People displaced by the recent violence in Pauktaw at the Owntaw refugee camp, outside Sittwe, yesterday.
KUALA LUMPUR: Myanmar neighbours should prepare to accept refugees from the country’s Rohingya minority who may try to flee abroad to escape bloody communal violence, refugee organisations said yesterday.
Clashes in Myanmar’s Rakhine state pitting Buddhists against members of the Muslim Rohingya minority have left at least 180 dead since violence broke out in June, swamped refugee camps and forced tens of thousands to flee the bloodshed.
Rohingya have for years trickled abroad to neighbouring Bangladesh and, increasingly, Muslim-majority Malaysia by boat. The violence has sparked warnings of a potential surge in refugees opting for the dangerous sea voyage.
“We are appealing to countries to keep borders open and to ensure safe access and whatever assistance they can provide,” said Vivian Tan, Asia Pacific spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
“The main thing is that they have a safe place to land,” she said.
Tan said Myanmar’s neighbours also should ensure that the UNHCR is granted access to any Rohingya who have legitimate claims to refugee status.
The Muslim minority, who speak a Bengali dialect in mainly Buddhist Myanmar, claim decades of persecution.
The government views the roughly 800,000 Rohingya in Rakhine as illegal Bangladeshi immigrants and denies them citizenship.
Decades-old animosity between the Buddhists and Rohingya exploded in June after the apparent rape and murder of an ethnic Rakhine woman sparked a series of revenge attacks.
Human Rights Watch warned this week of a potential “dramatic increase in the number of Rohingya taking to the sea this year” in the wake of the unrest.
AFP
