A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Tuesday, October 17, 2017
Thousands of new Rohingya refugees flee violence, hunger in Myanmar for Bangladesh
COX‘S BAZAR/YANGON (Reuters) - Hungry, destitute and scared, thousands
of new Rohingya refugees crossed the border into Bangladesh from Myanmar
early on Monday, Reuters witnesses said, fleeing hunger and attacks by
Buddhist mobs that the United Nations has called ethnic cleansing.
Wading through waist-deep water with children strapped to their sides,
the refugees told Reuters they had walked through bushes and forded
monsoon-swollen streams for days.
A seemingly never-ending flow entered Bangladesh near the village of
Palongkhali. Many were injured, with the elderly carried on makeshift
stretchers, while women balanced household items, such as pots, rice
sacks and clothing, on their heads.
”We couldn’t step out of the house for the last month because the
military were looting people,“ said Mohammad Shoaib, 29, who wore a
yellow vest and balanced jute bags of food and aluminium pots on a
bamboo pole. ”They started firing on the village. So we escaped into
another.
“Day by day, things kept getting worse, so we started moving towards
Bangladesh. Before we left, I went back near my village to see my house,
and the entire village was burnt down,” Shoaib added.
They joined about 536,000 Rohingya Muslims who have fled Myanmar since
Aug. 25, when coordinated Rohingya insurgent attacks sparked a ferocious
military response, with the fleeing people accusing security forces of
arson, killings and rape.
Myanmar rejects accusations of ethnic cleansing and has labelled the
militants from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army who launched the
attacks as terrorists, who have killed civilians and burnt villages.
The European Union said on Monday it would suspend invitations to
Myanmar’s army commander-in-chief and other senior generals “in the
light of the disproportionate use of force carried out by the security
forces”.
ANOTHER BOAT SINKS
Not everyone made it to Bangladesh alive on Monday.
Several kilometres (miles) to the south of Palongkhali, a boat carrying
scores of refugees sank at dawn, killing at least 12 and leaving 35
missing. There were 21 survivors, Bangladesh authorities said.
“So far 12 bodies, including six children and four women, have been recovered,” said police official Moinuddin Khan.
FOOD, AID RESTRICTED
Refugees who survived the perilous journey said they were driven out by
hunger because food markets in Myanmar’s western Rakhine State have been
shut and aid deliveries restricted. They also reported attacks by the
military and Rakhine Buddhist mobs.
On Monday, the Red Cross opened a field hospital as big as two football
fields, with 60 beds, three wards, an operating theatre, a delivery
suite with maternity ward and a psychosocial support unit.
Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya had already been in Bangladesh after
fleeing previous spasms of violence in Myanmar, where they have long
been denied citizenship and faced curbs on their movements and access to
basic services.
Monday’s EU move to shun further contacts with Myanmar’s army top brass
comes after officials told Reuters the European bloc and the United
States were considering targeted sanctions against military leaders.
The action announced by Brussels is largely symbolic, though the EU said it may consider further measures.
Western governments, who have invested politically in Myanmar’s
democratic transition, are wary of doing anything that would hurt the
wider economy or destabilise already tense ties between civilian leader
Aung San Suu Kyi and the military.
The powerful army chief, Min Aung Hlaing, told the United States
ambassador in Myanmar last week that the exodus of Rohingya, whom he
called non-native “Bengalis”, was exaggerated.
But despite Myanmar’s denials and assurances that aid was on its way to
the north of violence-torn Rakhine State, thousands more starving people
were desperate to leave.
“We fled from our home because we had nothing to eat in my village,”
said Jarhni Ahlong, a 28-year-old Rohingya man from the southern region
of Buthidaung, who had been stranded on the Myanmar side of the Naf for a
week, waiting to cross.
From the thousands gathered there awaiting an opportunity to escape,
about 400 paid roughly $50 each to flee on nine or 10 boats on Monday
morning, he added.