[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index
][Thread Index
]
3/8/97_AFP:ROHINGYA EXILES CLAIMED
Subject: 3/8/97_AFP:ROHINGYA EXILES CLAIMED OF LARGE EXODUS
ASIA: UP TO 14,000 NEW BURMESE MUSLIM REFUGEES IN BANGLADESH
BANGLADESH BURMA
CHITTAGONG, Bangladesh, Aug 3 AFP - A group representing Burmese
Muslims who fled alleged persecution in Burma claimed today that
more refugees would flow into Bangladesh unless their security
could be guaranteed.
The Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO) claimed that up to
14,000 new Burmese Muslims had already crossed the border into
Bangladesh since June because of persecution from Burmese security
forces and for "economic" reasons.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) put
the number of Burmese Muslims, known as Rohingyas, at 7,000, while
the Bangladesh government officially puts their numbers at "several
thousand."
The UNHCR described the new Rohingya arrivals as both "economic
and political" migrants.
The "Rohingya Sangbad" newsletter's May issue received by AFP
today said "between 12,000 and 14,000 entered Bangladesh during the
past two months."
"These people fled to Bangladesh after facing a famine forcing
them to live in virtual hunger," it said, adding in recent days
prices of essential and food commodities have sky-rocketed.
The newsletter said Rohingyas were again fleeing into Bangladesh
because of their economic condition and "unlimited torture and
repression" by Burma's security forces.
The RSO warned that refugees would continue to flow into
Bangladesh unless security of the minority group was ensured in
Burma's Arakan state which borders Bangladesh.
"We want Bangladesh to give effective support to the armed
struggle of the Rohingyas," the organisation said.
Meanwhile, a frontier official today said that refugees at
Noapara, one of the two camps holding some 21,000 refugees who were
among the first batch to arrive here in 1991, began to accept food
rations ending a two-week protest against alleged government
attempts to forcibly repatriate the refugees.
Last week in Geneva the UNHCR indicated that militant elements
in the camps were intimidating others into foregoing food,
mentioning several cases where refugees who had queued up for
rations were brutally punished.
The inmates of the nearby Kutupalang camp earlier ended a
similar boycott of government food, causing strained relations
between the refugees and Bangladeshi officials.
Bangladesh's efforts last month to repatriate some 7,500 of the
refugees was met with violent protests from refugee leaders. The
UNHCR also called for a halt to repatriations which have been
stalled since the protests.
According to the UN refugee agency's estimates, more than
280,000 Rohingyas have fled Burma since 1991 with many of them
already returned.
Burma has agreed to take back some 7,500, rejecting the
remainder as "non-citizens" but have agreed to review their papers.
The UNHCR is pressing to allow this batch of 'stateless' people
to remain in Bangladesh but Dhaka has rejected permanent
resettlement here, saying they would burden the economy.
Muslims from Burma's Arakan state fled to Bangladesh in 1991 to
escape repression and human rights violations, a charge denied by
the military junta in Rangoon. Most of them were repatriated after
a 1991 agreement between Dhaka and Rangoon, followed by a second
one in 1993 between the UNHCR and Burmese authorities.
AFP shb