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Rescued From Execution, Fathers Weep For Their Sons in Myanmar

March 15, 2024/in News

Their hands were bound tightly behind their backs for the night. They heard they were going to be executed the next morning. U Maung Khin Swe recalls a junta officer ordering his men to kill him and nine other civilians captured by retreating junta troops in Rakhine State’s Minbya Township for use as porters and […]

UN seeking more than $850m for Rohingya refugees

March 15, 2024/in News

The UN secured barely more than half the aid it requested last year for the million Rohingya people living in deteriorating conditions in Bangladeshi camps, of whom more than half are under 18 Geneva – The United Nations (UN) on Wednesday called for increased support for the many Rohingya refugees languishing in camps in Bangladesh, […]

Rescued From Execution, Fathers Weep For Their Sons in Myanmar

March 15, 2024/in News

UN seeking more than $850m for Rohingya refugees

March 15, 2024/in News

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Rescued From Execution, Fathers Weep For Their Sons in Myanmar

March 15, 2024/in News

Their hands were bound tightly behind their backs for the night. They heard they were going to be executed the next morning.

U Maung Khin Swe recalls a junta officer ordering his men to kill him and nine other civilians captured by retreating junta troops in Rakhine State’s Minbya Township for use as porters and human shields. He believes the officer was the commander.

They were in a forest.

He’s certain, however, that the mass execution was the second order. The first was to kill a cow and a buffalo that had been found. The animals were killed that evening for food; the civilians were to be killed the next morning.

U Maung Khin says he was among 10 porters still alive, after being captured by soldiers retreating from the junta’s 9^th Central Military Training School in Minbya Township last month. About 20 civilians had been captured after the school – the last of the junta’s military strongholds in the township – was seized by the Arakan Army on Feb. 26.

As junta troops fled, they rounded up civilians to carry water and other necessities for them during their trek through forests. In total, about 20 were captured and detained. At least three were shot dead before the final night of captivity. What happened to the seven still missing is not yet known.

U Maung Khin Swe had been gathering bamboo in a forest around Sabar Htar village, his home, with his 16-year-old son, Nay Myo Chit, and his son-in-law – 33-year-old Kyaw Myo Hlaing – when they were captured by junta troops.

“We were forced to carry water for them. We were kicked when we slipped,” he says in a video released on Thursday by the Arakan Army. The video shows the testimony of two fathers who, along with their sons, were forced to be porters for junta troops in Rakhine State.

The fathers survived. They are enraged and bewildered.

“They shot my son and son-in-law dead while marching through the forest,” U Maung Khin Swe tells the camera. “I am very angry that they killed my sons. I want the Arakan Army to take severe action against them.”

U Maung Than Myint has a similar story. He and his 18-year-old son Kyaw Win were also grabbed by retreating soldiers while gathering bamboo in a forest.

“I couldn’t stand seeing my son being tied and beaten in front of me. I couldn’t do anything except cry,” he tells the camera.

Like U Maung Khin Swe, and their sons, he was beaten. They were also refused food and water. “We were not allowed to eat food and drink water even though we had to carry things for them,” U Maung Than Myint says. His son was shot dead in the forest, he recalls.

At about 4:50 a.m., as the captured porters waited, with their hands bound behind their backs, for sunrise and execution, soldiers from the Arakan Army attacked. They escaped while their captors were fighting to save their own lives.

In the battle, Arakan Army troops killed several regime fighters, including the lieutenant colonel commanding the fleeing unit.

“We would all have soon been killed by regime forces if we were not rescued by Arakan Army troops. We thank our Arakan Army,” U Maung Than Myint says in the video.

Irrawaddy News

UN seeking more than $850m for Rohingya refugees

March 15, 2024/in News

The UN secured barely more than half the aid it requested last year for the million Rohingya people living in deteriorating conditions in Bangladeshi camps, of whom more than half are under 18

Geneva – The United Nations (UN) on Wednesday called for increased support for the many Rohingya refugees languishing in camps in Bangladesh, where funding shortfalls have left many without enough food or other aid.

In its annual response plan to the crisis, the United Nations appealed for $852.4 million to provide desperately needed assistance this year to the mostly Muslim Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and their host communities.

Bangladesh is home to around a million members of the mostly stateless minority, many of whom fled a 2017 military crackdown in Myanmar, where the conflict on the ground has continued to escalate.

Some 95 percent of Rohingya households in Bangladesh are considered vulnerable and remain dependent on humanitarian assistance, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) pointed out in a statement.

“International solidarity with Bangladesh and refugee protection is needed more than ever as the conflict in Myanmar escalates,” it said.

Last year, the UN and its partners asked countries to provide $876 million to help those caught up in the Rohingya refugee crisis.

But in the end, only $440 million—barely half the requested amount—was provided.

With the humanitarian crisis largely out of the international spotlight, UNHCR warned that significant funding shortfalls in recent years had had “serious implications”.

Many of the refugees were struggling to meet their basic needs, it warned, insisting that “sustained assistance is critically and urgently needed”.

More than 75 percent of the refugee population receiving aid are women and children, it said, cautioning that they are facing “heightened risks of abuse, exploitation and gender-based violence”.

“More than half of the refugees in the camps are under 18, languishing amidst limited opportunities for education, skills-building and livelihoods,” it said.

The UN-led joint response plan to the crisis brings together 117 partners, nearly half of them Bangladeshi organisations.

It will aim to help around one million Rohingya refugees in the Cox’s Bazar camps and on the island of Bhasan Char, along with nearly 350,000 people from host communities.

The money will be used to fund food, shelter, health care, drinking water access, protection services, education and other assistance, the UN said.

Conditions in the overcrowded camps in Bangladesh, where lawlessness is rampant, have seen a growing number of Rohingya attempt dangerous and often deadly sea voyages headed for Malaysia and Indonesia.

There is, meanwhile, little progress towards repatriating the refugees to Myanmar, which is facing a UN genocide probe over the 2017 exodus.

And since then, the country’s military junta seized power in a 2021 coup that ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s democratically elected government.

The military rule in Myanmar, which faces widespread armed resistance, has inflicted unbearable cruelty, UN rights chief Volker Turk warned earlier this month.

“The human rights situation in Myanmar has morphed into a never-ending nightmare, away from the spotlight of global politics,” he told the UN Human Rights Council.

Myanmar Now

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ND Burma

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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