Hundreds of buildings in Rohingya villages have been torched, satellite images released this week show. This comes as deadly fighting has flared in the strife-torn region of western Myanmar.
Image: Reuters/Soe Zeya Tun
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At least eight people have died and 36 have been arrested in clashes between the army and what the Myanmar government alleges are Rohingya Muslim militants in western Rakhine State, state media reported Sunday. This is the largest escalation of the month-old conflict yet.
It comes as new satellite images released by Human Rights Watch show what the group said was evidence of around 400 homes destroyed by arson near the border with Bangladesh.
Human Rights Watch's Asia Director Brad Adams says the new photos showed "widespread destruction" that was worse than previously believed. "Burmese [Myanmar] authorities should promptly establish a UN-assisted investigation as a first step toward ensuring justice and security for the victims," Adams said in a statement.
Myanmar's 1.1 million Rohingya Muslims are the majority in Rakhine, but they are denied citizenship and other basic rights, with many majority Buddhists regarding them as illegal migrants from Bangladesh. They also face severe travel restrictions. Myanmar soldiers have killed several dozen people and arrested scores in their hunt for the attackers, who the government claims are radicalized Islamist militants with links to overseas militants.
International pressure
The crisis and reports of grave rights abuses being carried out in tandem with the security crackdown have put international pressure on Myanmar's new civilian government and raised questions about its ability to control its own military. The deadly violence in Rakhine has deepened and complicated a crisis that already posed a critical challenge to the new administration led by former pro-democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi.
Myanmar has simmered with religious tension ever since waves of violence between the majority Buddhist population and the Muslim Rohingya left more than 200 dead in 2012. The then junta-led government pushed more than 100,000 people, mostly Rohingya, into displacement camps where they have since languished.
International rights groups - which applauded Suu Kyi's ascension to power in recent elections - complain that the minority still faces apartheid-like restrictions on movement and have repeatedly called on her to work toward a solution. But Buddhist nationalists at home oppose granting citizenship to Muslims, despite their long roots in the Southeast Asian country.
Trafficked and abandoned - the Rohingya exodus
Boats carrying more than 1,600 Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants washed to shore in Indonesia and Malaysia, after human traffickers reportedly dumped the boats in shallow waters. DW takes a look at the refugees' ordeal.
Image: Reuters/R: Bintang
Stranded
On Sunday, May 10, a group of about 600 people arrived in the Indonesian province of Aceh on four boats. At about the same time more than 1,000 others landed in three boats on the northern Malaysian resort island of Langkawi. At least two of these overcrowded boats were towed by local fishermen to the shores. Those rescued were rounded up by the police.
Image: Reuters/R. Bintang
Exhausted
Human traffickers apparently abandoned the ships - which also carried women and children - and left the hungry migrants to fend for themselves. Indonesian authorities and aid agencies believe the rescued group had been at sea for about a week. Many were in need of medical care. The authorities warn more desperate migrants could still be in peril at sea.
Image: Reuters/R: Bintang
A perilous journey
Every year thousands of impoverished Bangladeshis and Muslim Rohingya from Buddhist-majority Myanmar brave perilous land and sea routes in rickety traffickers' boats similar to this one in a desperate attempt to reach Malaysia and Indonesia. UNHCR estimates that some 25,000 Rohingya Muslims and Bangladeshis boarded people smugglers' boats in the first three months of this year.
Image: Asiapics
Stateless
Myanmar views its population of roughly 800,000 Rohingya as illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. Most of them are not citizens and outbreaks of sectarian violence have prompted many to flee. "An entire population feels their only option is to seek asylum by sea," Matthew Smith of Fortify Rights told DW. The figure of Rohingya trafficked in Thailand since 2012 could be as high as a quarter million.
Image: Reuters/R: Bintang
Modern slave trade
Seeking to flee discrimination, the Rohingya usually contact a broker who deceives them to think they will be taken directly to Malaysia for the equivalent of up to $200, says Smith. Throughout the journey they're denied adequate food, water, and space, and subjected to beatings, and sometimes killings. The boats travel to Thai waters where they are transported to a makeshift jungle camp onshore.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/S. Yulinnas
Fear of Thailand
Many Rohingya are forced to cross Thailand using vehicles run by smugglers, who hold them in captivity in squalid jungle camps until a ransom is paid by their family back home. However, following the Thai government's recent crackdown on human trafficking, after the discovery of several mass graves (seen here), many smugglers have taken new measures, putting the migrants' lives at greater risk.
Image: Reuters/D. Sagolj
Abandoned
As a result of the crackdown by Thai authorities, Rohingya and Bangladeshi refugees were found wandering around in southern Thailand near suspected jungle camps, apparently after they were abandoned by the smugglers who fled. The authorities have questioned more than 100 migrants near the country's border with Malaysia to determine whether they were victims of human trafficking.
Image: AFP/Getty Images/Str
A wave of migrants
Southeast Asia is being hit by a wave of migrants, partly driven by conflict, persecution and poverty. The Asia-Pacific region recently recorded an estimated 11.7 million trafficked people, the highest figure of any region. The Greater-Mekong Sub-region encompassing Cambodia, China, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam features some of the most extensive flows of migration and human trafficking.
