Authorities use two laws to two communities in one place for Cyclone Mahasem

Maungdaw, Arakan State: The high officials from Maungdaw are preparing to move to the safe place only Buddhist community from Maungdaw south starting at noon on May 14, according to an official from Maungdaw admin office.

“The high officials ordered to the security force to arrange vehicles to transport the Buddhist community from Maungdaw south who are living near the mountainside to Maungdaw and will keep them in the monasteries and high school, but no plan for Muslim Rohingya –living near the Bay of Bengal and riverside.”
The concerned authority also arranged to transport the Buddhists – Natala villagers from Maungdaw north - to Maungdaw where the authority arranged the safe house, according to an admin officer from Maungdaw north.
The Rakhine State Parliament member Mra Aung called a meeting at district admin office to discuss how to prevent the civilians from Cyclone Mahasen but decided to save only Buddhist not the Muslim Rohingya at meeting.
The Rakhine community from Maungdaw are giving registration for getting shelter during the cyclone to the authority where they will get rations and medical assess, but concerned authority had not informed to Rohingya for shelter, said Annu, a trader from Maungdaw.
We don’t want to move to safe place during the cyclone as we are not getting any rights from authority as a human being, why we move like other people, we will die at our place, more Rohingya said when asked to move safe place.
Today, evening, Army personnel from Maungdaw south announced to Rohingya community to move safe places but no mention where they (Rohingya) will go for safety. No instruction for cyclone safety process, according to an elder from Maungdaw south. 
Isabelle Arradon, deputy Asia Pacific director of Amnesty International - a rights group-, said in a statement on May 13, "The government has been repeatedly warned to make appropriate arrangements for those displaced in Rakhine (Arakan) state."
"Now thousands of lives are at stake unless targeted action is taken immediately to assist those most at risk." 140,000 displaced people are living in makeshift shelters in Arakan, most of them-Rohingya Muslin, according to aid groups
Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said that if the government failed to evacuate those at risk, "any disaster that results will not be natural but man-made".
But some people have reportedly refused to leave because they fear having nowhere else to go. "We are very worried about the cyclone... we do not have enough food to eat," a Rohingya told Agence-France Presse news agency.
"Many people are in trouble. But we have no idea what we should do."
Some of the IDPs are reportedly afraid of the security personnel in charge of the relocations in some of the sites. Vulnerable families and individuals should be prioritized. Temporary relocation and evacuation of IDPs to safer locations must not result in forced returns nor further exacerbate vulnerabilities, according to OCHA report on May 13.
“Humanitarian agencies have reminded the authorities that keeping families together during the evacuation is essential.”
A boat carrying about 100 Rohingya Muslims capsized- struck rocks off Pauktaw township in Arakan State and sank- on May 13 ,with many feared drowned at the start of a mass evacuation from low-lying regions ahead of Cyclone Mahasen, Barbara Manzi, head of the Myanmar office at the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA),according to Reuters.
Eight bodies have been found so far, and more than 50 other people who were aboard are feared dead, said James Munn, an official of OCHA.

Vessels with 200 Rohingya Muslims evacuating camps ahead of storm sink, leaving only one survivor, say UN officials.

Thousands of people have been moved from low-lying camps to safer shelter ahead of Cyclone Mahasen 

 

 

Boats carrying about 200 Rohingya Muslims who were evacuating ahead of a storm have capsized off western Myanmar, killing all but one person, UN officials have said.

The vessels hit trouble on Monday night after leaving Pauktaw township in Rakhine state, said a spokeswoman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

"They were travelling to another camp ahead of the cyclone," the spokeswoman added.
Kirsten Mildren, who works for the same UN agency, told Al Jazeera there was only one confirmed survivor from Monday's accident.

The victims were trying to escape Cyclone Mahasen which is expected on Thursday and Friday. The UN has warned the storm could lead to "life-threatening conditions".

Al Jazeera's Everton Fox explains the weather impact of Tropical Cyclone Mahasen

Myanmar state television said on Monday that thousands of people displaced by communal violence last year had been evacuated from makeshift camps to safer ground in the event of the storm.
The report said authorities had moved 5,158 people from low-lying camps in the Rakhine state capital, Sittwe, to safer shelter.
But human rights groups said that the government has been too slow to act, and ignored earlier warnings to provide shelter to displaced people.
"The Burmese government didn't heed the repeated warnings by governments and humanitarian aid groups to relocate displaced Muslims ahead of Burma’s rainy season," said Brad Adams, Human Rights Watch Asia director.
"If the government fails to evacuate those at risk, any disaster that results will not be natural, but man-made," he said.
'Extremely vulnerable' 
Al Jazeera's Wayne Hay, reporting from Sittwe, said: "The eye of the storm is not expected to hit Myanmar, but the people in camps - home to more than 100,000 - are extremely vulnerable to conditions we may see over the next few days."
"These include strong winds, heavy rains and a possible surge from the ocean of up to 1.5 metres. The local government has been moving people ... but people in camps aren't trusting what they are trying to get them to do. Some say they are being asked to move to more dangerous places," our correspondent said.
The state television report said displaced people were moved in 10 other townships in western Myanmar where communal violence flared last year between Muslims and Buddhists, taking hundreds of lives and leaving more than 100,000 people homeless. It did not give the number of people evacuated in those locations.
Myanmar is a predominantly Buddhist country but about 5 percent of its 60 million people are Muslims. They face a growing anti-Muslim campaign led by radical Buddhist monks.

Preparations
Cyclone Mahasen is expected to hit neighbouring Bangladesh on Thursday or Friday.
Images taken by NASA's Aqua satellite on Monday showed the storm's centre northeast of Sri Lanka with it packing winds of up to 50 knots (92km per hour). Those winds are expected to increase to 130km per hour as the storm moves north.
The space agency said it "sees a strengthening" of the storm and forecasts an upgrade to a Cyclone 1 level by Wednesday.
"The current forecast track ... takes the centre of Mahasen just north of Chittagong early on May 17 and into northern Burma," it said.

Officials in the Bangladeshi town of Cox's Bazar near the border with Myanmar said medical teams with as many as 30,000 Red Crescent volunteers were being formed.
In eastern India, authorities put 10 coastal districts on alert.
In 2008, Cyclone Nargis killed more than 130,000 people in Myanmar.
In 2007, Cyclone Sidr, packing winds of up to 240km per hour, left at least 3,500 people dead, levelled thousands of homes and forced the evacuation of 650,000 villagers in Bangladesh's southwest coast.