Myanmar's leader has visited Rakhine for the first time since a bloody crackdown created vast numbers of refugees. Myanmar's government says it has begun a repatriation plan but thousands of refugees continue to flee.
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Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Thursday visited the northern state of Rakhine state for the first time since government forces began a bloody crackdown on the Rohingya minority.
She arrived in the state capital Sittwe and headed north to predominantly Rohingya areas, as her government said it had begun a repatriation plan for the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims who have fled the area.
"The state counselor just arrived but she is heading to Maungdaw, northern Rakhine, with the state officials," said Tin Maung Swe, a deputy director of the Rakhine government.
The plight of the Rohingya Muslims forced to flee the atrocities committed by militants and the army in Myanmar is hard to stomach. The most vulnerable are children, as John Owens' photo series shows.
Image: DW/J. Owens
Shot and stabbed
Since August, more than 600,000 Rohingya have fled from Myanmar into Bangladesh. "The day the military came, they burnt down the village and shot my mother as she was trying to escape. My father couldn’t walk, so they stabbed him. I saw this with my own eyes," says 10-year-old Mohammed Belal who managed to run away from his village.
Image: DW/J. Owens
Haunted by the trauma
Mohammed’s sister Nur also watched the slaughter. She and her brother now live in a shelter for unaccompanied children in Bangladesh. She can play there and gets regular meals, a stark contrast to her journey from Myanmar where she and her brother nearly starved. But she is still haunted by the trauma of the recent weeks. "I miss my parents, my home, my country," she says.
Image: DW/J. Owens
Deep-rooted conflict
The conflict, which has been going on for 70 years and is rooted in the post-World War II social organization of the country, has claimed more than 2,000 victims since 2016, including the mother of 12-year-old Rahman, above. "They set fire to my home, and my mother was ill, so she could not leave," he says.
Image: DW/J. Owens
Save the children
Dilu-Aara, 5, came to the camp with her sister Rojina after she witnessed her parents being murdered by the military. "I was crying all the time and the bullets were flying over our heads. I escaped somehow." The international aid agency Save the Children is helping minors who come to Kutupalong without parents. Children make up to 60 percent of all Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.
Image: DW/J. Owens
Hunted like animals
Jaded Alam is among the hundreds of kids who came to Kutupalong without parents. Fortunately, his aunt cares for him — and very well, he admits. Jaded grew up in a village called Mandi Para where he used to love playing football, but everything changed when the military attacked. "They told us to leave our home. When I was running with my parents, they shot them. They died on the spot," he says.
Image: DW/J. Owens
Child abductions
Not all families have been separated during their plight, however. Rahman Ali has been scouring the refugee camp for weeks now after his 10-year-old son Zifad disappeared. Rumors of child abductions have swirled around the camp for years, and Rahman fears his son has fallen prey to human traffickers. "I can't eat, I can’t sleep. I’m so upset! It’s like I’ve gone mad."
Image: DW/J. Owens
"My mind is not normal"
When the shooting started, Sokina Khatun did all she could to protect her children — but she couldn't save Yasmine,15, and Jamalita, 20, who were in a neighboring village at the time. "Their throats were cut in front of their grandparents," she says. "I was numb, I couldn’t feel the pain. Right now my mind is not normal," she says. She managed to rescue nine of her offspring.
Image: DW/J. Owens
Attacked, raped and robbed
Yasmine thinks she might be 15 but looks considerably younger. In her village, she used to play with marbles and run in the nearby fields, but different memories haunt her now: The attack by Myanmar forces, the beating and murder of her beloved father and brothers, and the rape by a group of Burmese soldiers who also robbed her. "I felt lots of pain in my body," she says.
Image: DW/J. Owens
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She was seen entering a military helicopter to visit the troubled border district of Maungdaw, her spokesman told Reuters news agency. She was accompanied by about 20 people travelling in two military helicopters, including state officials and military and police officers, according to a Reuters reporter.
More than 600,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh after August 25, when Myanmar security forces started what they dubbed "clearance operations" in response to attacks by insurgents. They now face accusations of severe human rights abuses during the operations. The United Nations said the response was disproportionate and amounted to ethnic cleansing.
Suu Kyi has also drawn intense criticism internationally for a failure to end the violence and condemn those responsbile.
Suu Kyi last visited the restive state in 2016 after a landslide 2015 election victory.
Myanmar launched an initiative last month to help rehabilitation and resettlement in Rakhine. Suu Kyi pledged that refugees who could prove they were residents of Myanmar would be allowed to return. But thousands of Rohingya have continued to flee, even as recently as last night.
Talks with Bangladesh have stalled over complications arising from Myanmar's refusal to grant citizenship to members of the Muslim minority.
The flight of Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar to Bangladesh
Rohingya Muslims fleeing from fighting in Myanmar face attempts by Bangladesh authorities to send them home despite a UN appeal that they be allowed to stay. The Rohingya are classed as illegal immigrants in Myanmar.
Seeking refuge
A series of coordinated attacks by Rohingya insurgents on Myanmar security forces in the north of Myanmar's Rakhine State triggered a crackdown by Myanmar forces that has sent a stream of Rohingya villagers fleeing to Bangladesh. About 400 people have been killed in the clashes in Buddist-majority Myanmar.
Mass evacuation
A Rohingya man passes a child though a barbed wire border fence on the border with Bangladesh. Myanmar accused the Rohingya insurgents of torching seven villages, one outpost, and two parts of Maungdaw town.
Image: Getty Images/R.Asad
Buddhist refugees on their way south
The crackdown by Myanmar forces also sparked a mass evacuation of thousands of Buddhist residents of the area. Tension has long been high between the Rohingya Muslims and Rakhine Buddhists, leading to bloody rioting in 2012. Rakhine Buddhists, feeling unsafe after the upsurge in fighting, are moving south to the state's capital, Sittwe, where Buddhists are a majority and have greater security.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
No entry
Bangladeshi border guards block people from crossing. Thousands of Rohingyas have sought to flee the fighting to Bangladesh, with nearly 30,000 crossing over. Bangladesh, which is already host to more than 400,000 Rohingya said it will not accept any more refugees, despite an appeal by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for Dhaka to allow Rohingya to seek safety.
Image: Reuters/M. Ponir Hossain
Humanitarian crisis
An aid worker with an international agency in Bangladesh reports: "What we're seeing is that many Rohingya people are sick. This is because they got stuck in the border before they could enter. It's mostly women and children." The Rohingya are denied citizenship in Myanmar and classified as illegal immigrants, despite claiming roots there that go back centuries.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/M.Alam
Not welcome in Bangladesh
A group of Rohingya refugees takes shelter at the Kutuupalang makeshift refugee camp in Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh. Bangladesh's unwillingness to host more refugees became apparent in the government's plan to relocate Rohingyas to a remote island that is mostly flooded during the monsoon season.
Image: Reuters/M. P. Hossain
Stranded in no man's land
Rohingya children make their way through water as they try to come to the Bangladesh side from no man's land. Tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees are believed to be stuck at the border to Bangladesh.