Granny says, "Oh those poor Hindus - slaughtered by dem Muslims...
Myanmar says bodies of 28 Hindu villagers found in Rakhine State
September 24, 2017 / Myanmar government forces found on Sunday the bodies of 28 Hindu villagers who authorities suspected were killed by Muslim insurgents last month, at the beginning of a spasm of violence that has sent 430,000 Muslim Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh.
See also:The violence began on Aug. 25 when militants from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) attacked about 30 police posts and an army camp, killing about 12 people. The United Nations has described as ethnic cleansing a sweeping government offensive in the north of Rakhine State in response to those militant attacks. The government of Buddhist-majority Myanmar has said more than 400 people have been killed, most of them insurgents. It rejects accusations of ethnic cleansing, saying it is fighting terrorists. Members of the small Hindu minority appear to have been caught in the middle. Some have fled to Bangladesh, complaining of violence against them by soldiers or Buddhist vigilantes. Others have complained of being attacked by the insurgents on suspicion of being government spies.
The government said a search was mounted near Ye Baw Kya village in the north of Rakhine State after a refugee in Bangladesh contacted a Hindu community leader in Myanmar. The refugee said about 300 ARSA militants had marched about 100 people out of the village on Aug. 25 and killed them. Twenty of the dead were female and eight were male children, the government said. “They forced eight female villagers to convert to the Islamic religion and took them to Bangladesh,” the government said. A government spokesman, Zaw Htay, declined to say who he thought had killed the 28. He said the security forces were investigating. Access to the area by journalists as well as human rights workers and aid workers is largely restricted and Reuters could not independently verify the report.
MALAYSIAN OBJECTION
The violence in Rakhine State and the exodus of refugees is the biggest crisis the government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has faced since it came to power last year as part of a transition away from nearly 50 years of harsh military rule. Bangladesh and aid organizations are struggling to help the Rohingya refugees there, while aid agencies fear a humanitarian crisis is unfolding in the north of Rakhine State, where rights groups say nearly half of all Muslim villages have been torched. The United States and the United Nations have called for an end to the violence, unfettered humanitarian access to the conflict zone and for the right of those who have fled to go home safely. Suu Kyi has faced a barrage of international criticism for not speaking out more forcefully against the violence or doing more to rein in security forces over which she has little power. The chairman of the Association of South East Asian nations (ASEAN), of which Myanmar is a member, issued a statement urging all parties to avoid worsening the situation on the ground and calling for a “viable and long-term solutions to the root causes of the conflict”.
Muslim-majority Indonesia and Malaysia have expressed concern about the situation, with Malaysia in particular being critical of Myanmar. In a rare show of disagreement in the 10-member grouping, Foreign Minister Anifah Aman later said Malaysia disassociated itself from the statement as it misrepresented the “reality of the situation” and did not identify the Rohingya as one of the affected communities. Myanmar objects to the term Rohingya, saying the Muslims of Rakhine State are not a distinct ethnic group but illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. This month, Malaysia summoned Myanmar’s ambassador to express displeasure over the violence in Myanmar. It also “expressed grave concerns over such atrocities which have unleashed a full-scale humanitarian crisis”.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-my...-idUSKCN1BZ0R2
Ethnic Rakhine suspicious of foreign aid to Rohingya
Mon, Sep 25, 2017 - Relief agencies struggling to reach hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims displaced by strife in northwestern Myanmar are facing rising hostility from ethnic Rakhine Buddhists, who accuse the UN and foreign aid groups of only helping Muslims.
So far, the Myanmar government has only granted Red Cross organizations access to the area. The UN suspended its activities and evacuated non-critical staff after the government suggested it had supported Rohingya insurgents. Already battling against bad weather, tough terrain and obstructive bureaucracy, the Red Cross also ran into an angry mob, who believed the foreign aid agencies have ignored the suffering of Rakhine Buddhists in Myanmar’s poorest state.
On Wednesday, a mob in Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine State, tried to block a boat carrying International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) aid to the north, where attacks by Rohingya militants on Aug. 25 prompted Myanmar’s generals to order a sweeping counter-insurgency offensive. The mob was armed with sticks, knives and firebombs, and only dispersed after police fired rubber bullets. Four days earlier, a Myanmar Red Cross truck was stopped and searched by Rakhine residents in Sittwe. “With heightened tensions in Rakhine State, humanitarian staff and private contractors are facing serious challenges in implementing life-saving activities,” said Pierre Peron, spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Myanmar. “Many ongoing humanitarian activities that existed before August 25th have still not resumed,” Peron said. “For the sake of vulnerable people in all communities in Rakhine State, urgent measures must be taken to allow vital humanitarian activities to resume.”
In northern Rakhine, tens of thousands of people, most of them Rohingya, are displaced, but have not crossed into Bangladesh. Closer to Sittwe, 140,000 Rohingya displaced by previous religious unrest are confined to squalid camps. They depend on foreign aid that has been severely restricted since Aug. 25. About 6,000 Buddhists have also fled to Sittwe, where they are cared for at monasteries by the government and Rakhine volunteers. Ethnic Rakhine have long complained that foreign aid agencies have given generously to Muslims while ignoring other equally needy people. “All people in Rakhine are suffering, but only Muslims get help,” Arakan National Party Secretary-General Htun Aung Kyaw said.
Rakhine residents of Sittwe told reporters they believed that UN estimates of refugee numbers were exaggerated and that Rohingya camps near the city faced no shortages. “They have more than enough,” said Kyaw Sein of Rakhine Alin Dagar, a Rakhine advocacy group in Sittwe. She had not visited the camps, but in the past she had seen Muslims selling oil, rice and other aid in local markets, Kyaw Sein said, adding that relations between foreign aid groups and the Rakhine people had been poisoned by years of neglect and favoritism. “It is difficult to say what they can do to win back our trust,” she said.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/worl.../25/2003679122
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