visited Kutupalong and the nearby camps at Balukhali, Leda and Nayapara.

(Click http://reut.rs/2hBZZoK to view the photo essay)

Fleeing along with other villagers who abandoned their scorched homes, the boys reached Bangladesh after a three-day trek. At Kutupalong, they were treated for three weeks for their burns at a Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) clinic.

Since the ethnic violence erupted in late August, thousands of Rohingya have crossed the border each week, often travelling for days and even weeks, trekking through forests and over mountains, with many making a hazardous river or sea crossing on the last leg of their flight to fellow-Muslim Bangladesh.

Bangladeshi hospitals and international aid agencies are struggling to provide medical care for all the refugees, many of whom have suffered horrific injuries and psychological trauma.

Since the crisis began, Chittagong Medical College Hospital has received 261 casualties suffering wounds from gunshots or explosions, according to its director, Brigadier General Jalal Uddin.

Sixteen have died from their wounds and some have been crippled.

“We have had to amputate the limbs of some patients,” Jalal Uddin said.

Sadar Hospital in Cox’s Bazar had treated 1,467 Rohingya since the exodus began for injuries including bullet wounds, broken bones, and cuts inflicted by knives or machetes, residential medical officer Shaheen Abdur Rahman Chowdhury said.

More than 600,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since Myanmar’s military launched what it described as “clearance operations” following a series of attacks by Rohingya militants on security posts in Rakhine state in late August.

Rights monitors and fleeing Rohingya say the army and Rakhine Buddhist vigilantes have mounted a campaign of arson aimed at driving out the Muslim population.

The U.N. rights agency said it was “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing”. Myanmar, an overwhelmingly Buddhist nation, rejects the charge, saying its forces targeted insurgents of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, whom it has accused of setting fires and attacking civilians.

At the camps in Bangladesh, other Rohingya victims of the violence recounted the horrors they had lived through.

ANWARA BEGUM

Anwara Begum, 36, said she woke to find her home in Maungdaw township, in the northernmost part of Rakhine state, in flames. Before she could get out the burning roof caved in on her and her nylon clothes melted onto her arms.

Her husband carried her for eight days to reach the Kutupalong camp in Bangladesh.

“I thought I was going to die. I tried to stay alive for my children,” she said, adding she was still waiting for treatment for her burns.

IMAM HOSSAIN

His right arm swathed in bandages from the knuckles of his hand to well above the elbow, Imam Hossain, 42, lay exhausted on the roadside near the Kutupalong camp.

He was returning home after teaching at a madrassa in his village when three men attacked him with knives.

The next day, he made his wife and two children leave with other villagers fleeing to Bangladesh. He reached Cox’s Bazar later. He was still searching for his family.

“I want to ask the Myanmar government why they are harming the Rohingya,” he said. “Why do Buddhists hate us? Why do you torture us? What is wrong with us?”

MOHAMED JABAIR

Suffering burns to his limbs and torso, Mohamed Jabair, 21, had feared that he had also lost his sight in an explosion that ripped through his village home.

Knocked unconscious and badly burned, Jabair was carried by his brother and others for four days to Cox’s Bazar.

“I was blind for many weeks and admitted to a government hospital in Cox’s Bazar for 23 days. I was frightened that I would be blind forever,” he said.

Jabair said money sent by relatives in Malaysia had run out and he could no longer afford treatment.

NUR KAMAL

Bowing to show deep cuts arcing across his scalp, 17-year-old Nur Kamal described how soldiers assaulted him after they found the young shopkeeper hiding in his home in Kan Hpu village in Maungdaw.

“They hit me with a rifle butt on my head first and then with a knife,” Kamal said.

His uncle found him unconscious in a pool of blood. It took them two weeks to get to Bangladesh.

“We want justice,” Kamal said. “We want the international community to help us obtain justice.”

KALABAROW

Her husband, daughter and one son were killed when soldiers fired on Kalabarow’s village in Maungdaw. The 50-year-old woman was hit in her right foot. For several hours, she lay where she fell, pretending to be dead, before a grandson found her.

During their 11-day journey to Bangladesh, a village doctor amputated her infected foot and four men carried her on a stretcher made of bamboo and a bedsheet.

“As we walked through the forest, we saw burnt villages and dead bodies. I thought we would never be safe,” she said.

ABDUR RAHAMAN

Abdur Rahaman, a 73-year-old merchant from Maungdaw, was ambushed while walking on a mountain path with other refugees.

A machete thrown at his feet severed three toes as he ran from his attackers. With his foot bleeding through a tourniquet made from his longyi, or sarong, Rahaman walked for two more hours, before his nephew and friends carried him across the border.

“Our future is not good,” he said. “Allah must help us. The international community has to do something.”

ANSAR ALLAH

Curled up in a ball, 11-year-old Ansar Allah shows a large, livid scar on his right thigh – the result of a gunshot wound.

“They sprayed us with bullets, as our house was burning,” his mother Samara said.

“It was a bullet half the size of my index finger,” she said, before adding, “I can’t stop thinking, why did God put us in that dangerous situation?”

SETARA BEGUM

Setara Begum, 12, was among nine siblings in their home in Maungdaw when it was hit by a rocket.

“I saved eight of my nine children from the burning house, but Setara was trapped inside,” said her mother, Arafa.

“I could see her crying in the middle of the fire, but it was difficult to save her. By the time we could reach her, she was badly burned,” Arafa said.

Setara’s father carried her for two days to Bangladesh.

The young girl received no treatment for the severe burns to her feet. Her feet healed. But she has no toes.

The trauma has scarred her psychologically.

“She has been mute from that day, and doesn’t speak to anyone,” her mother said. “She only cries silently.”

MOMTAZ BEGUM

Her face heavily bandaged, Momtaz Begum told how soldiers came to her village demanding valuables.

“I told them I was poor and had nothing. One of them started beating me saying, ‘If you have no money, then we will kill you’.”

After beating her, they locked her in her home and set fire to the roof. She escaped to find her three sons dead and her daughter beaten and bleeding.

Momtaz fled to Bangladesh, where she spent 20 days at the MSF clinic being treated for burns to her face and body.

“What can I say about the future, if now we have no food, no house, no family. We cannot think about the future. They have killed that as well.”

(Additional reporting by Serajul Quadir, Nurul Islam and Nazimuddin Shyamol; Writing by Karishma Singh; Editing by Darren Schuettler and Simon Cameron-Moore)

Tillerson to press Myanmar army chief to halt violence so Rohingya can return

By Simon Cameron-Moore and Yimou Lee

YANGON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will stress the need to halt violence and stabilize Rakhine State when he meets the head of Myanmar’s military on Wednesday in a bid to ease the Rohingya refugee crisis, a senior State Department official said.

More than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh since late August, driven out by a counter-insurgency clearance operation of Myanmar forces in Rakhine. A top U.N. official has called the operation a textbook case of “ethnic cleansing”.

Attending an East Asia summit in Manila on Tuesday, Tillerson met Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whose less than two-year-old civilian administration shares power with the military and has no control over its generals.

He will meet Suu Kyi again in the Myanmar capital of Naypyitaw on Wednesday, and hold separate talks with the head of the armed forces, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing.

Asked what approach Tillerson would take with Myanmar’s army chief, the State Department official told journalists in a briefing by teleconference that the emphasis would be on restoring peace in Rakhine.

“We are focusing on trying to stabilize areas in northern Rakhine so that people can return there, stopping the violence, making sure that the military would protect all populations in that area equally and that they conduct a credible investigation that leads to accountability for people who have perpetrated abuses,” said the official, who was with Tillerson in Manila and declined to be identified.

The official said the consequences for the country, also known as Burma, if it failed to respond to the crisis with accountability could be part of the conversation with the military leader.

“Burma made a lot of progress and we would not want to see that progress reversed,” the official added.

U.S. senators in Washington are pressing for economic sanctions and travel restrictions targeting the Myanmar military and its business interests.

“The secretary will reiterate support for Burma’s democratic transition and urge the Burmese government to protect the local population and allow unhindered humanitarian and media access, (and) support for a credible investigation of abuses,” the official added.

Accusations of organized mass rape and other crimes against humanity were leveled at the Myanmar military on Sunday by another senior U.N. official who had toured camps in Bangladesh where Rohingya refugees have taken shelter.

Mass Exodus: http://tmsnrt.rs/2xTAOon

‘WHITEWASH’

Pramila Patten, special representative of the U.N. secretary-general on sexual violence in conflict, said she would raise accusations against the Myanmar military with the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

The military, known as the Tatmadaw, has consistently protested its innocence, and on Monday it posted the findings of an internal investigation on the Facebook page of Min Aung Hlaing.

It said it had found no instances where its soldiers had shot and killed Rohingya villagers, raped women or tortured prisoners. It denied that security forces had torched Rohingya villages or used “excessive force”.

The military said that, while 376 “terrorists” were killed, there were no deaths of innocent people.

Human rights groups poured scorn on the military’s investigation, branding it a “whitewash” and calling for U.N. and independent investigators to be allowed into Myanmar.

“The Burmese military’s absurd effort to absolve itself of mass atrocities underscores why an independent international investigation is needed to establish the facts and identify those responsible,” Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

Amnesty International also dismissed the military’s internal investigation. “There is overwhelming evidence that the military has murdered and raped Rohingya and burned their villages to the ground,” the London-based rights group said.

The government in mostly Buddhist Myanmar regards the Muslim Rohingya as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

And Suu Kyi’s failure to speak out strongly over their plight has widely damaged the Nobel Peace Prize winner’s international reputation as a stateswoman.

Many diplomats, however, believe Myanmar’s fragile transition to democracy after 49 years of military rule would be jeopardized if she publicly criticized the armed forces.

“Both parts of the government will have to work together in order to solve this problem…Trying to get two of them to work together, to try to solve the problem, is certainly going to be very important,” the U.S. official said.

The U.S. official said Suu Kyi had been forthcoming in her talks with Tillerson and others during the past few days about the steps that needed to be taken to improve the situation, including plans for the voluntary repatriation of Rohingya.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau were among those she met in Manila to discuss the Rohingya crisis.

“This is a tremendous concern to Canada and to many, many countries around the world,” Trudeau told a news conference.

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged up to 117 billion yen ($1 billion) of development aid to Myanmar in his meeting with Suu Kyi.

While world leaders wrung their hands, thousands of Rohingya remained stranded in Myanmar, on beaches around the mouth of the Naf river, hoping to find a boat to make the short, sometimes perilous crossing to Bangladesh.

“They’re still coming, risking their lives, driven by fears of starvation and violence,” Shariful Azam, a police official in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar, a narrow spit of land where the world’s most urgent humanitarian crisis is unfolding.

Trail of destruction: http://tmsnrt.rs/2fDBxTc

A desperate escape: http://tmsnrt.rs/2A1ATUP

(Additional reporting Wa Lone in YANGON, Ruma Paul in DHAKA, Steve Holland, Karen Lema and Manny Mogato in MANILA, David Brunnstrom in WASHINGTON; Editing by Robert Birsel/Mark Heinrich)

Aboard rickety boats or swimming, over 750 Rohingya reach Bangladesh

By Tommy Wilkes and Simon Cameron-Moore

COX’S BAZAR/YANGON (Reuters) – They came in boats, others on flimsy rafts, some even swam. Around 750 Rohingya Muslims made their escape from Myanmar on Friday to reach Bangladesh, where the greatest danger is malnutrition and disease in teeming refugee camps.

Over 613,000 Rohingya have already taken refuge in the camps since a Myanmar military clearance operation forced them to abandon their villages in northern Rakhine State.

Rohingya who have reached Bangladesh have recounted horror stories of rape and murder. A top U.N. official described the military’s actions as “ethnic cleansing”, though Myanmar denied that, saying its operation was needed for national security after Rohingya militants attacked 30 security posts on Aug. 25.

Aung San Suu Kyi, the de facto leader of Myanmar’s less than two-year-old administration, was in Vietnam on Friday, attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. She was expected to hold talks with several leaders on the sidelines of the gathering, including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Having won the Nobel Peace Prize for defying the generals who ruled predominantly Buddhist Myanmar with an iron fist for nearly half a century, Suu Kyi’s reputation as a stateswoman has suffered due to her failure to speak out more strongly over the Rohingya crisis.

Under a constitution written before the junta gave way, the civilian administration still has to share power with the generals, and has little say over defense and security issues.

Still, leaders at APEC, and two other regional summits to be hosted by the Philippines in the coming days, are expected to exert pressure on Suu Kyi to do more to stem the crisis.

And on Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will meet with Suu Kyi in Naypyitaw, the Myanmar capital, with senators back in Washington pressing to impose sanctions targeting the military.

International Rescue Committee, the leading aid agency headquartered in New York and led by former British foreign minister David Miliband, reckoned that up to two-thirds of the 300,000 Rohingya remaining in Myanmar will join the exodus to Bangladesh in the coming months.

The IRC in a statement highlighted the extremely dangerous health conditions for Rohingya living in camps in the port city of Cox’s Bazar.

A nutrition survey led by its partner Action Contre la Faim had found 40,000 Rohingya children faced malnutrition and required life-saving assistance.

It said 95 percent of the population was drinking contaminated water – and agencies had reported that two-thirds of Cox’s Bazar’s water was contaminated with faeces.

“The conditions we are seeing in Cox’s Bazaar create a perfect storm for a public health crisis on an unimaginable scale,” said Cat Mahony, the IRC’s emergency response director in Cox’s Bazar.

“The situation will only deteriorate with more arrivals and a greater strain on already overstretched resources.”

Trail of destruction: http://tmsnrt.rs/2y8FgQ8

NO MONEY… BUILD A RAFT OR SWIM

Still, Rohingya too scared to stay in Myanmar were ready to risk their lives crossing the waters around the mouth of the Naf river to reach Bangladesh.

They were helped on Friday by another day of calm seas, though more than 200 have drowned attempting the crossing during the past two months.

Bangladesh officials said significant numbers were arriving on rafts they had built from bamboo, lashing plastic jerrycans to the poles for extra buoyancy. They said more Rohingya had swum across on Thursday.

A Reuters photographer saw up to ten rafts landing on the beaches of Teknaf, at the southern tip of Cox’s Bazar, on Friday.

People reaching the shore have told Reuters that there are thousands living in desperate conditions on the strand of beach by the river’s mouth at Pa Nyaung Pin Gyi, as they waited for a chance to cross over.

Dil Muhammad, 30, from Buthidaung, one of the Rakhine regions that bore the brunt of the military operation, finally made it across with his wife and three children after weeks of living on the sand because he could not afford to pay a boatman.

“I stayed in Pa Nyaung Pin Gyi for two months because I didn’t have money to come,” he told Reuters.

Dil Mohammed said his 18 month old daughter was suffering from diarrhea and a fever. “I couldn’t get to a doctor as we were stuck in that place.”

And Sakhina Khatun, a woman of 35, said that three men who had been with her on the other side had been attacked by “Buddhists” when they went to search for bamboo to make a raft.

Border Guard Bangladesh officials counted 444 refugees coming ashore at Sabrang, near Teknaf, and 150 more arriving further along the coast.

Afruzul Haque Tutul, additional superintendent of police in Cox’s Bazar said his officers had rescued 125 Rohingya from a wooden fishing boat stranded off Inani beach and bussed them to the camps.

Mass exodus: http://tmsnrt.rs/2xTId74

A desperate escape: http://tmsnrt.rs/2xIvxQF

(Additional reporting by Mohammad Ponir Hossain and Nurul Islam in COX’S BAZAR; Writing by Simon Cameron-Moore; Editing by Toby Chopra)

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