Arakan News Agency
Western Myanmar’s Rakhine state will repatriate more than 100,000 ethnic Rakhine Buddhists from the country’s Kachin state, where fighting between rebels and government troops have threatened their livelihoods, officials said Monday.
Phyu Thar Che, vice-chairman of the Rakhine Literature and Cultural Association, said the Rakhine state government had pledged to assist in repatriating around half of the more than 200,000 Rakhines living in northern Myanmar’s resource-rich Kachin state.
Last month, in its annual report on the state of the world’s human rights, Amnesty International said the situation of the Rakhine state-based ethnic Muslim Rohingyas “deteriorated” in 2014, with ongoing discrimination in law and practice, and authorities failing to hold perpetrators of anti-Muslim violence to account.
An estimated 139,000 people—mostly Rohingya—remained displaced in the region after violence erupted between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingyas in 2012, Amnesty said, adding that the situation had worsened when some aid organizations were expelled from the country after they were attacked by Rakhine people for allegedly giving preferential treatment to Muslims.
Rohingyas also remained deprived of nationality under Myanmar’s 1982 Citizenship Act, leaving them open to restrictions on freedom of movement that affected their livelihoods, the report said.
The government in October introduced a new Rakhine State Action Plan which, if implemented, would further entrench discrimination and segregation of the Rohingyas, it said, adding that the announcement appeared to trigger a new wave of people fleeing the country in boats to join the 87,000 who have already done so since the violence started in 2012.
Source : RFA
