Rohingya Crisis: Refugee Rights Org Wants Myanmar Sanctioned Again

Rohingya refugees use a makeshift footbridge near Balukhali refugee camp

(Photo: PTI)

The head of a US based refugee rights group, Refugees International, visited Rohingya refugees at the Kutupalong camp on Sunday.

Eric Paul Schwartz, Chief of Refugee International, called for multilateral sanctions against the Burmese military.

The UN says around 4,09,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled violence in Myanmar, and are now in neighbouring Bangladesh, living in camps under dire conditions.

I don’t recall seeing anything as awful, as terrible as I’m seeing here. The crimes against humanity, the ethnic cleansing for which the government of Burma (Myanmar) is responsible, are like nothing I’ve ever witnessed before. There ought to be multilateral sanctions against the Burmese military, there ought to be an arms embargo, there ought to be a referral of the situation in Burma to the International Criminal Court. 

Eric Paul Schwartz, President, Refugee International

Refugees who crossed over from Myanmar into Bangladesh collect food items distributed by aid agencies(Photo: PTI)

Bangladesh has been overwhelmed with more than 4,00,000 Rohingya refugees, who fled their homes in the last three weeks amid a crisis the United Nations has described as ethnic cleansing. Those fleeing have described indiscriminate attacks by security forces and Buddhist mobs.

At the Balukhali camp on Monday, refugees were constructing new makeshift tents in the 2,000 acres of land allocated by the Bangladeshi government, where many others have already moved in.

Ethnic Rohingya have long faced discrimination in Myanmar and are denied citizenship, even though many families have lived there for generations.

The UN has described the violence against the Rohingya in Myanmar as ethnic cleansing – a term that describes an organised effort to rid an area of an ethnic group by displacement, deportation or killing.

Video Producer: Anubhav Mishra

Video Editor: Purnendu Pritam