Dhaka hopes UNHCR, HRW would help restore peace in Myanmar
Bangladesh wished on Wednesday that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) will put their respective efforts to restore peace in sectarian strife-torn western Myanmar, officials said.
Meanwhile, violence continued in the main towns of Sittwe and Maungdaw, near Bangladesh border on Wednesday, according to intelligence reports collected by the Border Guard of Bangladesh (BGB) in Dhaka.
In the meantime BGB has pushed back some five boats with more than 120 people, who were detained overnight for docking at the bank of the Naf river.
Before being pushed back the refugees on board were served with cooked and dry foods and some medicines by local charity groups in cooperation of BGB personnel, reporters and photographers told the FE from the spot over telephone.
"Our highest political level hopes that the UNHCR and the HRW will dwell on the authorities in Myanmar so that no further killing and persecution of minority Rohingyas take place in Rakhine state," a senior official at the Prime Minister's Office told the FE.
The official said so when asked to comment on a world's leading rights group that called upon Bangladesh government to open up its border in order to give shelter to Rohingyas fleeing mayhem in the nearby Rakhine state, formerly Arakan.
The HRW called upon Bangladesh on Wednesday, a day after the UNHCR made a similar call to shelter Rohingya refugees fleeing an ongoing sectarian violence in their ancestral home.
Meanwhile Foreign Minister Dipu Moni reiterated on Wednesday that her government hoped that there would be no trans-boundary spill-over of the ongoing violence in western Myanmar.
"We hope that Myanmar will be able to control the violence between Muslims and Buddhists in Rakhine state and save the lives and properties of its people," she told reporters.
The HRW made the call after Bangladesh refused on Tuesday to allow further entry of Rohingya as the country had been hosting tens of thousands of the refugees who had crossed into Bangladesh over the past decades.
"Bangladesh has an obligation under international law to keep its border open to people fleeing threats to their lives and provide them protection," Bill Frelick, refugee program director at the Human Rights Watch said in a statement issued from HRW headquarters in New York.
Earlier on Tuesday UNHCR urged Bangladesh to provide shelter to Rohingyas fleeing mayhem in the Rakhine state, on humanitarian grounds.
Meanwhile dozens of more boats loaded with Rohingyas have been spotted in river Naf and its estuary in the Bay of Bengal as violence continued in Rakhine state, Bangladeshi fishermen who returned to the shore told reporters at Teknaf and Shahparirdwip on Wednesday.
"More people are becoming internal refugees within Rakhine state as Rohingyas fearing arrest and harassment in Bangladesh are stranded there," Ms Jing Song, spokesperson of UNHCR in Dhaka told the FE.
The UNHCR are arranging relief for the internal refugees including Rakhine Buddhists there, Jing added.
Meanwhile killing, torching homes and looting continued in Rakhine state mainly in Maungdaw, near Bangladesh border on Wednesday, a report of Kaladan Press Network, a news agency run by Rohingyas in exile said.
However major global news agencies said situation in Sittwe, also known as Akyab, was calmer on Wednesday as soldiers and riot police patrolled the streets to enforce a state of emergency after days of sectarian violence in which at least 25 people had been killed.
Bangladesh has been a shelter for Rohingyas for decades as they found it a safe haven in the wake of repeated sectarian mayhem in Rakhine state.
Rohingyas, often labelled by officials as "economic refugees," destroyed vast areas of forest land during their temporary settlement and became an economic bane for Bangladesh.
According to police, the refugees also create law and order problem by indulging in social and moral crime including human trafficking.
With the connivance of unscrupulous officials some of the Rohingyas, who look like locals in appearance and speak in almost identical dialect, manage Bangladeshi passports and even enrol themselves as voters creating extra socio-political hazards.
According to unofficial estimates, nearly 400,000 unregistered Rohingya refugees are scattered in Bangladesh especially in southeast Cox's Bazar and Bandarban districts.
These unregistered Rohingyas are in addition to some 30,000 registered Rohingyas, who have been awaiting repatriation in two refugee camps at Kutupalong and Nayapara under Cox's Bazar district run by the government of Bangladesh and the UNHCR.
The inmates of these two camps are the remnants of some 250,000 Rohingya refugees who had crossed into Bangladesh in late 1991 alleging persecution by Myanmar's military junta.
These Rohingyas declined to return home fearing further persecution in Myanmar, although the others returned over the last two decades, following intervention of Bangladesh and the UNHCR.
The ongoing violence sparked early this month after a Buddhist woman had allegedly been raped and murdered in Taungup of Rakhine state.
A mob of hundreds of people attacked a bus, believing the perpetrators were on board, and beat 10 Muslims to death, on June 3.
Meanwhile, violence continued in the main towns of Sittwe and Maungdaw, near Bangladesh border on Wednesday, according to intelligence reports collected by the Border Guard of Bangladesh (BGB) in Dhaka.
In the meantime BGB has pushed back some five boats with more than 120 people, who were detained overnight for docking at the bank of the Naf river.
Before being pushed back the refugees on board were served with cooked and dry foods and some medicines by local charity groups in cooperation of BGB personnel, reporters and photographers told the FE from the spot over telephone.
"Our highest political level hopes that the UNHCR and the HRW will dwell on the authorities in Myanmar so that no further killing and persecution of minority Rohingyas take place in Rakhine state," a senior official at the Prime Minister's Office told the FE.
The official said so when asked to comment on a world's leading rights group that called upon Bangladesh government to open up its border in order to give shelter to Rohingyas fleeing mayhem in the nearby Rakhine state, formerly Arakan.
The HRW called upon Bangladesh on Wednesday, a day after the UNHCR made a similar call to shelter Rohingya refugees fleeing an ongoing sectarian violence in their ancestral home.
Meanwhile Foreign Minister Dipu Moni reiterated on Wednesday that her government hoped that there would be no trans-boundary spill-over of the ongoing violence in western Myanmar.
"We hope that Myanmar will be able to control the violence between Muslims and Buddhists in Rakhine state and save the lives and properties of its people," she told reporters.
The HRW made the call after Bangladesh refused on Tuesday to allow further entry of Rohingya as the country had been hosting tens of thousands of the refugees who had crossed into Bangladesh over the past decades.
"Bangladesh has an obligation under international law to keep its border open to people fleeing threats to their lives and provide them protection," Bill Frelick, refugee program director at the Human Rights Watch said in a statement issued from HRW headquarters in New York.
Earlier on Tuesday UNHCR urged Bangladesh to provide shelter to Rohingyas fleeing mayhem in the Rakhine state, on humanitarian grounds.
Meanwhile dozens of more boats loaded with Rohingyas have been spotted in river Naf and its estuary in the Bay of Bengal as violence continued in Rakhine state, Bangladeshi fishermen who returned to the shore told reporters at Teknaf and Shahparirdwip on Wednesday.
"More people are becoming internal refugees within Rakhine state as Rohingyas fearing arrest and harassment in Bangladesh are stranded there," Ms Jing Song, spokesperson of UNHCR in Dhaka told the FE.
The UNHCR are arranging relief for the internal refugees including Rakhine Buddhists there, Jing added.
Meanwhile killing, torching homes and looting continued in Rakhine state mainly in Maungdaw, near Bangladesh border on Wednesday, a report of Kaladan Press Network, a news agency run by Rohingyas in exile said.
However major global news agencies said situation in Sittwe, also known as Akyab, was calmer on Wednesday as soldiers and riot police patrolled the streets to enforce a state of emergency after days of sectarian violence in which at least 25 people had been killed.
Bangladesh has been a shelter for Rohingyas for decades as they found it a safe haven in the wake of repeated sectarian mayhem in Rakhine state.
Rohingyas, often labelled by officials as "economic refugees," destroyed vast areas of forest land during their temporary settlement and became an economic bane for Bangladesh.
According to police, the refugees also create law and order problem by indulging in social and moral crime including human trafficking.
With the connivance of unscrupulous officials some of the Rohingyas, who look like locals in appearance and speak in almost identical dialect, manage Bangladeshi passports and even enrol themselves as voters creating extra socio-political hazards.
According to unofficial estimates, nearly 400,000 unregistered Rohingya refugees are scattered in Bangladesh especially in southeast Cox's Bazar and Bandarban districts.
These unregistered Rohingyas are in addition to some 30,000 registered Rohingyas, who have been awaiting repatriation in two refugee camps at Kutupalong and Nayapara under Cox's Bazar district run by the government of Bangladesh and the UNHCR.
The inmates of these two camps are the remnants of some 250,000 Rohingya refugees who had crossed into Bangladesh in late 1991 alleging persecution by Myanmar's military junta.
These Rohingyas declined to return home fearing further persecution in Myanmar, although the others returned over the last two decades, following intervention of Bangladesh and the UNHCR.
The ongoing violence sparked early this month after a Buddhist woman had allegedly been raped and murdered in Taungup of Rakhine state.
A mob of hundreds of people attacked a bus, believing the perpetrators were on board, and beat 10 Muslims to death, on June 3.
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