By THE IRRAWADDY 10 January 2018 YANGON—A Myanmar Army investigation panel has determined that villagers and security forces killed 10 Rohingya allegedly affiliated with Muslim militants who launched a series of attacks on security outposts in northern Maungdaw last year. The Army investigation followed the discovery of 10 bodies near a graveyard in Inn Din village in southern Maungdaw Township, Rakhine State in December. According to a press release issued by the panel on Wednesday afternoon, a five-member team led by Lieutenant-General Aye Win visited Inn Din village between Dec. 20 and Jan. 2 and interviewed 21 Army witnesses, three Border Police officers, 13 members of No. 8 Security Unit, six Inn Din villagers and six civil servants. The 10 Rohingya were involved in attacks organized by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA)—a Muslim militant group denounced by the government as a “terrorist organization” after a series of attacks last year—and arrested on Sept. 1 dur...

By MOE MYINT 10 January 2018 YANGON—Despite the Myanmar government’s assurances to the international community that the country’s military is forbidden to use landmines, a number of Rohingya people have been killed by mines produced by the Army in northern Rakhine State in recent months, according to a new report. On Wednesday, Yeshua Moser-Puangsuwan, Myanmar Research Coordinator for Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor, launched the group’s 19th report at the Royal Rose restaurant in Yangon. The anti-personnel landmine watchdog compiled casualty figures from medical assistance groups and non-governmental organizations, as well as information obtained by its own local researcher during visits to refugee camps on the Bangladesh border. A military crackdown against the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army in Maungdaw district in August 2017 caused around 660,000 Rohingya to flee to neighboring Bangladesh. Some of them walked into minefields while attempting to cross the border, accor...

Two Reuters journalists were formally charged by police in a Myanmar court Wednesday for breaching a colonial-era secrecy law that carries up to 14 years in jail, despite calls for their immediate release. Myanmar nationals Wa Lone, 31, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 27, were arrested a month ago under the Official Secrets Act after they allegedly were given classified documents by two policemen over dinner. The pair had been reporting on the military campaign in the northern Rakhine state that has forced some 655,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee over the border to Bangladesh since August, violence the UN has condemned as ethnic cleansing. The issue is incendiary inside Myanmar, where authorities deny any wrongdoing during an army crackdown on terrorists from the Muslim minority. A police officer "filed the case to charge under the state secret (Official Secrets) act, section 3.1(c)," a district judge told the court. The section punishes anyone who "obtains, collects, recor...

A Bangladesh court on Monday upheld a government ruling banning marriage between its citizens and refugees from Myanmar's persecuted Rohingya minority, who have fled ethnic violence in the neighbouring country. The High Court in Dhaka dismissed a legal challenge from a father whose son married a Rohingya teenager in a Muslim ceremony in September despite laws forbidding such unions.  Marriages with Rohingya were banned in 2014 to try to prevent hundreds of thousands of refugees living in Bangladesh from seeking a back door to citizenship.  Babul Hossain, whose 26-year-old son ran away with his new wife after they married, questioned the legality of the ruling that threatens a seven-year jail term for any Bangladeshi who weds a Rohingya refugee. But the court rejected his plea and ordered he pay 100,000 taka ($1,200) in legal costs. "The court rejected the petition and has upheld the administrative order, which bans marriage between Bangladeshi citizens and ...

The United States issued a statement yesterday condemning the January 5 ARSA terrorist attack on Myanmar security forces in northern Rakhine State. The statement expressed condolences to the injured and their families. The statement also notes, “This act of violence only serves to further undermine peace and security in northern Rakhine State and the region. We continue to urge all parties to ensure their rhetoric and their actions contribute to establishing the conditions for the safe, voluntary, and dignified return of all those who have been displaced by violence to their places of origin.”  http://www.mizzima.com/news-domestic/us-condemns-arsa-terrorist-attack

By REUTERS 8 January 2018 Rohingya Muslim insurgents said on Sunday they have no option but to fight what they called Burma state-sponsored terrorism to defend the Rohingya community, and they demanded that the Rohingya be consulted on all decisions affecting their future. The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) launched raids on Burmese security forces on 25 August, which sparked sweeping counter-insurgency operations in the Muslim-majority north of Rakhine State that led to widespread violence and arson and an exodus of some 650,000 Rohingya villagers to Bangladesh. The United Nations condemned the Burmese military campaign as ethnic cleansing. Buddhist-majority Burma rejected that. But since the August raids, the small insurgent group has launched few if any attacks until Friday, when its fighters ambushed a Burmese military truck, wounding several members of the security forces. “ARSA has … no other option but to combat ‘Burmese state-sponsored terrorism’ against the...

Hindu farmer Surodhon Pal has packed his bags, eager to return to Myanmar after fleeing for Bangladesh during a wave of violence last year, but he is in a tiny minority -- most of the refugees are terrified of going home. Bangladesh wants the more than 655,000 refugees who have flooded into the country since late August to start returning to Myanmar by the end of this month under a controversial agreement between the two nations. The vast majority are Rohingya Muslims who have faced decades of persecution in Myanmar, which sees them as illegal immigrants, even though many have lived there for generations. They say they would rather stay in the squalid camps in Bangladesh than return to the scene of violence the US and the United Nations have said amounts to ethnic cleansing. But a small community of Hindus who lived alongside the Rohingya in Myanmar's Rakhine state and were caught up in the turmoil say they do want to return. "We want security and we want food. I...

By REUTERS 8 January 2018 BANGKOK—Humanitarian workers and journalists should be given free access to Rakhine State, where violence has prompted some 650,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to Bangladesh, the head of a new international advisory panel on the crisis said. Surakiart Sathirathai, a former Thai foreign minister, also expressed concern at the arrest of two Reuters reporters last month and said he hoped the case did not lead to broader restrictions on the international media. “I think press and humanitarian access to Rakhine are important issues as well as free access to other stakeholders,” said Surakiart in an interview in Bangkok. “Legitimate press coverage is something that should be enhanced.” Myanmar has severely curtailed access to Rakhine, where an army operation in response to attacks by Rohingya insurgents has been condemned by the United Nations as ethnic cleansing—an accusation rejected by the Buddhist majority country. Surakiart, 59, was chosen last year b...

By THE IRRAWADDY 8 January 2018 YANGON — The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, a Muslim militant group behind a series of attacks on government security outposts in northern Rakhine State in August, claimed responsibility for an ambush that injured six government troops last week in the restive area. In the latest attack since a unilateral ceasefire in October, a civilian vehicle carrying six soldiers and an army officer were blasted by what was thought to be a remote-controlled landmine in northern Maungdaw Township on Friday morning. The explosion was reportedly followed by an ambush carried out by gunmen apparently positioned on a nearby hill. The attack injured six soldiers and a civilian driver. On Sunday, ARSA released a statement on Twitter, saying it was behind the attack. “The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) hereby declares that we carried out an ambush against the Burmese terrorist army in Turaing Village, San Kar Pin Yin Village Tract, Northern Maungdaw...

Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) on Sunday claimed responsibility for an ambush on Myanmar security forces that left several wounded in northern Rakhine state, the first attack in weeks in a region gutted by violence. Rakhine was plunged into turmoil last August, when a series of ARSA raids prompted a military backlash so brutal the UN says it likely amounts to ethnic cleansing of the Muslim Rohingya minority. The army campaign sent some 650,000 Rohingya fleeing for Bangladesh, where refugees have given harrowing accounts of rape, murder and arson at the hands of security forces and vigilantes. Myanmar's military, which tightly controls information about Rakhine, denies any abuses and insists the crackdown was a proportionate response to crush the "terrorist" threat. ARSA have launched few attacks in recent months.  But the army reported that "about ten" Rohingya terrorists ambushed a car with hand-made mines and gunfire on Friday morning...

By REUTERS  7 January 2018 Humanitarian workers and journalists should be given free access to Burma’s Rakhine State, where violence has prompted some 650,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to Bangladesh, the head of a new international advisory panel on the crisis said. Surakiart Sathirathai, a former Thai foreign minister, also expressed concern at the arrest of two  Reuters  reporters in Burma last month and said he hoped the case did not lead to broader restrictions on the international media. “I think press and humanitarian access to Rakhine are important issues as well as free access to other stakeholders,” said Surakiart in an interview in Bangkok. “Legitimate press coverage is something that should be enhanced.” Burma has severely curtailed access to Rakhine, where an army operation in response to attacks by Rohingya insurgents has been condemned by the United Nations as ethnic cleansing — an accusation rejected by the Buddhist majority country. Sura...

Rohingya Muslim insurgents ambushed a military vehicle in Rakhine State, wounding five members of the security forces, Burmese state media and officials said, and the rebels claimed responsibility for the rare attack. A wave of raids by the insurgents on security force posts on 25 August sparked sweeping army counter-insurgency operations in the Muslim-majority north of the state that led to widespread violence and arson and an exodus of some 650,000 Rohingya villagers to neighbouring Bangladesh. The United Nations condemned the Burmese military campaign as ethnic cleansing. Buddhist-majority Burma rejected that. But since 25 August, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) insurgents, who claimed responsibility for the coordinated raids on 30 security posts, have mounted only a few sporadic attacks. The military said “extremist Bengali terrorists ARSA” carried out the Friday attack on a truck taking someone to hospital. “A vehicle … was attacked by 20 insurgents from t...

Officials from the Rathedaung Township General Administration Office said that curfew under section 144 of Criminal Procedure Code was still imposed in some village-tracts in Rathedaung Township. The curfew has been imposed in Rathedaung, Buthidaung and Maungdaw Townships in northern Rakhine State after ARSA attacks took place in these townships. Curfew has been imposed in 11 village-tracts of Rathedaung Township since August 25, 2017 under section 144 of Criminal Procedure Code and the curfew order has been withdrawn in eight of them but the curfew order has been extended in ethnic villages of Phetlake, Chutpyin and Theintaung villages close to Maungdaw Township, according to the office on January 5. Rathedaung Township Administrator Kyaw Thu said: “The curfew order is not yet withdrawn. We extended this order on January 3 to next month. The curfew order has been imposed in 11 village-tracts since August 25, 2017. Now the order is extended for two more months in three village...

By MOE MYINT 5 January 2018 YANGON – Six soldiers were injured when their vehicle was struck by what police believe was a remotely detonated landmine in northern Rakhine State’s Maungdaw Township on Friday morning, a border police officer in Kyein Chaung village told The Irrawaddy. The blast occurred near Tarein, an ethnic Arakanese village in the northern part of the township about 30 km from downtown Maungdaw. According to the police officer, the six soldiers were escorting an Army officer who had fallen ill and was being transported in a civilian vehicle to Maungdaw to receive medical treatment. The police officer could not identify the soldiers’ regiment. As the vehicle was passing Tarein at around 10.30 a.m, it was targeted by what appeared to be a remotely detonated landmine, causing minor injuries to the six soldiers and the civilian driver. The sick officer was not injured in the blast. Following the blast, the vehicle came under attack from gunmen apparently position...

YANGON — A truck from a Tatmadaw engineer battalion has been ambushed in northern Rakhine State near Taungbyo, several residents have confirmed. Seven military personnel were in the truck when it was hit by an explosive device at about 10am, said a witness from nearby Kyun Pauk Pyusu village. Six have been hospitalised, one with critical injuries, several sources said. A Maungdaw resident confirmed seeing a military truck arrive at the town’s hospital. The government could not be immediately reached for comment. It was unclear who was responsible for the attack. A resident at Tarain village, south of Taunbyo, told Frontier that they had heard sporadic gunfire since around the time of the ambush.  https://frontiermyanmar.net/en/six-soldiers-injured-in-northern-rakhine-ambush

Illegal immigration from Bangladesh has been a sensitive issue for decades in the northeastern Indian state of Assam, where the crisis over Rakhine State is being followed with interest … and some trepidation. By MRATT KYAW THU | FRONTIER IN THE northeastern Indian state of Assam, the exodus of more than 620,000 Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar to Bangladesh is being closely followed by politicians, officials and journalists. Student-led protests in Assam against illegal immigration in the late 1970s and early 1980s resulted in 855 deaths. The issue was a factor in the slaughter in 1983 of 2,000 Muslim villagers who had been settled in the state from Bengal during British colonial rule. The agitation led to the signing by the New Delhi and state governments and the All Assam Students Union of the 1985 Assam Accord, an agreement to update the National Register of Citizens to identify and deport “all foreigners”.  Tensions still simmer over the issue due to delays in the ...