Urgent collective international action needed to protect the Rohingya (Joint Press Release)

We express our serious concern that the most brutal violence is now reoccurring in Arakan; and we strongly condemn the ongoing mass killing, burning and destruction of Muslim villages and rape of their women.

Scores of terrorized villagers fleeing in boats have reportedly been drowned; and many dead bodies are now floating in the sea and rivers. The resultant effects of the mass atrocities, in terms of human and material loss, are too great. In particular, the port city of Kyaukpyu has now been ethnically cleansed of the people of Islamic faith.

Since June, the violence in Arakan has claimed about 5000 Muslim lives, left over 100,000 of them homeless, with thousands more detained, unknown numbers wounded and tortured. “The Burmese government is NOT only failing to protect its Muslim Rohingya population” but has also been the primary force behind the systematic persecution of them. Evidently the government’s apparatus with police, army and security forces are directly involved in the killing of them and torching of their villages.

President Thein Sein told the UNHCR in July that Burma/Myanmar will not take responsibility for the Rohingya because they are not citizens and “not our ethnicity.”

As Burma is manifestly failing to protect its Rohingya population, the “responsibility to protect” them or the duty to prevent and halt genocide and mass atrocities, now lies with the international community.

We, therefore, urge upon the international community UN, OIC, EU, ASEAN, UK, US and her western allies and Burma’s neighbours to take effective collective action in time to protect the Muslim Rohingya people in Arakan, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations. Or otherwise this unprotected minority community will be wiped out.

Signatories to this joint statement:

(1) Arakan Rohingya National Organisation (ARNO)
(2) Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK (BROUK)
(3) Burmese Rohingya Association Japan (BRAJ)
(4) Burmese Rohingya Community in Australia (BRCA)
(5) Burmese Rohingya Association Deutschland (BRAD)
(6) Burmese Rohingya Association in Thailand (BRAT)
(7) Burmese Rohingya Community in Denmark ( BRCD)
(8) Burmese Rohingya Community in Netherlands (BRCNL)
(9) Rohingya League for Democracy Burma (RLDB)
(10) Rohingya Community in Norway (RCN)
(11)Rohingya Society Malaysia (RSM)

For more information, please contact:

Aman Ullah : + 880 15584 8691 

Tun Khin: + 44 (0) 788 871 4866