Arakan News Agency
More than 2,000 Rohingya Muslims gathered on the coast in Myanmar this week after walking inland villages in the western state of Arakan, heading for Bangladesh, as hundreds of thousands of people did before, official media reported Saturday.
More than 500,000 Rohingyas fled northern Arakan province in one month to escape military operations by the army and civil violence that the United Nations called “ethnic cleansing.”
The Secretary-General of the United Nations had called upon the State of Myanmar to end racial discrimination against the Rohingya minority.
Members of the Rohingya minority, which is not recognized by any state, face considerable risks as they travel to Bangladesh after decades of systematic repression in Myanmar with a Buddhist majority.
Last Thursday, a boat capsized and about 60 Rohingyas are feared dead, with 23 bodies, most of them children, still missing.
The bulk of the crowd gathered on the coast of Arakan, and those who died in the boat incident, came from the inland town of Buthidaung, west of the Mayu Mountains.
The refugees”started leaving their area as of last Tuesday, saying they did not feel safe because the area was almost deserted after most of their relatives left for Bangladesh,” the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar reported.
