Burmese refugees in China
Individual Documents
Sub-title:
UN figures show number of those attempting to escape horrendous conditions in refugee camps increased from 700 in 2021 to over 3,500 in 2022
Description:
"The number of Rohingya refugees taking dangerous sea journeys in the hope of reaching Malaysia or Indonesia has surged by 360%, the UN has announced after hundreds of refugees were left stranded at the end of last year.
Rohingya in Bangladesh refugee camps have warned that human smugglers have ramped up operations and are constantly searching for people to fill boats from Myanmar and Bangladesh headed for Malaysia, where people believe they can live more freely.
More than 3,500 Rohingya boarded boats in 2022 compared with 700 the year before, reviving a route between the Bay of Bengal and southeast Asia which was used to move thousands of Rohingya until 2015, when the discovery of mass graves in Thailand forced a crackdown.
Shabia Mantoo, a UNHCR spokesperson, said smugglers are using “false promises and false hope” to lure desperate people, and that regional governments need to act to prevent trafficking and protect any Rohingya who arrive on their shores.
She said: “Calls by UNHCR to maritime authorities in the region to rescue and disembark people in distress have been ignored or have gone unheeded, with many boats adrift for weeks.”
Since 2017, more than a million Rohingya have lived in refugee camps in Bangladesh after fleeing massacres by the Myanmar military, while those still in Myanmar are frequently arrested when travelling beyond their districts. Several boats were left adrift during the last two months of 2022, with governments not responding to distress calls, leaving Indonesian fishers to rescue 450 people. Another boat with 100 Rohingya was rescued by the Sri Lankan navy.
Zahid Hossain, a Rohingya teacher, said two of his friends were on a boat of 180 people that the UN believes capsized last month. Like him, both spent most of their lives in Bangladesh after their families fled Myanmar in the early 1990s, and were active in volunteering for NGOs.
“They left the camp to seek a better life, and hoping in Malaysia there might be an opportunity for them and their families to build a future for their children. This long-lasting refugee life of 31 years has become an unbearable, poisoned life for them,” he said.
“I found out about their drowning when I heard voice notes sent to us from another boat nearby that reached Indonesia after a bad storm.”
Ali Kabir, an anti-trafficking campaigner who lives near the camps, said the problem was not being taken seriously, and people-smugglers have freely recruited and moved refugees without police action. “There are lot of people being moved, and sometimes when we tell them [the police] they don’t care – they say these people have become a burden.”
Kabir said refugees are often held on boats while ransoms are demanded from their families, adapting a previous strategy of holding people in jungle camps which continued until Thailand discovered mass Rohingya graves in 2015.
“The systems change, the routes change. Now there aren’t mass graves – they die at sea. The sea became the graveyard for them.”
Rohingya people have complained that violent armed gangs are becoming increasingly powerful inside the camps. In a report on Tuesday, Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused Bangladesh’s Armed Police Battalion, assigned to tackle insecurity in the camps, of arbitrary arrests, harassment and extortion.
“Abuses by police in the Cox’s Bazar camps have left Rohingya refugees suffering at the hands of the very forces who are supposed to protect them,” said Shayna Bauchner, Asia researcher at HRW..."
Source/publisher:
"The Guardian" (UK)
Date of publication:
2023-01-19
Date of entry/update:
2023-01-19
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Discrimination against the Rohingya, Burmese refugees in China, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.)
Language:
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Description:
"since June 2011, renewed fighting between the
Burmese military and the Kachin Independence
Army (KIA) in northern Burma has driven an
estimated 75,000 ethnic Kachin from their homes.
Many have fled abuses by the Burmese army,
including attacks on Kachin villages, killings and
rape, and the use of abusive forced labor. About
65,000 have stayed inside Burma, where they
remain at risk. At least another 7,000-10,000
have sought refuge across the border in Yunnan
Province in southwestern China....In the months immediately following the June 2011 outbreak
of renewed hostilities between the Burmese army
and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), some displaced
Kachin were denied entry into China or forcibly
returned to Burma, which put them at great risk and created
a pervasive fear of forced return among the Kachin
refugees who remain in Yunnan. Despite Chinese government
claims to the contrary, refugees in Yunnan told
Human Rights Watch they had received no humanitarian
assistance from the government and major humanitarian
agencies have had no access to the refugees since
they began arriving in June 2011. The refugees are scattered
across more than a dozen makeshift settlements
lacking adequate shelter, food, potable water, sanitation,
and basic health care. Most children have no access to
schools. Needing to work to provide for their families,
they are vulnerable to abuses by local employers, and have been subject to arbitrary drug testing and prolonged
detention by the Chinese authorities..."
Source/publisher:
Human Rights Watch (HRW)
Date of publication:
2012-06-00
Date of entry/update:
2012-07-03
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Burmese refugees in China
Language:
English
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Description:
?When Burmese President Thein Sein took office in March 2011, he said that over 60 years of armed conflict have put Burma?s
ethnic populations through ?the hell of untold miseries.? Just three months later, the Burmese armed forces resumed military
operations against the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), leading to serious abuses and a humanitarian crisis affecting tens of
thousands of ethnic Kachin civilians.
?Untold Miseries?: Wartime Abuses and Forced Displacement in Kachin State is based on over 100 interviews in Burma?s Kachin
State and China?s Yunnan province. It details how the Burmese army has killed and tortured civilians, raped women, planted
antipersonnel landmines, and used forced labor on the front lines, including children as young as 14-years-old. Soldiers have
attacked villages, razed homes, and pillaged properties. Burmese authorities have failed to authorize a serious relief effort in
KIA-controlled areas, where most of the 75,000 displaced men, women, and children have sought refuge. The KIA has also been
responsible for serious abuses, including using child soldiers and antipersonnel landmines.
Human Rights Watch calls on the Burmese government to support an independent international mechanism to investigate
violations of international human rights and humanitarian law by all parties to Burma?s ethnic armed conflicts. The government
should also provide United Nations and humanitarian agencies unhindered access to all internally displaced populations, and
make a long-term commitment with humanitarian agencies to authorize relief to populations in need.?
Source/publisher:
Human Rights Watch
Date of publication:
2012-03-19
Date of entry/update:
2012-03-20
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
Internal displacement/forced migration of Kachin, Armed conflict in Kachin State - displacement and the humanitarian situation, Armed conflict in Kachin State - hostilities, Armed conflict in Kachin State - human rights violations, Armed conflict in Kachin State - economic factors associated with the conflict, Discrimination against the Kachin, Discrimination/violence against women: reports of violations in Burma, Armed conflict, adminstration, development and investment, Burmese refugees in China
Language:
English
Format :
pdf
Size:
1.72 MB
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