Saturday, May 16, 2015

Why are so many Rohingya migrants stranded at sea?

There are believed to be several thousand Myanmar migrants in boats off the coasts of Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia with dwindling supplies of food and water, and not wanted by any of these countries.

Successive Myanmar governments have been introducing policies to repress the Rohingya since the 1960s, according to Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK (Brouk). They argue that Rohingyas are not a genuine ethnic group but Bengali migrants who represent a divisive leftover from colonial times.

They are denied basic services and their movements are severely restricted. The repression of the Rohingyas has gradually intensified since the process of reforms introduced by President Thein Sein in 2011, Brouk says. In June and October 2012 there were large scale attacks on Rohingyas in Rakhine State.

In addition, the government in March revoked white cards - or "temporary registration certificates" - that had been issued to hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas. This meant that they no longer have the right to vote in upcoming elections in November.

So inflammatory is the Rohingya issue that opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been criticised for failing to raise it. Full story...

Related posts:
  1. Aung San Suu Kyi: complicity with tyranny...
  2. Rohingyas risk lives to escape from Myanmar...
  3. 100,000 minority Rohingya Muslims flee persecution in Myanmar...
  4. Rohingyas: These aren’t refugee camps, they’re concentration camps, and...
  5. Death stalks Rohingyas as Myanmar cuts off aid...
  6. Rohingyas: Questions raised as Myanmar wraps up census...
  7. Burma’s Muslims are facing incredibly harsh curbs on marriage, childbirth...
  8. Ethnic ceansing of the Rohingya people: Genocide in Myanmar?

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