A record 68.5 million people have been forced flee their homes due to war, violence and persecution, notably in places like Myanmar and Syria, the UN said on Tuesday. By the end of 2017, the number was nearly three million higher than the previous year and showed a 50-percent increase from the 42.7 million uprooted…

Muslim refugees who have fled to Bangladesh if they volunteer to return, the country’s National Security Adviser Thaung Tun said on Saturday. He was speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue, a regional security conference in Singapore, where he was asked if the situation in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, where most Rohingya live, could trigger use of the…

Marooned on a dusty slope in the world’s largest refugee camp, Osiur Rahman looked to the hill where a Rohingya girl was buried in a landslide just days earlier and contemplated his chances should the earth give way beneath his feet. “Our families would be killed. There are children everywhere around here. We constantly fear…

Rohingya militants massacred Hindu villagers during last year’s uprising in Myanmar’s Rakhine, Amnesty International said Wednesday in a report that sheds fresh light on the complex ethnic rivalries in the state. The killings took place on August 25, 2017, the report said, the same day that the Rohingya insurgents staged coordinated deadly raids on police…

When Hujjat Islam heard a fire had razed a Rohingya camp in New Delhi, his first reaction was relief: it could have been him and his family, their belongings burned to ashes, if he had not found a home for them elsewhere in the city. The fire last month gutted the flimsy shacks of plywood…

Yangon: Seven soldiers in Myanmar were sentenced for their part in the extrajudicial killings of 10 Rohingya Muslim men, according to a Facebook post by the army chief late on Tuesday. The bloody incident in Inn Din village on 2 September is the only atrocity to which the military has admitted during its violent crackdown…

Dhaka: Bangladesh has begun relocating 100,000 Rohingya refugees to safer ground before the monsoon season for fear of deadly landslides and floods in the congested camps, an official said Sunday. The UN says about 150,000 refugees in Bangladesh’s southeast — where nearly one million Rohingya in total live in shanties on hillsides — are extremely vulnerable…

By Jawad Akram Recent flare-up of anti-Muslim riots in Kandy, a central district in Sri Lanka, by Sinhalese Buddhist extremists has recalled the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state of Myanmar by local Buddhist majority, last year (2017). Sinhalese Buddhists constitute about 75 percent of Sri Lanka’s 21 million population and Muslims in…

Yangon: Facebook said Tuesday it is “seriously” fighting hate speech in Myanmar, following blistering criticism from UN officials who said the platform had morphed into a “beast” that helps spread vitriol against Rohingya Muslims. The social media giant has faced mounting pressure to snuff out inflammatory posts aimed at the Rohingya, a persecuted Muslim minority…

YANGON: Three bombs exploded in different locations in Rakhine’s state capital Sittwe early Saturday morning, including at the home of a high ranking official, Myanmar police told AFP. “Three bombs exploded and three other unexploded bombs were found. A police was injured but not seriously,” a senior officer said on the condition of anonymity, adding…

Myanmar’s Home Minister Kyaw Swe says that his country is ready to take back Rohingya Muslims who fled during violence. He told Bangladesh President Abdul Hamid in Dhaka on Friday that Myanmar is ready under a deal signed by the two countries last year. He said that Myanmar will implement the recommendations by a commission…

United Nations, United States: Myanmar has failed to put in place conditions for the safe return of 688,000 Rohingya refugees who fled an army crackdown six months ago, the UN refugee chief said Monday. The refugees are sheltering in makeshift camps in Bangladesh despite an agreement reached between Myanmar and Bangladesh allowing for their return…

Yangon: Aerial photos of Rakhine state have emerged that appear to show several bulldozed Rohingya settlements, renewing accusations Myanmar is wiping out the homes and history of the Muslim minority. Nearly 700,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar’s Rakhine state to Bangladesh since insurgent attacks on police posts triggered a brutal military crackdown. The UN has led…

WASHINGTON/NEW DELHI: U.S. President Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke by phone, discussing topics including the political crisis in the Maldives, the war in Afghanistan and the plight of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, the White House said. The Trump administration has launched an effort to deepen military and economic ties with India…

BALUKHALI REFUGEE CAMP, Bangladesh: The faces of the men half-buried in the mass graves had been burned away by acid or blasted by bullets. Noor Kadir finally recognized his friends only by the colors of their shorts, reported AP. Kadir and 14 others, all Rohingya Muslims in the Myanmar village of Gu Dar Pyin, had…

Yangon :A Myanmar court on Thursday denied bail to two Reuters journalists charged under a secrecy act that could see them face up to 14 years in jail, in a case that has sparked outcry over shrinking media freedom. Myanmar nationals Wa Lone, 31, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 27, are accused of possessing classified documents…

YANGON: A man threw a petrol bomb at the lakeside Yangon compound of Myanmar’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Thursday, officials said, a rare attack on a national figurehead who enjoys strong domestic support but has drawn global outcry over her reticence to speak up for the Rohingya. There was little damage caused by the…

YANGON: Myanmar was making final preparations to take back the first batch of Rohingya Muslims who had fled conflict in troubled Rakhine state, state media said on Saturday, despite growing doubts about the plan among refugees and in the United Nations. Rakhine state Chief Minister Nyi Pu “insisted on completion of the finishing touches on…

YANGON: Myanmar police shot dead seven demonstrators and 12 were injured in troubled Rakhine State, after a local gathering celebrating an ancient Buddhist Arakan kingdom turned violent, reported Reuters. The demonstrators gathered late on Tuesday in Mrauk U township in the northern part of Rakhine to mark the end of the Arakan kingdom, the secretary…

Yangon :A strong 6.0-magnitude earthquake hit central Myanmar early Friday, the US Geological Survey said. The shallow quake struck some 40 kilometres (24 miles) west of the town of Pyu, the USGS said. Pyu is located between the capital Naypyidaw and commercial hub Yangon. It was followed by two weaker tremors, both of magnitudes 5.3,…

YANGON: Myanmar’s military said its soldiers had murdered 10 captured Muslim “terrorists” during insurgent attacks at the beginning of September, after Buddhist villagers had forced the captured men into a grave they had dug, reported Reuters. “Villagers and members of the security forces have confessed that they committed murder,” the military said in a statement…