YANGON — A climate of fear in Rakhine state in Myanmar is pushing stateless Rohingya Muslims to flee in unprecedented numbers, with almost 10,000 people taking to boats in the region in just two weeks, according to a rights group. The Arakan Project – a Rohingya rights group – reported that a surge in boats leaving from northern Rakhine, where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya live in isolated communities, has seen around 900 people a day making the perilous journey by sea. “This is very unprecedented, it’s such a massive number,” said Chris Lewa – the director for the group. The end of the rainy season usually sees a spike in departures, but arrests and beatings in northern Rakhine combined with worries that authorities were planning to exclude Rohingya from citizenship had lead to this huge rise, she said.
Posted on: Tue, 28 Oct 2014 08:34:53 +0000
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