Seeking Light In A Tunnel

It is instructive to consider the plight of the Rohingya, if at all it is possible, from their point of view. It most likely isn’t exactly, but you begin to understand the scale of their tragic situation by some of the stories you hear from those who escaped, as we did when a team from Dhaka Courier visited the camps in Cox’s Bazar and Teknaf (see next story).

Meanwhile, the scale of the suffering inside Myanmar’s Rakhine State, the home they have left behind and the one place they can go to, is “unimaginable”, the United Nations said Monday (October 2), after three of its members joined a belated government-steered visit for aid agencies and diplomats to the conflict-battered region.

Myanmar has tightly controlled access to the state since last month when attacks by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army prompted an army kickback that sent more than 500,000 fleeing to Bangladesh. Scores of Rohingya villages have been torched. A Myanmar official tally says hundreds of people died as violence consumed remote communities, including Rohingya (although the government in Nay Pyi Taw of course, doesn’t recognise them as such). Hindus and ethnic Rakhine were also among the dead, with around 30,000 displaced to other parts of Rakhine State at the start of the conflict.

Rights groups say the real death toll is likely to be much higher, especially among the Rohingya, while the UN has labelled army operations as “ethnic cleansing” against the Muslim group.

Many inside Myanmar have accused the UN of having a pro-Rohingya bias, as hostility towards INGOs sky rockets, further limiting access. This is nothing new, as it came up during the UNSC meeting on Myanmar that took place during the recently-concluded 72nd UNGA as well. The organisation’s secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, was compelled to ask the Myanmar government representatives to work to improve the image of the UN inside Myanmar. It also explains why no role for the UNHCR or any other UN body, has been envisioned in talks on the crisis between representatives of Bangladesh and Myanmar this week (see below).

The October 2 visit marked a thaw in the relationship, with the UN welcoming the trip as a “positive step” while reiterating “the need for greater humanitarian access”