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More than a dozen Rohingya die when boat capsizes off Myanmar coast

May 23, 2022/in News

About 90 people, including women and children, were aboard the boat heading to Malaysia More than a dozen people, including women and children, died on Saturday when a boat carrying at least 90 Rohingya from western Myanmar’s Rakhine state to Malaysia capsized and sank in the Bay of Bengal during a storm, Myanmar residents and […]

Junta armed forces target villages along Irrawaddy River in central Myanmar arson campaign

May 23, 2022/in News

Raids lead to the widespread destruction of communities, including their religious centres, from Katha to Myaung The Myanmar army set fire to multiple villages along stretches of the Irrawaddy River running through Sagaing Region in recent days, destroying hundreds of homes and buildings of religious and historic significance. A military operation that started along the […]

More than a dozen Rohingya die when boat capsizes off Myanmar coast

May 23, 2022/in News

Junta armed forces target villages along Irrawaddy River in central Myanmar arson campaign

May 23, 2022/in News

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More than a dozen Rohingya die when boat capsizes off Myanmar coast

May 23, 2022/in News

About 90 people, including women and children, were aboard the boat heading to Malaysia

More than a dozen people, including women and children, died on Saturday when a boat carrying at least 90 Rohingya from western Myanmar’s Rakhine state to Malaysia capsized and sank in the Bay of Bengal during a storm, Myanmar residents and rescue workers said.

The passengers, refugees from deadly crackdowns on Rohingya Muslims by Myanmar troops that have driven nearly a million people into camps in Rakhine and neighboring Bangladesh, had paid U.S. $1,500-2,500 each to traffickers to take them to Malaysia, where they hoped to find employment, some of the Rohingya survivors told RFA.

More than 50 other passengers remain missing, and more than 20 survivors, mostly men, have been detained by local authorities at the Shwe Thaung Yan township police station in Pathein district of Ayeyarwady region, the sources said.

“Ninety people were said to be on the boat, 23 were arrested, and 14 dead bodies have been found so far, most of them children around 11 or 12 years of age,” said a Shwe Thaung Yan resident who declined to be named for safety reasons.

RFA has not been able to independently confirm the figures.

Seven bodies were recovered after they washed ashore Sunday near the popular Shwe Thaung Yan beach, local rescue workers said. Six others were found earlier in the afternoon in the Wetlet area, and another body washed up on the shore in Shwe Thaung Yan’s ward No. 1.

The bodies were not found on the resort side of the beach, one local said.

One rescue worker said the bodies were buried Sunday night with the help of Muslim religious leaders from Pathein.

“The bodies were buried yesterday,” he said. “The leaders of their religious group came and buried them. We found another dead body in Shwe Thaung Yan No. 1 ward at about 5.30 p.m. The Muslim leaders buried it too. They came from Pathein.”

The passengers were trying to reach Malaysia from displacement camps in Rakhine’s Sittwe, Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships, locals said.

The ward administrator said that the traffickers and some people about 20 years of age were found alive.

“The single body found in our ward was that of a 10-year-old girl,” he said.

He speculated that the boat may have been sunk in a cyclone.

“The sea around here is very scary. Storms come unannounced sometimes,” he said.

Traffickers apprehended

Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, spokesman for Myanmar’s ruling junta, said that the boat capsized about five nautical miles west of Thapyay Hmaw Island near Shwe Thaung Yan.

“A search was carried out and found 14 Bengalis dead. The rest will be deported as usual,” he said.

Authorities captured five “suspects” in Shwe Thaung Yan’s Thae Gone village at about 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, Zaw Min Tun said.

“We checked them and found them to be human traffickers. They were bringing these Bengalis from [Rakhine’s] Rathedaung [township] by boat to go to Yangon and then to Malaysia,” he said, using a derogatory term for Rohingya, who in Myanmar are considered illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

In addition to tens of thousands of Muslim refugees in Rakhine, more than 740,000 Rohingya have been sheltering since a 2017 crackdown at refugee camps in southeastern Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar, where they are fenced in and not allowed to work outside their confines.

Rohingya in the camps and those still in western Myanmar pay traffickers to transport them to Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand to find work and a better life. Groups of Rohingya have also packed into boats and sailed off in search of asylum in other countries, often only to be denied entry.

Tin Hlaing from the Rohingya displacement camp in Thetkeibyin village, Sittwe township, said many have tried to leave Myanmar with the help of traffickers, which in most cases has not ended well.

“They left because there are a lot of difficulties in the refugee camps here,” he said. “About 90% of them had financial problems. Jobs are scarce. In some cases, children have grown up. … That’s why they leave.”

The Rohingya often ignore warnings of camp administrators about the risks of paying traffickers to transport them, Tin Hlaing said.

“About 35 out of 100 people make it,” he said. “They have to pay a lot of money to the traffickers and now they are losing their lives.”

“The latest tragedy shows once again the sense of desperation being felt by Rohingya in Myanmar and in the region,” Indrika Ratwatte, director of the regional bureau for Asia and the Pacific at the U.N.’s refugee agency (UNHCR), said in a statement issued Monday. “It is shocking to see increasing numbers of children, women and men embarking on these dangerous journeys and eventually losing their lives.”

At least 1,000 Rohingya have left internal displacement camps in Rakhine’s Buthidaung, Maungdaw and Sittwe township s every year in an effort to eke out a living elsewhere. They usually must pay traffickers 3 million-5 million kyats (U.S. $1,600-2,700) per person to be smuggled.

Nay San Lwin, co-founder of the Rohingya Liberation Coalition, said Rohingya hoping for a better future in Malaysia have been repeatedly deceived by traffickers

“People are not allowed to travel, [and] their working rights are restricted, so they try to flee, thinking that if they go to Malaysia, they will find a brighter future,” he said.

RFA could not reach Maung Maung Than, social affairs minister of Ayeyarwady region, for comment.

Myanmar police arrested 41 Rohingya in Shwe Taung Yan’s Nwe Nyo Chaung village on March 22 after their boat broke down and was stranded on the beach.

Translated by Khin Maung Nyane for RFA’s Myanmar Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

RFA News

Junta armed forces target villages along Irrawaddy River in central Myanmar arson campaign

May 23, 2022/in News

Raids lead to the widespread destruction of communities, including their religious centres, from Katha to Myaung

The Myanmar army set fire to multiple villages along stretches of the Irrawaddy River running through Sagaing Region in recent days, destroying hundreds of homes and buildings of religious and historic significance.

A military operation that started along the eastern shore of the Irrawaddy River on May 16 in Katha and Htigyaing escalated within three days to a May 19 clash with resistance forces near the village of Thapyay Thar in Katha, according to local sources.

Immediately following the battle, the junta troops in the area proceeded to torch Thapyay Thar—the extent of damage to which was not known—as well as the neighbouring village of Inn, where a mosque was demolished.
Inn_village.jpg

Houses burn in Inn village in Katha Township on May 19 (Supplied)

“There’s nothing left of the mosque. They even destroyed the house of the imam’s family in the mosque compound,” an Inn resident told Myanmar Now.

That afternoon, the military fired a 60mm artillery shell west from Inn village which landed one mile away on a monastery in Pay Lan Kone, according to an officer from the People’s Defence Force (PDF) chapter from Takaung. The township is also located on the Irrawaddy’s eastern shore but in Mandalay Region, and its PDF has been fighting the junta in the area alongside guerrilla forces from Katha and Htigyaing.

“The shell fell through the roof, onto the floor, and then detonated,” the PDF officer said of the artillery that hit the Pay Lan Kone monastery’s dining hall.

Seven novices aged 12 and under were injured when the shell exploded, and the mother of one of the young monks was also killed, he told Myanmar Now.

“It fell right on the table where the mother and her novice son were sitting, and they both suffered injuries to their legs,” the PDF officer explained. “We were able to save the young novice but his mother bled to death on her way to the hospital, about one hour after the shell exploded.”
Novice.jpg

A novice injured in an artillery explosion at a monastery in Katha Township is seen undergoing emergency treatment on May 19 (Supplied)

The injured boys were taken to the Shwegu Township hospital in Kachin State, more than 30 miles away.

Over the weekend, another junta column of around 100 troops overran Min Tan, a village in Sagaing’s southern Myaung Township, also on the banks of the Irrawaddy River. The soldiers reportedly set fire to 100 of the community’s 400 homes and several buildings of cultural and religious significance.

The military unit arrived late Saturday afternoon and until midnight systematically torched houses, pagodas, and at least three community halls, including one made from teak and dating back to the 1940s, multiple locals told Myanmar Now.

“We tried to get close to the village to put out the fires but they shot at anything that was moving,” a resident said, adding that three other villagers who had been trapped in Min Tan had managed to escape safely.
Katha_myaung.png

Map of Min Tan village in Myaung Township and Inn and Thapyay Thar villages in Katha Township (Myanmar Now)

Citing their eyewitness accounts, he told Myanmar Now that the soldiers had been deliberate in perpetrating the arson, and appeared to “take their time” in ensuring the buildings would burn.

A member of the Myaung PDF questioned why Min Tan had been targeted, noting that there had been no clashes around the village.

“It was not this bad in other villages, because the villagers were able to put out the fire as soon as the soldiers left,” the resistance fighter said, adding that the troops stayed until Sunday morning. “We couldn’t do the same as they didn’t leave for a long time. The defence forces were not even able to focus on fighting back as we had to deal with the fire first.”

He also described the arson as systematic, and said that the junta troops stole livestock and food from Min Tan during the attack.

The column went on to carry out a similar assault on the neighbouring village of Anyun, but the damage to the community was not yet confirmed at the time of reporting. The junta has also cut off internet access to the township.

Recent military raids on southern Myaung villages began on May 17, and have caused the destruction of more than 200 homes in some seven communities, according to the Civilians’ Defence and Security Organisation of Myaung (CDSOM).

They also extended into Yesagyo, where more than 140 homes were burned by junta forces, locals said.

“It’s become apparent that the military is preparing for a war. This column was fully equipped with weapons that the previous ones did not have. They even had [phone] signal jammers,” CDSOM spokesperson Nway Oo told Myanmar Now.

According to a May 1 report published by Data for Myanmar, more than 10,000 homes have been destroyed by the military since the February 2021 coup nationwide; half were in Sagaing.

The military council has repeatedly denied responsibility for such attacks, instead blaming resistance forces for the arson.

Myanmar Now News

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ND-Burma formed in 2004 in order to provide a way for Burma human rights organizations to collaborate on the human rights documentation process. The 13 ND-Burma member organizations seek to collectively use the truth of what communities in Burma have endured to advocate for justice for victims. ND-Burma trains local organizations in human rights documentation; coordinates members’ input into a common database using Martus, a secure open-source software; and engages in joint-advocacy campaigns.

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