Tag Archives: Bangladesh

Trapped by landmines and a creek, Rohingya languish in no-man’s land

Lieutenant Colonel Monzurul Hassan Khan, a commanding officer of the Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB), speaks as Rohingya refugees stand outside their temporary shelters at no man's land between Bangladesh-Myanmar border, in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh September 9, 2017. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui

By Krishna N. Das

COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh Reuters) – Until late last month, Syed Karim grew rice and sugarcane on a strip of unclaimed land along the international border where Myanmar ends and Bangladesh begins.

On Aug. 25, the 26-year-old Rohingya Muslim man abandoned his home in a nearby Myanmar village and moved to the no-man’s land, fleeing a crackdown by the military against his community in response to militant attacks.

An estimated 370,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since that day. But Karim and thousands of his neighbors from Rohingya villages near the border face a unique predicament.

They have fled to the safety of the buffer zone along the border and are now stuck. Bangladesh security forces have instructions to not let them in, said Monzurul Hassan Khan, a Bangladesh border guard officer.

Some of the Rohingya there said they are too afraid to go back to their homes but not ready to abandon them altogether and become refugees in Bangladesh.

“I can see my house but can’t go there,” said Karim, whose Taung Pyo Let Yar village could be seen from his shack in the no-man’s land.

The top U.N. human rights official has called Myanmar’s operations against the Rohingya as “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing” and the Security Council is to meet behind closed doors on Wednesday to discuss the situation.

The 40-acre (16.2-hectare) buffer zone, about the size of 40 soccer pitches, is strung along the border, with a barbed wire fence on the Myanmar side and a creek on the other.

Hundreds of tarpaulin bamboo shacks have come up on what used to be a paddy field, with hills in the south. Khan said 8,000 to 10,000 Rohingya had camped there.

The UN refugee agency, which runs camps in Bangladesh, doesn’t go there because of security reasons, said Vivian Tan, a spokeswoman for UNHCR. Tan said that they work with some NGOs to provide people in the area with plastic sheets and clothing.

Myanmar has laid landmines on its side of the border, which have wounded at least four people, Bangladesh authorities and Rohingya refugees said.

Buddhist-majority Myanmar says its security forces are fighting a legitimate campaign against “terrorists” it blames for the attacks on the security forces.

Several Bangladesh officials said they suspected that about 100 fighters from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), the insurgents who attacked Myanmar police posts and an army base on Aug. 25, have also been spotted in the border area.

TREATED IN HOSPITAL

Bangladeshi security officials said they learned from informers that suspected ARSA fighters were in the area early last week, after the Eid al-Adha festival.

The officials, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, said 11 suspected fighters were also being treated in a hospital in Chittagong city, north of Cox’s Bazar, which is close to the border.

An ARSA spokesman denied that any of its fighters were using the no-man’s land to launch attacks and said none of its fighters were in Bangladesh.

Mostafa Kamal Uddin, Bangladesh’s home secretary, said he did not have information about the presence of Rohingya militants in Bangladesh.

Karim and other Rohingya people, mostly from the border villages, said they started fleeing to the buffer zone after the Aug. 25 attacks.

Khan, the border guard officer, said their numbers swelled on Aug. 27. “We kept hearing gunshots and also saw a fire and smoke on their side of the border,” Khan said.

He pointed to two brown patches of burned trees in Taung Pyo Let Yar village from his operations base on a hilltop in Bangladesh’s Gundum village near the border.

His men with automatic rifles kept watch as Rohingya children waded across the creek to fetch fresh water in aluminum pots and plastic bottles from a hand-pump on Bangladeshi soil.

A toddler, with the knee-deep waters rising to his neck, struggled with three plastic bottles, dropping one before turning around and picking it up and pressing forward.

In interviews at the buffer zone, where Reuters was taken by Khan, residents of three villages – Taung Pyo Let Yar, Mee Taik and Kun Thee Pin – said they were spared in the previous big military crackdown in October last year. But things changed on Aug. 25.

Mohammed Arif, a Rohingya man from Taung Pyo Let Yar village, said he fled into the woods near the village to hide when the army came. From there, he watched a mortar shell hit his two-storey house, burning it down.

He crossed over the fence on Aug. 26 with his family. Arif said he had not seen any ARSA fighters in the no-man’s land.

“In our country, Buddha worshippers treat us like a virus that needs to be eliminated. We have heard them saying, ‘No Rohingya in Myanmar.’ But we will go back,” Arif said.

(Additional reporting by Antoni Slodkowski, Andrew R.C. Marshall and Ruma Paul; Writing by Paritosh Bansal; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Myanmar faces mounting pressure over Rohingya refugee exodus

Rohingya refugees walk on the shore after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border by boat through the Bay of Bengal in Shah Porir Dwip, Bangladesh September 11, 2017. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui

By Krishna N. Das

COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh (Reuters) – Pressure mounted on Myanmar on Tuesday to end violence that has sent about 370,000 Rohingya Muslims fleeing to Bangladesh, with the United States calling for protection of civilians and Bangladesh urging safe zones to enable refugees to go home.

But China, which competes for influence in its southern neighbor with the United States, said it backed Myanmar’s efforts to safeguard “development and stability”.

The government of Buddhist-majority Myanmar says its security forces are fighting Rohingya militants behind a surge of violence in Rakhine state that began on Aug. 25, and they are doing all they can to avoid harming civilians.

The government says about 400 people have been killed in the fighting, the latest in the western state.

The top U.N. human rights official denounced Myanmar on Monday for conducting a “cruel military operation” against Rohingya, branding it “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing”.

The United States said the violent displacement of the Rohingya showed Myanmar’s security forces were not protecting civilians. Washington has been a staunch supporter of Myanmar’s transition from decades of harsh military rule that is being led by Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

“We call on Burmese security authorities to respect the rule of law, stop the violence, and end the displacement of civilians from all communities,” the White House said in a statement.

Myanmar government spokesmen were not immediately available for comment but the foreign ministry said shortly before the U.S. statement was issued that Myanmar was also concerned about the suffering. Its forces were carrying out their legitimate duty to restore order in response to acts of extremism.

“The government of Myanmar fully shares the concern of the international community regarding the displacement and suffering of all communities affected by the latest escalation of violence ignited by the acts of terrorism,” the ministry said in a statement.

Myanmar’s government regards Rohingya as illegal migrants from Bangladesh and denies them citizenship, even though many Rohingya families have lived there for generations.

Attacks by a Rohingya insurgent group, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), on police posts and an army base in the north of Rakhine on Aug. 25 provoked the military counter-offensive that refugees say is aimed at pushing Rohingya out of the country.

A similar but smaller wave of attacks by the same insurgents last October also sparked what critics called a heavy-handed response by the security forces that sent 87,000 Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh.

Reports from refugees and rights groups paint a picture of widespread attacks on Rohingya villages in the north of Rakhine by the security forces and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists, who have put numerous Muslim villages to the torch.

But Myanmar authorities have denied the security forces, or Buddhist civilians, have been setting the fires, instead blaming the insurgents. Nearly 30,000 Buddhist villagers have also been displaced, they say.

‘STOP THE VIOLENCE’

The exodus to Bangladesh shows no sign of slowing with 370,000 the latest estimate, according to a U.N. refugee agency spokeswoman, up from an estimate of 313,000 on the weekend.

Bangladesh was already home to about 400,000 Rohingyas.

Many refugees are hungry and sick, without shelter or clean water in the middle of the rainy season. The United Nations said 200,000 children needed urgent support.

Two emergency flights organized by the U.N. refugee agency arrived in Bangladesh with aid for about 25,000 refugees. More flights are planned with the aim of helping 120,000, a spokesman said.

Worry is also growing about conditions inside Rakhine State, with fears a hidden humanitarian crisis may be unfolding.

Myanmar has rejected a ceasefire declared by ARSA to enable the delivery of aid there, saying it did not negotiate with terrorists.

But Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said Myanmar should set up safe zones to enable the refugees to go home.

“Myanmar will have to take back all Rohingya refugees who entered Bangladesh,” Hasina said on a visit to the Cox’s Bazar border district where she distributed aid.

“Myanmar has created the problem and they will have to solve it,” she said, adding: “We want peaceful relations with our neighbors, but we can’t accept any injustice.

“Stop this violence against innocent people.”

Myanmar has said those who can verify their citizenship can return but most Rohingya are stateless.

In Beijing, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said, “The international community should support Myanmar in its efforts to safeguard development and stability.”

Pakistan called on Myanmar to stop making “unfulfilled promises”.

In a speech to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, on behalf of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, Pakistan said, “Discrimination, violence and acts of hatred are intolerable.”

(Additional reporting by Ruma Paul and Serajul Quadir in DHAKA, Stephanie Nebehay and Tom Miles in GENEVA, Michael Martina in BEIJING; Writing by Robert Birsel; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Clarence Fernandez)

‘Alarming’ surge in Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh: UNHCR

Rohingya refugees carry their child as they walk through water after crossing border by boat through the Naf River in Teknaf, Bangladesh, September 7, 2017. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain

By Krishna N. Das

COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh (Reuters) – An alarming and unprecedented influx of 270,000 Rohingya has sought refuge in Bangladesh over the past two weeks from violence in Myanmar, the U.N. refugee agency said on Friday, a dramatic jump in the total as new pockets of people are found.

A rights group said satellite images showed about 450 buildings had been burned down in a Myanmar border town largely inhabited by Rohingya, as part of what the refugees say is a concerted effort to expel members of the Muslim minority.

Vivian Tan, a spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said the estimated number of Rohingya who fled to Bangladesh since violence erupted on Aug. 25 had surged from 164,000 on Thursday because aid workers doing a survey had found big groups of uncounted people in border areas.

“This does not necessarily reflect fresh arrivals within the past 24 hours but that we have identified more people in different areas that we were not aware of,” she said, adding that the number was an estimate and there could be some double-counting.

But she added: “The numbers are so alarming – it really means that we have to step up our response and that the situation in Myanmar has to be addressed urgently.”

The surge in the number of refugees, many sick or wounded, has strained the resources of aid agencies and communities which are already helping hundreds of thousands displaced by previous waves of violence in Myanmar. Many have no shelter, and aid agencies are racing to provide clean water, sanitation and food.

Two days ago, UNHCR had said the worst-case scenario was 300,000 refugees.

“We need to prepare for many more to come, I am afraid,” said Shinni Kubo, the Bangladesh country manager for the agency. “We need huge financial resources. This is unprecedented. This is dramatic. It will continue for weeks and weeks.”

Rohingya have been fleeing their homes in Myanmar since at least 400 people were killed after insurgent attacks in Rakhine State two weeks ago were followed by an army counter-offensive.

Myanmar says its security forces are fighting a legitimate campaign against “terrorists” it blames for a string of attacks on police posts and for burning homes and civilian deaths.

It says about 30,000 non-Muslims have been displaced by the violence.

About 1.1 million Rohingya Muslims living in Myanmar have long complained of persecution and are seen by many in the Buddhist-majority country as illegal migrants from Bangladesh.

“While most Rohingya refugees arrive on foot, mostly walking through the jungle and mountains for several days, thousands are braving long and risky voyages across the rough seas of the Bay of Bengal,” the UNHCR said.

At least 300 boats arrived in Cox’s Bazar on Wednesday, the International Organisation for Migration said.

BURNED BUILDINGS

U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said satellite images taken last Saturday showed hundreds of burned buildings in Maungdaw, a district capital in Rakhine State, in areas primarily inhabited by Rohingya.

“The Burmese government has an obligation to protect everyone in the country, but if safety cannot even be found in area capitals, then no place may be safe,” said Phil Robertson, the deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch said in a statement.

Several thousand people held a protest in Dhaka, the Bangladesh capital, after Friday prayers against the crackdown on the Rohingya.

Similar protests were held in Indonesia and Malaysia, also Muslim-majority countries. Scores of people also staged protests outside the Myanmar embassies in Tokyo and Manila.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said he was considering raising the Rohingya issue when he holds talks with U.S. President Donald Trump next week.

Earlier, the head of Malaysia’s coastguard said it would not turn away Rohingya and was willing to provide them temporary shelter, although it is unlikely any refugees would travel hundreds of kilometers south by sea during the monsoon season.

Najib told reporters the Rohingya issue had to be resolved “at the source”.

“It is unfair for affected parties to inflict more cost to Malaysia to manage and to receive these people when they should be allowed fundamental and universal rights that have been denied to them,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Kanupriya Kapoor in Jakarta, Rozanna Latiff in Kuala Lumpur and Tom Miles in Geneva; Writing by Raju Gopalakrishnan; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Exodus of Rohingya to Bangladesh tops quarter of a million: UNHCR

Rohingya refugees carry their child as they walk through water after crossing border by boat through the Naf River in Teknaf, Bangladesh, September 7, 2017. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain

By Krishna N. Das

COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh (Reuters) – An unprecedented surge of 270,000 Rohingya has sought refuge in Bangladesh over the past two weeks, the U.N. refugee agency said on Friday, as it announced a dramatic jump in the total as new pockets of people fleeing violence in Myanmar are found.

A rights group said satellite images showed about 450 buildings had been burned down in a Myanmar border town largely inhabited by Rohingya, as part of what the refugees say is a concerted effort to expel members of the Muslim minority.

Vivian Tan, a spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said the estimated number of Rohingya who fled to Bangladesh since violence erupted on Aug. 25 had risen from 164,000 on Thursday because aid workers had found big groups of uncounted people in border areas.

“This does not necessarily reflect fresh arrivals within the past 24 hours but that we have identified more people in different areas that we were not aware of,” she said, adding that the number was an estimate and there could be some double-counting.

“The numbers are so alarming – it really means that we have to step up our response and that the situation in Myanmar has to be addressed urgently.”

The wave of refugees, many sick or wounded, has strained the resources of aid agencies and communities which are already helping hundreds of thousands displaced by previous waves of violence in Myanmar. Many have no shelter, and aid agencies are racing to provide clean water, sanitation and food.

Two days ago, UNHCR had said the worst-case scenario was 300,000 refugees.

“We need to prepare for many more to come, I am afraid,” said Shinni Kubo, the Bangladesh country manager for the agency. “We need huge financial resources. This is unprecedented. This is dramatic. It will continue for weeks and weeks.”

While most refugees are coming on foot many are also braving the sea. At least 300 boats carrying Rohingya arrived in the Bangladesh border district of Cox’s Bazar on Wednesday, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said.

The latest flight of Rohingya from their homes in Myanmar began two weeks ago after Rohingya insurgents attacked security force posts in Rakhine State. That triggered an army counter-offensive in which at least 400 people were killed.

Buddhist-majority Myanmar says its security forces are fighting a legitimate campaign against “terrorists” it blames for the attacks on the security forces and for burning homes and civilian deaths.

It says about 30,000 non-Muslims have been displaced by the violence.

The 1.1 million Rohingya living in Myanmar have long complained of persecution. They are denied citizenship and regarded as illegal migrants from Bangladesh.

Rohigya refugees are seen waiting for boat to cross the border through the Naf river in Maungdaw, Myanmar, September 7, 2017. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain

Rohigya refugees are seen waiting for boat to cross the border through the Naf river in Maungdaw, Myanmar, September 7, 2017. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain

BURNED BUILDINGS

There is very limited access to the north of Rakhine State and few if any independent witnesses so the situation for Rohingya still there is a major concern, with fears a humanitarian crisis could be unfolding there too.

“What we know is what people are saying as they come across, and what they’re saying now, given this been going on since Aug. 25, is they are in an absolutely desperate state,” said Leonard Doyle of the IOM.

“They say living out in open, without protection from the tropical sun with their children, without enough food to eat.”

Bangladesh has proposed creating “safe zones” run by aid groups for Rohingya in Myanmar. But it would seem the plan is unlikely to be accepted there.

U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said satellite images taken last Saturday showed hundreds of burned buildings in Maungdaw, a district capital in Rakhine State, in areas primarily inhabited by Rohingya.

“If safety cannot even be found in area capitals, then no place may be safe,” said Phil Robertson, the group’s deputy Asia director.

A Myanmar reporter in the north of the state said he had got reports from residents of an area called Rathedaung that six villages had been torched and there had also been shooting in the area. It was not clear who was responsible.

Several thousand people held a protest in Dhaka, the Bangladesh capital, after Friday prayers against the crackdown on the Rohingya.

Protests were also held in Indonesia and Malaysia, also Muslim-majority countries. Scores of people staged protests outside the Myanmar embassies in Tokyo and Manila.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said the Rohingya issue had to be resolved “at the source” and he was considering raising it when he holds talks with U.S. President Donald Trump next week.

Earlier, the head of Malaysia’s coastguard said it would not turn away Rohingya and was willing to provide them temporary shelter, although it is unlikely any refugees would travel hundreds of kilometers south by sea during the monsoon season.

The rainy season ends in late November, bringing calmer weather when more boats are likely to head for Southeast Asia.

The coastguard said it would watch waters near its Indian Ocean border with Thailand in anticipation of Rohingya arriving.

Thailand has also said it is preparing to receive people fleeing Myanmar, while Singapore said it was ready to help with the humanitarian effort.

A Rohingya refugee girl drinks river water as she waits for boat to cross the border through Naf river in Maungdaw, Myanmar, September 7, 2017.REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain

A Rohingya refugee girl drinks river water as she waits for boat to cross the border through Naf river in Maungdaw, Myanmar, September 7, 2017.REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain

(Additional reporting by Kanupriya Kapoor in Jakarta, Rozanna Latiff ad Liz Lee in Kuala Lumpur, Tom Miles in Geneva; Writing by Raju Gopalakrishnan; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Exclusive: U.N. expects up to 300,000 Rohingya could flee Myanmar violence to Bangladesh

Rohingya refugees wait for food near Kutupalong refugee camp after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border in Ukhia, Bangladesh, September 6, 2017. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui

By Simon Lewis

COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh (Reuters) – Up to 300,000 Rohingya Muslims could flee violence in northwestern Myanmar to neighboring Bangladesh, a U.N. agency official said on Wednesday, warning of a funding shortfall for emergency food supplies for the refugees.

According to estimates issued by United Nations workers in Bangladesh’s border region of Cox’s Bazar, arrivals since the latest bloodshed started 12 days ago have already reached 146,000.

Numbers are difficult to establish with any certainty due to the turmoil as Rohingya escape operations by Myanmar’s military.

However, the U.N. officials have raised their estimate of the total expected refugees from 120,000 to 300,000, said Dipayan Bhattacharyya, who is Bangladesh spokesman for the World Food Programme.

“They are coming in nutritionally deprived, they have been cut off from a normal flow of food for possibly more than a month,” he told Reuters. “They were definitely visibly hungry, traumatized.”

The surge of refugees, many sick or wounded, has strained the resources of aid agencies and communities which are already helping hundreds of thousands displaced by previous waves of violence in Myanmar. Many have no shelter, and aid agencies are racing to provide clean water, sanitation and food.

Bhattacharyya said the refugees were now arriving by boat as well as crossing the land border at numerous points.

Another U.N. worker in the area cautioned that the estimates were not “hard science”, given the chaos and lack of access to the area on the Myanmar side where the military is still conducting its ‘clearance operation’. The source added that the 300,000 number was probably toward the worst-case scenario.

The latest violence began when Rohingya insurgents attacked dozens of police posts and an army base. The ensuing clashes and a military counter-offensive killed at least 400 people and triggered the exodus of villagers to Bangladesh.

In a letter to the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed concern that the violence could spiral into a “humanitarian catastrophe”.

Based on the prediction that 300,000 could arrive, the WFP calculated that it would need $13.3 million in additional funding to provide high-energy biscuits and basic rice rations for four months.

Bhattacharyya called for donors to meet the shortfall urgently. “If they don’t come forward now, we may see that these people would be fighting for food among themselves, the crime rate would go up, violence against women and on children would go up,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Antoni Slodkowski; editing by David Stamp)

Exclusive: Bangladesh protests over Myanmar’s suspected landmine use near border

FILE PHOTO: A Rohingya man carrying his belongings approaches the Bangladesh-Myanmar border in Bandarban, an area under Cox's Bazar authority, Bangladesh, August 29, 2017. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain/File Photo

By Krishna N. Das

DHAKA (Reuters) – Bangladesh lodged a protest after it said Myanmar had laid landmines near the border between the two countries, government officials said on Wednesday, amid growing tensions over the huge influx of Rohingya Muslims fleeing violence in Myanmar.

An army crackdown triggered by an attack on Aug. 25 by Rohingya insurgents on Myanmar security forces has led to the killing of at least 400 people and the exodus of nearly 125,000 Rohingya to Bangladesh, leading to a major humanitarian crisis.

When asked whether Bangladesh had lodged the complaint, Foreign Secretary Shahidul Haque said “yes” without elaborating. Three other government sources confirmed that a protest note was faxed to Myanmar in the morning saying the Buddhist-majority country was violating international norms.

“Bangladesh has expressed great concern to Myanmar about the explosions very close to the border,” a source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters. The source asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.

A Myanmar military source said landmines were laid along the border in the 1990s to prevent trespassing and the military had since tried to remove them. But none had been planted recently.

Two Bangladeshi sources told Reuters they believed Myanmar security forces were putting the landmines in their territory along the barbed-wire fence between a series of border pillars. Both sources said Bangladesh learned about the landmines mainly through photographic evidence and informers.

“Our forces have also seen three to four groups working near the barbed wire fence, putting something into the ground,” one of the sources said. “We then confirmed with our informers that they were laying land mines.”

The sources did not clarify if the groups were in uniform, but added that they were sure they were not Rohingya insurgents.

Manzurul Hassan Khan, a Bangladesh border guard officer, told Reuters earlier that two blasts were heard on Tuesday on the Myanmar side, after two on Monday fueled speculation that Myanmar forces had laid land mines.

One boy had his left leg blown off on Tuesday near a border crossing before being brought to Bangladesh for treatment, while another boy suffered minor injuries, Khan said, adding that the blast could have been a mine explosion.

A Rohingya refugee who went to the site of the blast on Monday – on a footpath near where civilians fleeing violence are huddled in a no man’s land on the border – filmed what appeared to be a mine: a metal disc about 10 centimeters (4 inches) in diameter partially buried in the mud. He said he believed there were two more such devices buried in the ground.

Two refugees also told Reuters they saw members of the Myanmar army around the site in the immediate period preceding the Monday blasts, which occurred around 2:25 p.m.

Reuters was unable to independently verify that the planted devices were land mines and that there was any link to the Myanmar army.

The Myanmar army has not commented on the blasts near the border. Zaw Htay, the spokesman for Myanmar’s national leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, was not immediately available for comment.

On Monday, he told Reuters clarification was needed to determine “where did it explode, who can go there and who laid those land mines. Who can surely say those mines were not laid by the terrorists?”

The Bangladesh interior ministry secretary, Mostafa Kamal Uddin, did not respond to calls seeking comment.

The border pillars mentioned by the Dhaka-based sources mark the boundaries of the two countries, along which Myanmar has a portion of barbed wire fencing. Most of the two countries’ 217-km-long border is porous.

“They are not doing anything on Bangladeshi soil,” said one of the sources. “But we have not seen such laying of land mines in the border before.”

Myanmar, which was under military rule until recently and is one of the most heavily mined countries in the world, is one of the few countries that have not signed the 1997 U.N. Mine Ban Treaty.

(Additional reporting by Wa Lone in YANGON and Ruma Paul in DHAKA; Editing by Philip McClellan and Nick Macfie)

Explosions rock Myanmar area near Bangladesh border amid Rohingya exodus

Rohingya refugees sit as they are temporarily held by the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) in an open area after crossing the border, in Teknaf, Bangladesh, September 3, 2017.

By Simon Lewis and Wa Lone

COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh/YANGON (Reuters) – Two blasts rocked an area on the Myanmar side of the border with Bangladesh on Monday, accompanied by the sound of gunfire and thick black smoke, as violence that has sent nearly 90,000 Muslim Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh showed no sign of easing.

Bangladeshi border guards said a woman lost a leg from a blast about 50 meters inside Myanmar and was carried into Bangladesh to get treatment. Reuters reporters heard explosions and saw black smoke rising near a Myanmar village.

The latest violence in Myanmar’s northwestern Rakhine state began on Aug. 25, when Rohingya insurgents attacked dozens of police posts and an army base. The ensuing clashes and a military counter-offensive have killed at least 400 people and triggered the exodus of villagers to Bangladesh.

A Rohingya refugee who went to the site of the blast – on a footpath near where civilians fleeing violence are huddled in no man’s land on the border – filmed what appeared to be a mine: a metal disc about 10 centimeters (3.94 inches) in diameter partially buried in the mud. He said he believed there were two more such devices buried in the ground.

Bangladeshi border guards said they believed the injured woman stepped on an anti-personnel mine, although that was not confirmed.

Two refugees also told Reuters they saw members of the Myanmar army around the site in the immediate period preceding the blasts which occurred around 2:25 p.m.

Reuters was unable to independently verify that the planted devices were landmines and that there was any link to the Myanmar army.

Rohingya refugees walk on the muddy path after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border in Teknaf, Bangladesh, September 3, 2017.

Rohingya refugees walk on the muddy path after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border in Teknaf, Bangladesh, September 3, 2017. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain

The spokesman for Myanmar’s national leader Aung San Suu Kyi, Zaw Htay, said that a clarification was needed to determine “where did it explode, who can go there and who laid those land mines. Who can surely say those mines were not laid by the terrorists?”

“There are so many questions. I would like to say that it is not solid news-writing if you write based on someone talking nonsense on the side of the road,” said Zaw Htay.

The treatment of Buddhist-majority Myanmar’s roughly 1.1 million Muslim Rohingya is the biggest challenge facing Suu Kyi, accused by Western critics of not speaking out for the minority that has long complained of persecution.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate has come under increasing diplomatic pressure from countries with large Muslim populations such as Turkey and Pakistan to protect Rohingya civilians.

Myanmar says its security forces are fighting a legitimate campaign against “terrorists” responsible for a string of attacks on police posts and the army since last October.

On Monday, Reuters reporters saw fires and heard gunshots before the explosions near the Myanmar village of Taung Pyo Let Way.

 

‘NO FOOD … NO TREATMENT’

Myanmar officials blamed Rohingya militants for the burning of homes and civilian deaths but rights monitors and Rohingya fleeing to neighboring Bangladesh say the Myanmar army is trying to force Rohingya out with a campaign of arson and killings.

The number of those crossing the border into Bangladesh – 87,000 – surpassed the number who escaped Myanmar after a series of much smaller insurgent attacks last October that set off a military operation. That operation has led to accusations of serious human rights abuses.

The newest estimate, based on calculations by U.N. workers in the Bangladeshi border district of Cox’s Bazar, takes to about 174,000 the total number of Rohingya who have sought refuge in Bangladesh since October.

The new arrivals have strained aid agencies and communities already helping hundreds of thousands of refugees from previous spasms of violence in Myanmar.

“We are trying to build houses here, but there isn’t enough space,” said Mohammed Hussein, 25, who was still looking for a place to stay after fleeing Myanmar four days ago.

“No non-government organizations came here. We have no food. Some women gave birth on the roadside. Sick children have no treatment.”

Hundreds of Rohingya milled beside the road while others slung tarpaulins over bamboo frames to make shelters against the monsoon rain.

Among new arrivals, about 16,000 are school-age children and more than 5,000 are under the age of five who need vaccine coverage, aid workers said over the weekend.

 

INTERNATIONAL ANGER

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who said on Friday that violence against Myanmar’s Muslims amounted to genocide, last week called Bangladesh’s President Abdul Hamid to offer help in sheltering the Rohingya, Dhaka said.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi met Suu Kyi and other officials in Myanmar on Monday, to urge a halt to the violence.

Suu Kyi’s office said Marsudi expressed the Indonesian government’s “support of the activities of the Myanmar government for the stability, peace and development of Rakhine state”.

They also discussed humanitarian aid and the two countries would collaborate for the development of the state, Suu Kyi’s office said without giving further details.

There were more anti-Myanmar protests in Jakarta on Monday.

Malala Yousafzai, the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, called on Suu Kyi to condemn the “shameful” treatment of the Rohingya, saying “the world is waiting” for her to speak out.

In addition to tens of thousands of Rohingya, more than 11,700 “ethnic residents” had been evacuated from northern Rakhine state, the Myanmar government has said, referring to non-Muslims.

The army said on Sunday Rohingya insurgents had set fire to monasteries, images of Buddha as well as schools and houses in the north of Rakhine state. It posted images of destroyed Buddha statues.

 

(Reporting by Simon Lewis and Nurul Islam in COX’S BAZAR’; Writing by Antoni Slodkowski; Editing by Clarence Fernandez, Robert Birsel, Martin Howell)

 

Nearly 400 die as Myanmar army steps up crackdown on Rohingya militants

Rohingya refugees stands in an open place during heavy rain, as they are hold by Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) after illegally crossing the border, in Teknaf, Bangladesh, August 31, 2017.

COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh (Reuters) – Nearly 400 people have died in fighting that has rocked Myanmar’s northwest for a week, new official data show, making it probably the deadliest bout of violence to engulf the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority in decades.

Around 38,000 Rohingya have crossed into Bangladesh from Myanmar, United Nations sources said, a week after Rohingya insurgents attacked police posts and an army base in Rakhine state, prompting clashes and a military counteroffensive.

“As of August 31, 38,000 people are estimated to have crossed the border into Bangladesh,” the officials said on Friday, in their latest estimate.

The army says it is conducting clearance operations against “extremist terrorists” and security forces have been told to protect civilians. But Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh say a campaign of arson and killings aims to force them out.

The treatment of Myanmar’s roughly 1.1 million Rohingya is the biggest challenge facing national leader Aung San Suu Kyi, accused by some Western critics of not speaking out for a minority that has long complained of persecution.

Police officers guard near a house that was burnt down in recent violence in Maungdaw, Myanmar August 31, 2017.

Police officers guard near a house that was burnt down in recent violence in Maungdaw, Myanmar August 31, 2017. RETUERS/Soe Zeya Tun

The clashes and ensuing army crackdown have killed about 370 Rohingya insurgents, but also 13 security forces, two government officials and 14 civilians, the Myanmar military said on Thursday.

By comparison, communal violence in 2012 in Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine, led to the killing of nearly 200 people and the displacement of about 140,000, most of them Rohingya.

The fighting is a dramatic escalation of a conflict that has simmered since October, when similar but much smaller Rohingya attacks on security posts prompted a brutal military response dogged by allegations of rights abuses.

Myanmar evacuated more than 11,700 “ethnic residents” from the area affected by fighting, the army said, referring to the non-Muslim population of northern Rakhine.

More than 150 Rohingya insurgents staged fresh attacks on security forces on Thursday near villages occupied by Hindus, the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar said, adding that about 700 members of such families had been evacuated.

“Four of the terrorists were arrested, including one 13-year-old boy,” it said, adding that security forces had arrested two more men near a Maungdaw police outpost on suspicion of involvement in the attacks.

About 20,000 more Rohingya trying to flee are stuck in no man’s land at the border, the U.N. sources said, as aid workers in Bangladesh struggle to alleviate the sufferings of a sudden influx of thousands of hungry and traumatized people.

While some Rohingya try to cross by land, others attempt a perilous boat journey across the Naf River separating the two countries.

Bangladesh border guards found the bodies of 15 Rohingya Muslims, 11 children among them, floating in the river on Friday, area commander Lt. Col. Ariful Islam told Reuters.

That takes to about 40 the total of Rohingya known to have died by drowning.

 

(Reporting by Reuters staff; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

 

Floods, landslides kill more than 800 people across South Asia

People use a boat as they try to move to safer places along a flooded street in West Midnapore district, in West Bengal

By Ruma Paul and Zarir Husain

DHAKA/GUWAHATI, India (Reuters) – Widespread floods have killed more than 800 people and displaced over a million in India, Nepal and Bangladesh, with aid workers warning of severe food shortages and water-borne diseases as rains continue to lash the affected areas.

Seasonal monsoon rains, a lifeline for farmers across South Asia, typically cause loss of life and property every year between July and September, but officials say this year’s flooding is the worst in several years.

At least 115 people have died and more than 5.7 million are affected in Bangladesh as floods submerged more than a third of the low-lying and densely populated country.

“The water level has gradually dropped. The flood situation will improve if it does not rain upstream any further,” Sazzad Hossain, executive engineer of Bangladesh’s Flood Forecasting and Warning Center, told Reuters.

Reaz Ahmed, the director general of Bangladesh’s Disaster Management Department, said there are rising concerns about food shortages and the spread of disease.

“With the flood waters receding, there is a possibility of an epidemic. We fear the outbreak of water-borne diseases if clean water is not ensured soon,” Ahmed told Reuters.

With some rivers running above danger levels, 225 bridges have been damaged in Bangladesh, disrupting food and medicine supplies to people displaced from their homes, said aid workers.

In the Indian state of Assam bordering Bangladesh, at least 180 people have been killed in the past few weeks.

“With the floods washing away everything… there is not even a trace of our small thatched hut,” said Lakshmi Das, a mother of three, living in Kaliabor, Assam.

“We do not even have a second pair of clothes to wear. The government is not providing any aid.”

Villagers use a boat as they row past partially submerged houses at a flood-affected village in Morigaon district in Assam,

Villagers use a boat as they row past partially submerged houses at a flood-affected village in Morigaon district in Assam, July 14, 2017. REUTERS/Anuwar Hazarika

Torrential rains have also hit the northeastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Manipur, killing at least 30 people.

Flood waters of the Brahmaputra river had earlier in July submerged the Kaziranga wildlife sanctuary in Assam. The floods have since killed more than 350 animals, including 24 endangered one-horned rhinoceros, five elephants and a tiger.

“We are facing a wildlife disaster,” Assam Forest Minister Pramila Rani Brahma told Reuters.

Meanwhile, in the eastern state of Bihar, at least 253 people lost their lives where incessant rains washed away crops, destroyed roads and disrupted power supplies.

A senior official in Bihar’s disaster management department, Anirudh Kumar, said nearly half a million people have been provided with shelter.

In Nepal, 141 people were confirmed dead, while thousands of survivors returned to their semi-destroyed homes.

“Their homes are in a state of total destruction,” said Francis Markus from International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

 

(Reporting by Gopal Sharma in Kathmandu, Zarir Husain in Assam, Jatindra Das in Bhubaneswar, Ruma Paul in Dhaka; Writing by Rupam Jain in New Delhi,; Editing by Tommy Wilkes and Sherry Jacob-Phillips)

 

Monsoon floods kill more than 200 people across South Asia

Monsoon floods kill more than 200 people across South Asia

By Gopal Sharma and Ruma Paul

KATHMANDU/DHAKA (Reuters) – Heavy monsoon rains in Nepal, Bangladesh and India have killed more than 200 people in the last week, officials said on Tuesday, as rescue workers rushed to help those stranded by floodwaters.

In Nepal, the death toll from flash floods and landslides rose to 115, with 38 people missing. Relief workers said 26 of Nepal’s 75 districts were either submerged or had been hit by landslides.

Television pictures showed people wading through chest-deep water carrying belongings and livestock.

“We will now focus more on rescue of those trapped in floods and relief distribution. People have nothing to eat, no clothes. So we have to provide them something to eat and save their lives,” said Nepali police spokesman Pushkar Karki.

Floods in north Bangladesh have killed at least 39 people in the last few days and affected more than 500,000, many of them fleeing their homes to shelter in camps, officials said.

The situation could get worse as swollen rivers carry rainwater from neighboring India downstream into the low-lying and densely populated country, they said.

In the northern Indian state of Bihar, floods have killed 56 people since Sunday and affected more than six million, said Anirudh Kumar, additional secretary in the state Disaster Management Department.

More than two million people have been evacuated from their homes, Kumar told Reuters, and national disaster relief force teams have been airlifted in to help.

Flooding has also killed at least 15 people in the northeastern state of Assam.

India’s meteorological department is forecasting more heavy rain on Wednesday.

Monsoon rains start in June and continue through September. They are vital for farmers in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh but cause loss of life and property damage every year.

(Additional reporting and writing by Tommy Wilkes; Editing by Andrew Roche)