Mount pressure on Myanmar

A cross-party group of 70 British parliamentarians have urged the UK government to “intensify pressure” on the Myanmar government to allow full humanitarian access to Rohingya Muslims in the North Rakhine State of Myanmar.

“Together with the international community, the UK government must intensify its pressure on the Myanmar government to allow full humanitarian access to the Rohingya,” the British parliamentarians, including co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for Burma Rushanara Ali MP, said in a letter to British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.

They called on the British government to do all in its power to help those fleeing the violence to find a safe passage home.

The letter, dated December 7, said there currently exists an urgent need to prevent further violations of the Rohingya's human rights, UNB reported yesterday.

“We condemn any reprisal attacks that have followed the recent incidents of violence on the Myanmar border and call for an immediate end to the targeted use of violence of an already persecuted religious minority,” the parliamentarians wrote.

Nearly 22,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh since November 1, the United Nations said in its latest update on the situation, adding that about 30,000 people are estimated to have been displaced and thousands more affected by the violence.

Several Western countries urged Myanmar on Friday to expand humanitarian aid access to its troubled Rakhine State, reports Reuters.

Soldiers have poured into the area along Myanmar's border with Bangladesh and sealed it off in response to attacks by what the government has described as Muslim militants on border posts on October 9 that killed nine police officers.

In Dhaka, speakers at a seminar yesterday said reporting the Rohingya crisis in different international platforms is more important than opening Bangladesh's border to address the problem.

They also criticised the United Nations and Western countries for their “weak role” to solve the crisis.

The Centre for Governance Studies organised the seminar titled “Human Rights Offenders in Asia: Role of the United Nations” at Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies.

Addressing the seminar, Tareque Shamsur Rahman, former member of University Grant Commission, said opening the border cannot be a solution.

He stressed the need for taking the Rohingya issue to international platforms and putting pressure on the Myanmar government to stop oppression of Rohingyas.

He suggested the Bangladesh government raise the issue in the UN Security Council.

Former ambassador Mohsin Ali Khan said the Rohingya crisis can only be solved through dialogues.

He said opening the border to Rohingyas would create environmental, food and lodging problems. It would also cause an increase in number of crimes as unregistered Rohingyas might get involved in criminal activities.

Referring to opening of European borders to refugees, Mohsin said Europe has resources with more than one country giving shelter to refugees. But Bangladesh doesn't have adequate resources to support Rohingya refugees.

Rights activist Sara Hossain said, “A man migrates to another country for political reasons or securing a job and it's not a humanitarian attitude when we fail to ensure his security.”

'THEY KILLED SEVEN OF MY CHILDREN'

The Guardian yesterday ran a story on a Rohingya woman, Noor Ayesha. 

She is among three women who were interviewed by the British newspaper in Cox's Bazar. They had recently fled Kyet Yoe Pyin and recounted the human rights abuses they say were perpetrated there and in surrounding villages in the days after October 9.

“Noor Ayesha held her last surviving daughter tight as their boat crossed into Bangladeshi waters. She left behind a firebombed home, a dead husband, seven slain children and the soldiers who raped her,” wrote the British newspaper.

“A group of about 20 of them appeared in front of my house,” the 40-year-old Rohingya woman recalled of the morning in mid-October when her village was invaded by hundreds of Burmese government troops.

“They ordered all of us to come out in the courtyard. They separated five of our children and forced them into one of our rooms and put on the latch from outside. Then they fired a 'gun-bomb' on that room and set it on fire.

“Five of my children were burnt to death by the soldiers. They killed my two daughters after raping them. They also killed my husband and raped me.”

She said just one child survived the frenzy: five-year-old Dilnawaz Begum, who hid in a neighbour's house when the soldiers arrived in the village of Kyet Yoe Pyin, in the Maungdaw township of Rakhine State.