Myanmar's persecuted Rohingya find new escape route to India
Myanmese refugees flee to the Muslim haven of Hyderabad in India, after deadly ethnic clashes with Buddhists see their villages in flames
Rohingya refugees fleeing deadly ethnic clashes in Burma have discovered a crucial escape route from Myanmar into India, after Bangladesh closed its borders to the persecuted Muslims.
In the past two months, 1,000 Muslim Rohingya have streamed across the border into India through the northeastern state of Mizoram (see map), following brutal sectarian violence with Buddhists in western Myanmar.
From Mizoram, refugees have travelled to Hyderabad, where they have been helped by wealthier fellow Muslims. Others have travelled far from their home nation to southern India, while some pushed north to Muslim Pakistan, sources said.
Few options exist for Rohingya facing systematic persecution. They are denied citizenship in Myanmar, rendering them stateless, while neighbouring Bangladesh has closed its borders to the Muslim group, refusing to allow those already on its territory to be assessed for refugee status by the UN.
Other Southeast Asian nations Myanmese boatpeople might reach are similarly hostile.
But the new escape route is offering them hope.
In Hyderabad around 460 Rohingyas have so far received a sympathetic reception, and thousands more are now expected. New arrival Nurul Amin is living with other refugees in the Balapur Dargah shrine in Hyderabad, and his wife and three children. He said they escaped persecution at the hands of Buddhist mobs near Sittwe, the capital of Myanmar's Rakhine state.
