No permission to land Rohingya load boats in Maungdaw south

Maungdaw, Arakan State: The authority of  Maungdaw Township  didn’t allow to land the Rohingya load boats – escape from killing by Rakhine in Kyaukpru – at  Kyauk Pandu under Burma border security    (Nasaka) area  8 of Maungdaw south since yesterday, according to a village admin office member.

“The 4 Rohingyas load boats arrived at Kyauk Pandu village yesterday night, but the Nasaka personnel didn’t give permission to land in the areas and the Rohingyas are still on the boats.”
“The Nasaka personnel are not giving permission local people to give any help to boats; foods, water, fuel and medicines. In the boats, there are female and children, accompany with elderly person.”
UN official from Maungdaw with humanitarian goods of five trucks, Maungdaw district administration officer, Maungdaw Township administration officer and Nasaka Director went to Maungdaw south today morning to setup a refugee camp for Rohingyas who escape from killing by Rakhines in Kyaukpru, according to an elder from Maungdaw.
“But, the officers of Maungdaw, returned back without setting refugee camp for Kyaukpru’s Rohingyas from Oo daung and declared Refugee camp will setup at Taungbru, Maungdaw north. The boats will send to Taungbru through Naf River with security force.”
“The boats are not sent to Taungbro till reporting and the Rohingyas are kept in the boats where they have no foods, water and medicine.”
Similarly, 12 boats fully loaded with Rohingyas from Ward number 3 and Ward number 4 of Pauk Taw – whose villages were set fire three days before – are now floating on water as security did not allow them to land in Thee Chaung, Akyab. The security force fired on boats if the Rohingya tried to land, according to enlder from Thee Chaung village.
“The Rohingyas are facing serious problems of foods, water and medicines. The boats have no fuel, if they want to go other places.”
Thousands of Rakhines had set fire on four Rohingya villages in Pauk Taw Township today at about 00:30 hour. The villagers are staying without shelter; foods and water. The villages are:- Shuli Pyin village, 177 houses and 1050 persons; Kyan Pyin village,120 houses and 800 persons; Thee Ywa village,135 houses and 890 persons and Kya Ni Pyin village,320 houses and 2256 persons, according to a teacher from Pauktaw.
“The situation in Rakhine state underscores the critical need for mutual respect among all ethnic and religious groups and for serious efforts to achieve national reconciliation in Burma. We urge the people of Burma to work together towards a peaceful, prosperous and democratic country that respects the rights of its entire diverse people,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in Washington.
“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,” according to Rohingya groups’ press release, Urgent collective international action needed to protect the Rohingya on October 25,2012.
The statement also stated, “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.”
The Rohingya group 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.

Muslim Rohingyas under "vicious" attack in Myanmar: rights group

(Reuters) - A human rights group expressed concern for the safety of thousands of Muslims on Saturday after revealing satellite images of a once-thriving coastal community reduced to ashes during a week of violence in western Myanmar.

The images released by the New York-based Human Rights Watch show "near total destruction" of a predominantly Rohingya Muslim part of Kyaukpyu, one of several areas in Rakhine state where battles between Rohingyas and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists threaten to derail the former Burma's fragile democratic transition.

More than 811 buildings and houseboats were razed in Kyaukpyu on October 24, forcing many Rohingya to flee north by sea toward the state capital Sittwe, said Human Rights Watch.

"Burma's government urgently needs to provide security for the Rohingya in Arakan (Rakhine) State, who are under vicious attack," said Phil Robertson, the group's deputy Asia director. (Link to Human Rights Watch images: here related_material /2012_Burma _Satimage.pdf)

There were widespread unconfirmed reports of boatloads of Rohingyas trying to cross the sea border to neighboring Bangladesh, which has denied them refugee status since 1992.

Dozens of boats full of Rohingyas with no food or water had fled Kyaukpyu, an industrial zone important to China, and other recent hotspots were seeking access on Friday to overcrowded refugee camps around the state capital Sittwe, according to four Rohingya refugee sources.

Some boats were blocked by security forces from reaching the shore and few Rohingyas managed to reach the camps, the sources said by telephone.

Wan-lark foundation, an organization that has been assisting Rakhine Buddhist refugees, said no clashes in the state had been reported to them since Friday night, but dead bodies of Rakhines had been found.

"Around 6pm last night in Kyawtyaw, the bodies of 16 Rakhines were found in the sea. They had died during the attacks on Thursday. We're looking for more bodies," representative Tun Mein Thein said on Saturday.

The chaos suggests the reformist government is struggling to contain historic ethnic and religious tensions suppressed during nearly a half century of military rule that ended last year.

A Rakhine government spokesman put the death toll at 112 as of Friday. But within hours state media revised it to 67 killed from October 21 to 25, with 95 wounded and nearly 3,000 houses destroyed.

DEATH TOLL "UNDERESTIMATED"

The death toll could be far higher, said Human Rights Watch, citing "allegations from witnesses fleeing scenes of carnage and the government's well-documented history of underestimating figures that might lead to criticism of the state."

The clashes come just five months after communal unrest killed more than 80 people and displaced at least 75,000 in the same region.

A boat carrying 120 Muslims from Kyaukpyu was intercepted by Rakhines, who killed the men and raped the women, the advocacy group Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK said in a statement. This claim could not be verified.

"Ethnic cleansing is happening under the noses of the international community and they are doing nothing," said Tun Khin, the group's president. "We have confirmed reports that hundreds of people have been killed and the government must be aware of that."

Kyaukpyu is crucial to China's most strategic investment in Myanmar: twin pipelines that will carry oil and natural gas through the town on the Bay of Bengal to China's energy-hungry western provinces.

The United Nations has warned that Myanmar's fledgling democracy could be "irreparably damaged" by the violence.

Rohingyas are officially stateless. Buddhist-majority Myanmar's government regards the estimated 800,000 Rohingyas in the country as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, and not as one of the country's 135 official ethnic groups, and denies them citizenship.

But many of those expelled from Kyaukpyu are not Rohingya but Muslims from the officially recognized Kaman minority, said Chris Lewa, director of the Rohingya advocacy group, Arakan Project. "It's not just anti-Rohingya violence anymore, it's anti-Muslim," she said.

It was unclear what set off the latest arson and killing that started on Sunday. In June, tension flared after the rape and murder of a Buddhist woman that was blamed on Muslims, but there was no obvious spark this time.

Rights groups such as Amnesty International have called on Myanmar to amend or repeal a 1982 citizenship law to end the Rohingyas' stateless condition.

(Reporting by Reuters staff reporters; Writing by Andrew R.C. Marshall; Editing by Jonathan Thatcher)