She has been taken in by a fisherman and his wife who already have four sons and two daughters. A simple Love Story But So Many Problems The Myanmar Times If this picture is your intelectual property (copyright infringement) or child pornography. “You treat the children who are sick, and then they fall ill again because they are not getting the right food.”įor now at least, tiny Fatima is safe.

“It’s a hopeless situation,” said the aid worker.

In the makeshift camps, malnutrition rates are even higher. Yet the plight of those already here gets little attention.Ī report by U.S.-based rights group Refugees International last year described a “silent crisis” of abuse, starvation and detention faced by stateless Rohingyas in Bangladesh.Īccording to UNHCR, a 2011 survey in the two official camps found that 17 percent of children between six months and six years were suffering from acute malnutrition, higher than the emergency threshold set by the World Health Organisation. The populations share the same ethnicity, religion and dialect, and they are so close that if you call a Rohingya on a mobile phone in Myanmar it is likely to be a Bangladesh number. There has been some dismay in this part of Bangladesh at the hard line taken by the government on the new arrivals. He escaped to Bangladesh in 2006 after his brother and others were jailed in a crackdown on Muslim clerics. The baby, named Fatima by the family that has taken her in, is out of the danger that she and her family faced in Myanmar, but she joins a throng of stateless people in southeast Bangladesh who - for the most part - lead desperate lives of squalor, deprivation and discrimination.Īmong them is Mohammad Kamal, a young religious leader from Rakhine’s Maungdaw district, where ferocious violence erupted on June 9 between Rohingyas and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and spread across the state. Bangladesh has ordered its border guards to push the boats back, determined that - with at least quarter of a million “illegal migrants” already here - there must be no more. Six Mizoram districts - Champhai, Siaha, Lawngtlai, Serchhip, Hnahthial and Saitual - share a 510 km-long international border with Myanmar's Chin state.The cleft-lipped infant, just weeks old, is among hundreds of Rohingya Muslims who fled this month’s sectarian violence in Myanmar’s western state of Rakhine, packing themselves into rough wooden boats and heading for the shores of neighboring Bangladesh. The majority of the refugees live in relief camps, while others are accommodated by their local relatives and some live in rented houses. Notably, altogether 30,401 people from Myanmar have crossed the international border and taken refuge in Mizoram after the neighbouring country's military ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi there in February last year, state Home Minister Lalchamliana informed the assembly last month. The seizure was believed to be the biggest drug haul in recent years in the northeastern state. The Mizoram Police had on October 14 seized 6.8 kilograms of heroin worth over Rs 34 crore from the possession of a drug peddler at new Champhai village near the Myanmar border. Nearly 40 Myanmar nationals have been arrested between January and September this year in drug-related cases, a senior police officer said.

The police personnel have been making efforts to curb smuggling activities in the state, it said. The accused hails from Tahan in the neighbouring country and has been booked under various sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, and the Foreigners Act, the state police said in a statement. Acting on a tip-off, a team from the Bawnkawn Police Station apprehended the person on Saturday and seized 10 grams of the narcotics substance. AIZAWL: A 27-year-old Myanmar national was arrested in Mizoram's capital Aizawl after heroin worth Rs 5 lakh was recovered from his possession, police said on Sunday.

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