Arakan Watch: March 17, 2023
Dr. Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has detailed severe violations of amid shocking violence in Burma at 52nd Session of the Human Rights Council on 6th March 2023 in Geneva.
In his statement, he mentioned that the people of Burma knew that they faced many challenges. Decades of isolation. Protracted repression. Ethnic nationalism – and particularly severe discrimination, structural exclusion and violence against the Rohingya, many of whom I’ve met over many years. Lost educational opportunities. Poverty. It was never going to be simple, but there was sincere, whole-hearted hope. But hope is rare now in Myanmar.
As the country enters the third year of the crisis generated by military rule, its people continue to suffer profound human rights harms; an expanding humanitarian emergency; continuing impunity of the military authorities; and a deepening economic crisis.
Also mentioned that armed conflict has continued to grow in scope and intensity, with attacks on civilians reminiscent of those in 2017, when the military attacked Rohingya communities in Rakhine State.
The Rohingya community still remaining in Burma, which has already endured decades of persecution, continues to face widespread and systematic discrimination in every area of life.
The necessary conditions for voluntary, safe and dignified returns of refugees to Rakhine State simply do not exist, and the over one million Rohingya who remain in forced exile in Bangladesh and other countries, as well as hundreds of thousands who are internally displaced, face a bleak present, and worse future.
Over the past year, thousands more Rohingya have sought to flee unbearable conditions. At least 3,500 attempted sea crossings in 2022– a 360 percent increase from 2021. At least 348 of them died or went missing at sea. It is a tragedy.
In addition, around 2,000 Rohingya people were arrested in 2022 for so-called “unauthorised travel” within Burma.
The urgent goals must be recognition of citizenship, and the exercise of rights associated with it, as well as security – repeatedly requested by the Rohingya as essential to conditions that would be conducive for their return.##
