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Reuters

Ducking as mortar fire exploded around them, Rohingya refugee Mustafa Kamal and his family narrowly escaped the attack by a rebel militia on their town in western Myanmar.
Crowds had gathered on a small island to seek shelter after witnessing killings in the coastal town of Maungdaw, he said, but “many died on the spot”, including one of his nephews, Noor Sadek.
Others crawled and swam to reach neighbouring Bangladesh, he said.
His family are among many Rohingyas, members of a persecuted mostly Muslim minority, who fled Myanmar’s Rakhine state in recent days, as fighting escalates between the troops of the ruling junta and the Arakan Army, the powerful ethnic militia that recruits from the Buddhist majority.
Close to a million Rohingya live in refugee camps outside the Bangladeshi coastal town of Cox’s Bazar.
Medical charity Medicines Sans Frontières said its doctors had treated 54 people for violence-related injuries in recent days, 40 per cent of them women and children.

“We were seeing lots of gunshots, shrapnel, mortar shell injuries, all indicative of indiscriminate,” Orla Murphy, the group’s Bangladesh representative, said. “They were life-threatening trauma wounds that we were treating.”
The influx of refugees, who will have to stay with relatives, stretching resources, will make food supplies scarce, said the representative of a panel of displaced Rohingya.
“They are suffering from an extreme food crisis,” added Kamal Hossain, chairman of the panel. “The government and camp authorities should arrange their food.”
Many dozens of Rohingya, including a heavily pregnant woman and her two-year-old daughter, were killed last week in drone attacks in Maungdaw that three witnesses said were carried out by the Arakan Army, Reuters reported.
The rebel group and the junta blamed one another for the attack. Several boats carrying refugees to Bangladesh were sunk, killing more, Bangladesh media said.
The latest wave of attacks, including the burning of a Rohingya town by the Arakan Army in May, is the biggest surge in violence against the Rohingya since a 2017 Myanmar military-led campaign that the United Nations said was carried out with genocidal intent forced more than 730,000 to flee to Bangladesh.


‘Fighting for life’
Mohammed Mizanur Rahman, a Bangladesh refugee relief official based in Cox’s Bazar, said Rohingya had been seeking safety in increased numbers since the drone attack but did not say how many had crossed the border.
“I have heard that many dead bodies are floating across to Bangladesh and a humanitarian crisis has occurred across the shore in Maungdaw,” he said.
Bangladesh is in no position to accept more Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, the South Asian nation’s de facto foreign minister, Mohammad Touhid Hossain, told Reuters on Thursday, asking neighbouring India and other countries to do more.
Hossain also called for more international pressure on the Arakan Army to stop the attacks on the Rohingya in Rakhine state.
“But when someone arrives with a bullet injury, fighting for life, or a pregnant woman arrives fighting for life, we are not that inhuman that we will turn them away,” Bangladesh’s Rahman said.
The United Nations refugee agency, the UNHCR, said it did not have information on the number of Rohingya who had crossed into Bangladesh.
Another man who fled his home with his young family, Mohammed Saber, said about 60 people were killed in his village when the Arakan Army raided it, among them his two-year-old nephew, Mujibul Hasan.
They paid traffickers to take them by boat to Bangladesh, but the ship came under attack, which killed dozens aboard, he said.
The family is now sheltering with an uncle, but Saber has no money. He needs to buy medicine for his children.
“I will do whatever it takes to keep my family alive,” he said.


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Myanmar

Wounded and grieving, Rohingya flee deadly attacks in Myanmar: ‘lots of gunshots, injuries’

A 15-year-old Rohingya boy, who said he was abducted for conscription by a military-aligned Rohingya insurgent group, poses for a picture in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Photo: Reuters

Saifur Rahman and his family, who said they fled from Myanmar, to Bangladesh, walk at a refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Photo: Reuters

As Myanmar junta holds out on elections, could China rethink its support?

Myanmar’s Chairman of the State Administration Council (SAC) Senior General Min Aung Hlaing at a meeting in Naypyidaw in January. Photo; Myanmar’s Ministry of Information/Handout via Xinhua

People buying food in a street market in Kyaukme in Myanmar’s northern Shan State in July. Photo: AFP

Members of ethnic minority armed group Ta’ang National Liberation Army patrolling in Kyaukme in Myanmar’s northern Shan State in July. Photo: AFP

Myanmar President Thein Sein arrives at a peace conference in Naypyidaw in January 2016. File photo: AFP

Post-coup Myanmar has not turned into a Chinese  vassal state

Soldiers on horseback lead the convoy of Myanmar military chief Min Aung Hlaing as he arrives at the parade ground to mark the country’s Independence Day in Naypyidaw on January 4, 2023. Photo: AFP

Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) meets with Min Aung Hlaing, chairman of Myanmar’s State Administration Council, on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum, in September 2022. Photo: Kremlin/DPA

Myanmar denies military chief detained by generals, slams ‘traitors’ for spreading ‘propaganda’

Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing. Photo: AFP

China calls for ‘national unity’ in Myanmar as rebels gain ground near Yunnan border

Myanmar’s military leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing (right), chairman of the State Administration Council, exchanges gifts with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi during their meeting on Wednesday in Naypyidaw. Photo: Myanmar Military True News Information Team via AP

Myanmar’s military chief Min Aung Hlaing (second from left) meeting with China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi (second from right) in Naypyidaw. Photo: Myanmar Military Information Team via AFP

Myanmar junta’s VPN ban, internet controls expose citizens to more cyber threats

Myanmar youths browsing Facebook at an internet shop in Yangon. File photo: AFP

Min Aung Hlaing (centre), chairman of the State Administration Council, during a meeting in Naypyidaw last month. Photo: EPA-EFE/Handout

The use of phishing tactics is not uncommon in post-coup Myanmar. Photo: Shutterstock

News

Asia

Southeast Asia

Many Rohingyas fled Myanmar’s Rakhine state in recent days, as fighting escalates between troops of the ruling junta and the powerful ethnic militia


Many Rohingyas fled Myanmar’s Rakhine state in recent days, as fighting escalates between the troops of the ruling junta and the powerful ethnic militia.
