Group says Muslims of all ethnicities are refused ID cards, while access to places of worship is blocked in some places.

More than 120,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh in the last two weeks [Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

The systematic persecution of minority Muslims is on the rise across Myanmar and not just confined to the northwestern state of Rakhine, where recent violence has sent more tens of thousands of Muslim Rohingya fleeing, a UK-based rights group said.

The Burma Human Rights Network (BHRN) said on Tuesday that persecution was backed by the government, elements among the country’s Buddhist monks and ultra-nationalist civilian groups.

“The transition to democracy has allowed popular prejudices to influence how the new government rules, and has amplified a dangerous narrative that casts Muslims as an alien presence in Buddhist-majority Burma [Myanmar],” the group said in a report.

The report draws on more than 350 interviews in more than 46 towns and villages over an eight-month period since March 2016.

Myanmar’s government made no immediate response to the report.

Authorities deny discrimination and say security forces in Rakhine are fighting a legitimate campaign against “terrorists”.

Myanmar’s security forces and civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi have been facing international condemnation over the recent plight of the Rohingya Muslim minority.

The Rohingya have been forced to live under apartheid-like restrictions on movement and citizenship.

The latest wave of violence, which first began last October when a small Rohingya fighter group ambushed border posts, is the worst Rakhine has witnessed in years, with the UN saying Myanmar’s army may have committed ethnic cleansing in its response.

Aung San Suu Kyi, a former political prisoner of Myanmar’s military rulers, has come under increasing fire over her perceived unwillingness to speak out against the treatment of the Rohingya or chastise the military.

She has made no public comment since the latest fighting broke out on August 25.

Besides Rohingya Muslims, the BHRN’s report also examines the wider picture of Muslims of different ethnicities across Myanmar following waves of communal violence in 2012 and 2013.

It says many Muslims of all ethnicities have been refused national identification cards, while access to Islamic places of worship has been blocked in some places.

At least 21 villages around Myanmar have declared themselves “no-go zones” for Muslims, backed by the authorities, it said.

UN says 87,000 members of persecuted Muslim community have crossed into Bangladesh since violence erupted on August 25.

Rohingya are often said to be the world’s most persecuted minority [MP Hossain/Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

Nearly 90,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh in the last 10 days, uprooted by reported rapes, murders and acts of arson by the Myanmar army.

Vivian Tan, regional spokesperson for UNHCR, told Al Jazeera on Monday that women, children and the elderly made up the bulk of the 87,000 who had crossed into Bangladesh since violence erupted on August 25.

“We’re seeing many pregnant women, new-born babies and the elderly make their way to relief camps on the Bangladeshi side of the border,” she said.

“Sadly we’re also hearing from many of them that they haven’t eaten in days.”

Viewed by the UN and the US as one of the world’s most persecuted minorities, thousands of Rohingya flee their homes every year in a desperate attempt to reach Bangladesh and other neighbouring countries.

The latest mass exodus comes after suspected Rohingya fighters attacked police posts and an army base in the western region of Rakhine.

The Myanmar government has blamed the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) for the violence, but fleeing Rohingya civilians accused the Myanmar army of carrying out a campaign of arson and killings – aimed at forcing them out of the country.

Tan told Al Jazeera that the latest figure of 87,000 Rohingya did not include refugees who had fled in previous decades or those who had set up temporary shelter in “no-man’s land”, an area between the Bangladesh and Myanmar border.

“Since the 1970s, only 34,000 Rohingya have been registered with the UN in Bangladesh,” Tan said, with “estimates of unregistered refugees in the hundreds of thousands.”

As a non-signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, Bangladesh has refused to register the Rohingya as refugees since the early 1990s, nor allowed them to lodge asylum claims.

Ro Nay San Lwin, a Rohingya activist and blogger based in Europe, said many of the refugees were struggling to accept they could ever return to their ancestral homeland.

Using a network of activists on the ground to document the conflict, San Lwin told Al Jazeera that some refugees walked seven or eight days from Buthidaung to make it to Bangladesh, while those from Maungdaw had to walk for five days.

Up to 30,000 Rohingya refugees live in Kutupalong and Nayapara, two government-run camps near Cox’s Bazar, with tens of thousands more living in makeshift camps.

“All of them are very weak, dehydrated and hungry and the Bangladesh government is not helping their situation at all.

“Unless the Bangladesh government opens the border, they’re receiving these refugees unofficially and it’s unlikely they’ll ever be able to return to their homeland officially.

Videos uploaded on social media showed dozens of men, women and children hiding in Myanmar’s jungle after security forces reportedly destroyed their village.

In a separate video, a Rohingya woman said she and her family had not eaten in days.

“We’re also hearing reports of several villages facing shortages of food,” Lwin said. “If things continue as they are people could start starving to death.”

According to the latest estimate by UN aid workers in Bangladesh, nearly 150,000 Rohingya have sought refuge in the country since October.

Rakhine is home to most of Myanmar’s 1.1 million Rohingya, who live largely in abject poverty and face widespread discrimination by the Buddhist majority.

The Muslim Rohingya are widely reviled as illegal migrants from Bangladesh, despite having lived in the area for generations.

They have been rendered stateless by the government and the UN believes the army’s crackdown may amount to ethnic cleansing – a charge the government of Aung San Suu Kyi vehemently denies.

Dhaka: The bodies of 20 Rohingya refugees, including children, were recovered from Naf River on the Bangladesh-Myanmar border after their boat capsized while they were fleeing violence in Myanmar that has forced at least 18,500 Rohingyas to seek refuge across the border.

An official said the boat carrying the Rohingyas was attempting to cross the border into Bangladesh in the Shahparirdwip area when it capsized on Wednesday night. Locals recovered the bodies from the river in Cox’s Bazar’s Teknaf on Thursday and handed them over to police, Xinhua news agency reported.

“Six bodies were found on Wednesday night and 14 more were recovered from the Bangladesh coast in the morning,” said Chailau Marma, Additional Superintendent of Police in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district.

Bangladesh security forces also detained 75 Rohingya refugees, including women and children, when they were trying to cross the border into Bangladesh, Bbnews24.com said.

The cause of the accident is under probe.

“We’re yet to find a survivor to know what exactly happened at the time and how many Rohingya people were on board the boat which it capsized in Naf River dividing Bangladesh and Myanmar,” said a police official.

The boat reportedly anchored near the Shah Porir Island of Bay of Bengal for a couple of days as the Bangladesh forces did not allow them to enter Bangladesh territory.

The International Organization for Migration said on Wednesday that over 18,000 Rohingya people fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar’s western Rakhine state amid a fresh wave of violence in the region since August 25.

According to reports, thousands of Rohingyas from Myanmar, mostly women, children and elderly people, were still waiting in no-man’s land along Bangladesh’s southeastern Naikhyangchhari border to enter Bangladesh territory.

Bangladesh, which shares about 271 km of border with Myanmar, has refused repeated local and foreign appeals to accept Rohingyas fleeing the coordinated rebel attacks on Myanmar border posts in which 100 people, including 80 insurgents and 12 members of the security forces, have been killed.

(IANS)

US disaster agency says 50 counties in Texas are affected by the flooding, as weather forecasters predict more rain.

by Al Jazeera

More than 30,000 people are expected to be placed in temporary shelters in the US state of Texas due to widespread flooding caused by Tropical Storm Harvey, US officials said, with more rain expected in the coming days.

Brock Long, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said on Monday that 50 counties in Texas are affected by the floods, which were brought about by an estimated six months-worth of rain falling in the last three days alone.

“We have not seen an event like this. You could not draw this forecast up, you could not dream this forecast up,” Long said.

Earlier, Texas Governor Greg Abbott deployed an additional 1,000 National Guard troops, on top of the 3,000 already sent in the flood-stricken state, which is the size of France, Belgium and Switzerland combined.

Texas officials said Monday that six more people are feared to have died in the Houston area as a result of the storm and flooding.

Tricia Bentley, spokeswoman for the medical examiner’s office in Harris County – which includes the city of Houston – confirmed six deaths since Sunday that are “potentially tied to Hurricane Harvey”.

She was unable to specify the cause of death, explaining that “some people may have had a medical emergency and just could not seek help because of the flooding”.

The fatalities were distinct from unconfirmed reports that a family of six had died in a van caught in floodwaters.

Three people were previously confirmed to have died after Harvey hit Texas on Friday. In Houston, a woman drowned when she left a car that had stalled in high water. Another man was found dead in a flooded Wal-Mart parking lot in Galveston County.

And one person was killed when a house caught fire in the Rockport area, where Harvey made landfall.

Al Jazeera’s Heidi Zhou-Castro, reporting from Houston, the largest city in Texas, said that in the last 48 hours, emergency agencies have received some 6,000 calls for help.

She said that between 300 to 400 households are still waiting to be reached by rescuers as of 13:00 GMT on Monday.

Our correspondent also said that the flooding is expected to rise in some parts of Houston, as authorities are expected to open dam and levies in the area, to ease pressure from continuous rain.

Al Jazeera’s weather presenter Richard Angwin reported that the “worst is probably yet to come”, saying that the storm, which is moving only at an estimated five kilometres per hour, could dump more rain in the coming days.

“We are only half-way through the rainfall,” he said.

“The storm is going nowhere very fast. It is going so slowly. There’s still a lot still coming out of it, picking up warm water in the Gulf of Mexico.”

‘Catastrophic’

In some areas just north of Houston, rainfall has already reached 1,000mm in the last three days, which our correspondent described as “catastrophic”.

Aside from the 50 counties affected in southern Texas, a portion of south-western state Louisiana was also affected by Harvey, which made landfall late on Friday as a Category 4 hurricane.

Harvey has since been downgraded to a tropical storm, but the damage it has left is extensive.

About 450,000 people are anticipated to apply for disaster assistance, which would make them eligible for financial support, possible replacement of property and other disaster-related aid.

President Donald Trump is expected to visit Texas on Tuesday, but not Houston as flooding in the US’s fourth largest city continues.

Harvey is the first major natural disaster to hit the US Trump’s presidency. On Sunday, he convened a cabinet meeting by telephone in response to the disaster.

Harvey was the fiercest hurricane to hit the country in 13 years, and the strongest to strike Texas since 1961’s Hurricane Carla, the most powerful Texas hurricane on record.

Human Rights Watch says satellite data show fires have razed 100km of land in Rakhine state in the wake of crackdown.

More than 3,000 Rohingya have arrived in Bangladesh from Myanmar [Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

Satellite data accessed by a rights body shows widespread fires burning in at least 10 areas in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, following a military crackdown on the country’s Muslim Rohingya population.

Residents and activists have have accused soldiers of shooting indiscriminately at unarmed Rohingya men, women and children and carrying out arson attacks.

However, authorities in Myanmar say close to 100 people have been killed since Friday when armed men, reportedly from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), launched a pre-dawn raid on police outposts in the restive region.

Myanmar authorities say Rohingya “extremist terrorists” have been setting the fires during fighting with government troops, while Rohingya have blamed soldiers, who have been accused of carrying out extrajudicial killings.

A government spokesperson could not be immediately reached for comment.

“The Burmese government should grant access to independent monitors to determine the sources of fires and assess allegations of human rights violations,” the Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a statement on Tuesday.

HRW said fires have razed 100km of land – an area larger than that burned during a crackdown by the Myanmar military following attacks by Rohingya fighters in October 2016, when data from the group suggested some 1,500 buildings were destroyed.

Witness statements

The locations of the fires correlate with some witness statements and media reports describing blazes deliberately set, the group said.

“This new satellite data should cause concern and prompt action by donors and UN agencies to urge the Burmese government to reveal the extent of ongoing destruction in Rakhine State,” Phil Robertson, HRW’s deputy Asia director, said in a statement.

“Shuffling all the blame on insurgents doesn’t spare the Burmese [Myanmar] government from its international obligations to stop abuses and investigate alleged violations.”

Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary-general, “is deeply concerned at the reports of civilians being killed …,” according to a statement from spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

Guterres called on Bangladesh to step up assistance to civilians escaping the violence, noting “many of those fleeing are women and children, some of whom are wounded”.

More than 3,000 Rohingya have arrived in Bangladesh from Myanmar, where the ethnic Muslim minority faces persecution, in the past three days, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said on Monday.

Bangladesh has said there are thousands more Rohingya massed on its border with Myanmar, where it has stepped up patrols and pushed back hundreds of civilians who have tried to enter.

On Monday, Bangladesh detained and forcibly returned at least 90 Rohingya refugees back to Myanmar.

About 87,000 refugees entered Bangladesh in 2016 following the military crackdown.

Ethnic cleansing

The UN believes the army’s response may amount to ethnic cleansing, allegations denied by the government of Aung San Suu Kyi and the army.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh has proposed joint military operations with Myanmar against Rohingya fighters in Rakhine state.

At the weekend, as violence in Rakhine worsened, Bangladesh’s foreign minister summoned Myanmar’s charge’d affaires in Dhaka to express “serious concern” at the possibility of a fresh refugee influx.

There are already almost 400,000 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh in squalid camps near its border with Myanmar.

In a goodwill gesture, Thai Prime Minister on Tuesday said his country was preparing to receive people fleeing fighting in Myanmar.

“Thailand’s defence ministry and security are preparing to receive various displaced people,” Prayuth Chan-ocha told reporters. “We will provide them with shelter like in the past … and send them back when they are ready.”

Rohingya refugees arrive in overcrowded camps, fearing violence after the deployment of Myanmar troops to Rakhine state.

There are nearly 400,000 Rohingya refugees living in squalid camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar [File: AFP]

by Al Jazeera

Thousands of Rohingya Muslims have crossed into Bangladesh since Myanmar announced a military buildup in violence-hit Rakhine state earlier this month, according to community leaders.

Rohingya leaders in Bangladesh told AFP news agency on Wednesday that at least 3,500 had arrived in recent weeks, piling pressure onto already overcrowded refugee camps in the Cox’s Bazaar area near the Naf river that divides the two countries.

That is despite stepped-up patrols by Bangladeshi border and coast guards, who said this week they had pushed back a boat carrying 31 Rohingya, including children.

“In the Balukhali camp alone, some 3,000 Rohingya arrived from their villages in Rakhine,” said Abdul Khaleq, referring to the camp nearest the river, where most of the migrants stay when they first arrive.

Kamal Hossain, a Rohingya elder in another, camp, said nearly 700 families had arrived in Bangladesh in the past 11 days.

Many were sleeping in the open because there was no more space in the camps, he said.

On August 12, authorities in Myanmar sent hundreds of troops into Rakhine in to boost security, drawing criticism from UN special rapporteur Yanghee Lee, who warned the deployment was “cause for major concern”.

Rakhine, in northern Myanmar, has been gripped by violence since October, when armed men attacked police posts.

Following the incident, Myanmar authorities have reportedly cracked down on the Rohingya community, which the United Nations believes may amount to ethnic cleansing of the Muslim minority group.

Deen Mohammad, another Rohingya man who entered Bangladesh on August 13, said Muslim villagers in Rakhine were not allowed to visit neighbours without prior permission from the army.

The 45-year-old farmer said he left home with his family after the army killed his 23-year-old son for travelling to a nearby village.

Report of atrocities

Details of other alleged abuse last year have been recorded by the UN, which has documented mass gang rape, killings, including of babies and children, brutal beatings and disappearances. Rohingya representatives have said approximately 400 people were slain during the security forces’ operation in October.

Myanmar launched its own probe into possible crimes in Rakhine and appointed former UN chief Kofi Annan to head a commission tasked with long-simmering divisions between Buddhists and Muslims.

On Wednesday, Annan presented his report to President Htin Kyaw in the Myanmar capital of Naypyidaw. The report is expected to be made publicly available on Thursday.

Azeem Ibrahim, a senior fellow with the Center for Global Policy, told Al Jazeera that while the likely recommendations of Annan’s report won’t be controversial, the restrictions placed on the former UN chief during his investigation have been criticised by many.

“[Annan] was not permitted to look at any of the human rights violations, which would argue are the basis for the conflict and the tensions in the Rakhine district,” Ibrahim said.

He added that those who have been sceptical of the advisory commission itself argue that it is just a way for Aung Sun Suu Kyi to “pacify the global public opinion and try to demonstrate to the international community that she is doing what she can to resolve this issue, and it was just a mechanism to get sanctions [on Myanmar] lifted”.

‘Deeply concerned’

Buddhist-majority Myanmar has long faced criticism for its treatment of the more than one million Rohingya who live in Rakhine, who are seen as interlopers from Bangladesh and are denied citizenship and access to basic rights.

Bangladesh estimates that nearly 400,000 Rohingya refugees are living in squalid refugee camps and makeshift settlements in Cox’s Bazar.

They include more than 70,000 who arrived in the months that followed the crisis in October, many bringing stories of systematic rape, murder and arson at the hands of Myanmar soldiers.

But Rohingya are also increasingly unwelcome in Muslim-majority Bangladesh, where police often blame them for crimes such as drug trafficking.

Dhaka has floated the idea of relocating tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees to a remote, flood-prone island off its coast, despite opposition from rights groups.

On Wednesday, the UN refugee agency said it was “deeply concerned” by the reports of a boat carrying Rohingya being turned back.

“UNHCR is deeply concerned by this incident, which as the coastguard reported, involved women and children who said they were fleeing violence,” an agency spokesman told AFP.

Government calls for 10,000 people to evacuate as more than 600 remain missing after devastating landslides.

Rescue workers search for survivals following a mudslides in Regent, east of Freetown, Sierra Leone Monday, Aug. 14 , 2017. Mudslides and torrential flooding killed many people in and around Sierra Leone’s capital early Monday following heavy rains, with many victims trapped in homes buried under tons of mud. (AP Photo/ Manika Kamara)

by Al Jazeera

The death toll from a devastating landslide and flooding that hit Sierra Leone earlier this week has risen to nearly 500, according to hospital officials.

More than 600 people remained missing on Sunday, with rescue officials warning that the chances of finding survivors are decreasing each day. The death toll earlier stood at 450.

One of Africa’s worst flooding-related disasters in years occurred when the side of Mount Sugar Loaf collapsed on Monday after heavy rain, burying parts of Regent town on the outskirts of the capital, Freetown.

Churches across the country held special services on Sunday in memory of those killed.

Authorities this week buried 461 bodies in quickly-dug graves in the nearby Waterloo cemetery.

Six days after the mudslide, at least 10,000 people have already been forced from their homes.

The government has called for the evacuation of another 10,000 people living on an unstable hillside in Freetown, where a large crack has opened.

‘It took everything away’

Displaced survivors have been returning to where their homes once stood to search for missing loved ones and retrieve belongings.

For some, the scenes of the catastrophe are still fresh.

“It was so strong,” Bakary Conte, a hillside resident told Al Jazeera. “It took everything away. There is nothing to save. I don’t want to live here any more. I am afraid.”

Improvised centres have been set up by aid agencies to help those affected.

Foreign aid from the rest of the world is being sent to Freetown, according to authorities.

Aid groups are providing clean water as a health crisis looms.

Shelters for those displaced are yet to be organised and for the moment, only milk and bread are being distributed to the affected community.

“We are hungry, we have nowhere to sleep, and we’ve lost our precious families,” community chief Falma Sylla told Al Jazeera.

Reporting from Freetown, Al Jazeera’s Nicolas Haque said village community leaders decide who receives aid from the relief centres.

“The centres are overrun and overcrowded and so relief workers have called on armed guards to come and bring order back,” he said.

The threat of deadly landslides is growing in parts of West and central Africa as rainfall, deforestation and urban populations rise, experts say.

On Wednesday, at least 200 people were killed in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo after a landslide swept through a fishing village on the banks of Lake Albert in Ituri province.

Calls for aid grow as fears rise for at least 600 missing people, while aid agencies warn of risk of disease.

by Al Jazeera

Sierra Leone entered a week-long mourning period for the victims of flooding that killed more than 300 people, with fears rising for at least 600 missing people.

Three days of torrential rain triggered mudslides on Monday in the Regent area of the Sierra Leonean capital, Freetown, and massive flooding elsewhere in the city, one of the world’s wettest urban areas.

The exact death toll was unclear. Rescue workers recovered almost 400 bodies, Reuters reported, citing Freetown’s chief coroner. A Red Cross official told the AFP news agency that the death toll was around 300 people on Tuesday evening.

Freetown’s drainage system was quickly overwhelmed, leaving stagnant water pooling in some areas while creating dangerous waterways that churned down steep streets.

The United Nations said on Tuesday it was evaluating the humanitarian needs in the West African country of seven million people.

“Contingency plans are being put in place to mitigate any potential outbreak of waterborne diseases such as cholera, typhoid and diarrhea,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

He said the UN country team in Sierra Leone has mobilised and is “supporting national authorities in rescue operations, helping evacuate residents, providing medical assistance to the injured, registering survivors, and providing food rations, water and dignity kits to those affected.”

He noted that the International Organization for Migration (IOM) released $150,000 in emergency funds immediately following the flooding.

Radio journalist Gibril Sesay said he lost his entire family. “I am yet to grasp that I survived, and my family is gone,” he said through sobs, unable to continue.

Ahmed Sesay, caretaker of a two-story house near the Guma Valley Dam east of the capital, said he was sleeping around 6:00 GMT when he felt a vibration.

“It was like an earthquake. I ran out of my quarters to the gate of the compound,” he said. “The ground shook and I had to stay outside the compound until daybreak,” Sesay added.

‘We have started burying’

Sulaiman Zaino Parker, an official with Freetown’s city council, said 150 burials took place on Tuesday evening and that many would be laid to rest in graves alongside victims of the country’s last humanitarian disaster, the Ebola crisis, in nearby Waterloo.

“We have started burying some of the mutilated and decomposed bodies. All the corpses will be given a dignified burial with Muslim and Christian prayers,” Parker said.

The graves would be specially marked for future identification, he added.

Earlier in the day President Ernest Bai Koroma issued a desperate appeal for help, saying the damage was “overwhelming us.”

“Entire communities have been wiped out,” Koroma said, as he fought back tears while touring one of the worst-hit areas of the city. “We need urgent support now.”

The government of Sierra Leone, one of the poorest countries in the world, has promised relief to more than 3,000 people left homeless, opening an emergency response centre in Regent and four registration centres.

The Red Cross said it was struggling to excavate families buried deep in the mud that engulfed their homes.

“We are racing against time, more flooding and the risk of disease to help these affected communities survive and cope with their loss,” said Abu Bakarr Tarawallie, a Red Cross official.