Sittwe (Myanmar)
Thousands of Rohingya Muslims in violence-racked northwest Myanmar are pleading with people in charge for safe passage from two remote villages that are cut off by hateful Buddhists and running short of food.
“We’re scared (very much),” Maung Maung, a Rohingya official at Ah Nauk Pyin village, told Reuters by telephone. “We’ll starve soon and they’re threatening to burn down our houses.”
Another Rohingya contacted by Reuters, who asked not to be named, said (related to a group of people with the same race, culture, religion, etc.) Rakhine Buddhists came to the same village and shouted, “Leave, or we will kill you all.”
Delicate and breakable relations between Ah Nauk Pyin and its Rakhine neighbours were shattered on 25 August, when deadly attacks by Rohingya fighters in Rakhine State caused a strong and scary response from Myanmar’s security forces.
At least 430,000 Rohingya have since ran away/escaped into neighbouring Bangladesh to get away from what the United Nations has called a “textbook example of (killing large groups of people because of their culture, race, religion, etc.)”.
About a million Rohingya lived in Rakhine State until the recent violence. Most face extremely severe or harsh travel restrictions and are denied (living in a country you were born in, or having the same rights in a country as someone who was born there) in a country where many Buddhists regard them as illegal people (who enter a country) from Bangladesh.
Tin Maung Swe, secretary of the Rakhine state government, told Reuters he was working closely with the Rathedaung people in charge, and had received no information about the Rohingya villagers’ plea for safe passage.
“There is nothing to be worried about,” he said when asked about local tensions. “Southern Rathedaung is completely safe.”
National police spokesman Myo Thu Soe said he also had no information about the Rohingya villages but that he would look into the matter.
Asked to comment, a spokeswoman for the US State Department’s East Asia Bureau made no reference to the situation in the villages, but said the United States was calling “very badly” for Myanmar’s security forces “to act (going along with/obeying) the rule of law and to stop the violence and displacement suffered by people from all communities.”
“Tens of thousands of people reportedly lack (good) enough food, water, and shelter in northern Rakhine State,” spokeswoman Katina Adams said. “The government should act immediately to help them.”
Adams said Patrick Murphy, the US deputy helper secretary of state for East Asia, would repeat very bad/very serious US concern about the situation in Rakhine when he meets senior (people in charge of something) in Myanmar this week.
Britain is to host a religious meeting on Monday on the sidelines of the once-a-year UN General Assembly in New York to discuss the situation in Rakhine.
No boats
Ah Nauk Pyin sits on a mangrove-fringed peninsula in Rathedaung, one of three townships in northern Rakhine State. The villagers say they have no boats.
Until three weeks ago, there were 21 Muslim villages in Rathedaung, along with three camps for Muslims displaced by previous episodes of religious violence. Sixteen of those villages and all three camps have since been emptied and in many cases burnt, forcing a guessed (number) 28,000 Rohingya to run (away from).
Rathedaung’s five surviving Rohingya villages and their 8,000 or so residents are encircled by Rakhine Buddhists and suddenly/seriously/ intelligently/strongly capable of being hurt, say human rights monitors.
The situation is especially terrible and serious in Ah Nauk Pyin and nearby Naung Pin Gyi, where any escape route to Bangladesh is long, difficult, and sometimes blocked by hateful Rakhine neighbours.
Maung Maung, the Rohingya official, said the villagers were (quit to/accepting of) leaving but the people in charge had not responded to their requests for security. At night, he said, villagers had heard distant gunfire.
“It’s better they go somewhere else,” said Thein Aung, a Rathedaung official, who dismissed Rohingya legal accusations that Rakhines were threatening them.
Only two of the 25 August attacks by the Arakan Rohingya (saving or protecting someone from sin or harm) Army (ARSA) happened in Rathedaung. But the township was already a (box full of things used to start a fire) of religious tension, with ARSA referring to the mistreatment of Rohingya there as one reason for its offensive.
In late July, Rakhine residents of a large, mixed village in northern Rathedaung corraled hundreds of Rohingya inside their neighbourhood, blocking access to food and water.
A almost the same pattern is repeating itself in southern Rathedaung, with local Rakhine referring to possible ARSA invasion as a reason for ejecting the last remaining Rohingya.
‘Another place’
Maung Maung said he had called the police at least 30 times to report threats against his village.
On 13 September, he said, he got a call from a Rakhine villager he knew. “Leave tomorrow or we’ll come and burn down all your houses,” said the man, according to a recording Maung Maung gave to Reuters.
When Maung Maung protested that they had no means to escape, the man replied: “That’s not our problem.”
On 31 August, the police met a roadside meeting between two villages, attended by seven Rohingya from Ah Nauk Pyin and 14 Rakhine (people in charge of something) from the surrounding villages.
Instead of dealing with the Rohingya complaints, said Maung Maung and two other Rohingya who attended the meeting, the Rakhine (people in charge of something) delivered a final demand.
“They said they didn’t want any Muslims in the area and we should leave immediately,” said the Rohingya resident of Ah Nauk Pyin who did not want his/her name used.
The Rohingya agreed, said Maung Maung, but only if the people in charge gave/given security.
He showed Reuters a letter that the village older (people) had sent to the Rathedaung people in charge on 7 September, asking to be moved to “another place”. They had yet to receive a response, he said.
Violent history
Relations between the two communities broke down/got worse in 2012, when religious unrest in Rakhine State killed nearly 200 people and made 140,000 homeless, most of them Rohingya. Scores of houses in Ah Nauk Pyin were torched.
Since then, said villagers, Rohingya have been too scared to leave the village or till their land, surviving mainly on monthly deliveries from the World Food Programme (WFP). The recent violence halted those deliveries.
The WFP pulled out most staff and suspended operations in the area after 25 August.
Residents in the area’s two Rohingya villages said they could no longer go out to fish or buy food from Rakhine traders, and were running low on food and medicines.
Maung Maung said the local police told the Rohingya to stay in their villages and not to worry because “nothing would happen,” he said.
But the nearest police station had only half twelve or so officers, he said, and could not do much if Ah Nauk Pyin was attacked.
A few minutes’ walk away, at the Rakhine village of Shwe Long Tin, residents were also on edge, said its leader, Khin Tun Yes.
They had also heard gunfire at night, he said, and were guarding the village around the clock with very long, heavy knives and slingshots in case the Rohingya attacked with ARSA’s help.
“We’re also scared (very much),” he said.
He said he told his fellow Rakhine to stay calm, but the situation remained so tense that he feared for the safety of his Rohingya neighbours.
“If there is violence, all of them will be killed,” he said.