Rohingyas along border left without food, water

Thousands of Rohingyas fleeing violence in their homeland Rakhine State of Myanmar remained trapped along the border without shelter, safe drinking water, food and medical care after they failed to enter Bangladesh amid heightened patrols.
Amid untold sufferings of the persecuted ethnic minority Rohingyas, international agencies on Monday reported that Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army continued accusing each other for the violence.
Bangladesh on Monday proposed joint operations by security forces along borders for containing alleged militant activities in Myanmar’s Rakhine State.
Twelve more Rohingyas were admitted to Chittagong Medical College Hospital taking to 20 the number of Rohingyas admitting to the hospital with bullet and burn injuries reportedly sustained in Myanmar violence.
Border Guard Bangladesh
thwarted attempts of intrusion by 546 Rohingyas on Monday.
Border guard battalion-2 commanding officer Lieutenant Colonel SM Ariful Islam said that they sent back at least 475 Rohingyas when they were trying to enter the country through different border points.
Border guard battalion-34 commanding officer Lieutenant Colonel Manjurual Hassan Khan said that they sent back 71 Rohingyas to Myanmar through Balokhali border point.
Border guards and Bangladesh Coast Guard also sent back 331 Rohingyas on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Border guard director general Major General Abul Hossain said in Dhaka on Monday that they were on alert in defensive position. ‘But, we do not want to detail it. If someone is getting closure, we must retaliate…None will be allowed to cross zero-line.’
He said that they were showing humanitarian attitude to Rohingyas but many were also been sent back.
More than 100 people died since August 25 as scores of men purportedly from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army ambushed Myanmar police posts with knives, guns and homemade explosives, killing at least a dozen security force members.
Rohingya refugee leaders in Bangladesh who have contact with the fleeing Rohingyas in Myanmar said that civilians, including women, children and elderly people, from Rakhine State assembled in no man’s lands along the border were facing untold sufferings in absence of food, shelter, safe drinking water and Medicare.
A Kutupalang Registered Rohingya camp leader said that these people were living under open sky or making shelter with plastic sheets to save themselves from scorching heat or monsoon rain. 
‘People have already finished dry food they carried and there is no Medicare and safe water. Many fell sick as they had to walk a lot,’ he said.
‘Local people are helping them with some food which is in no way near the enough,’ Gumdum union parishad chairman AKM Jahangir Kabir said, adding that 4,000-5,000 Rohingyas gathered along the Gumdum border adjacent areas.
Local people at Jalpaitali near Gumdum said that border guards tried to push back several thousand Rohingyas living there for the past two-three days under the open sky but the Rohingyas returned to the place within an hour as gun shots rang out on the Myanmar sides.
Border guard battalion-50 second in command Major Manjurul Islam said that Rohingyas returned to zero line as firing broke out on the other side of border.
Rohingya leaders from registered and unregistered camps and former Naikhyangchari upazila chairman Mohammad Ikbal said that about 2,500-3,000 Rohingyas sneaked into Bangladesh dodging border forces taking to 6,500-7,000 the number of Rohingyas entered Bangladesh in the past four days.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs at its weekly humanitarian snapshot released on Monday said that as of Sunday an estimated 5,200 people were reported to have crossed the border into Cox’s Bazar since August 24.
News agency Agence France-Presse reported from Yangon that Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi on Monday accused Rohingya fighters of burning down homes and using child soldiers during a recent surge in violence in troubled Rakhine state, allegations denied by the extremists.
Both sides accused each other of committing fresh atrocities in recent days, accusations difficult to verify because the fighting was taking place in inaccessible villages.
The government department directly run by Suu Kyi, the State Counsellor’s Office, released a flurry of statements on Facebook, including grim pictures of civilians allegedly shot dead by militants.
‘Terrorists have been fighting security forces by using children at the frontline (and) setting fire (to) minority-ethnic villages,’ the office said it its latest statement on Monday.
The statement said that there should be ‘no concerns for civilians who are not linked with extremist terrorists.’ It called on Rohingyas to cooperate with security forces and not brandish ‘sticks, swords and weapons’ when security forces approached.
The extremist group behind the fighting––Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army––hit back with its own allegations on Monday. ‘While raiding Rohingya villages, the Burmese brutal military soldiers bring along with them groups of Rakhine (Buddhist) extremists to attack Rohingya villagers, loot Rohingyas’ properties and later burn down Rohingya houses,’ the group said via its Twitter account @ARSA_Official.
Bangkok based Asia Times on Monday reported that in an exclusive interview with Asia Times, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army said its August 25 attacks were staged in ‘self-defense’ and would continue until Rohingya rights was restored.
The surprise wave of attacks by the group on police and army posts in Rakhine State, their largest operation to date, was a defensive move aimed at pre-empting an escalating security force crackdown on both the rebels’ military wing and Rohingya civilian communities, a senior official of the group told Asia Times.
Speaking in an exclusive interview on August 26, the official said the campaign of Myanmar military suppression and the rebel counter-punch now pushed the majority Muslim northern region of Rakhine state into a state of ‘open war.’ He vowed ‘continued resistance’ until demand for the restoration of citizenship rights of Rohingyas within Myanmar was met.
Reuters reported that Myanmar security forces intensified operations against Rohingya insurgents on Monday, police and other sources said, following three days of clashes with militants in the worst violence involving Myanmar’s Muslim minority in five years.
The violence marked a dramatic escalation of a conflict simmered since October 2016, when a similar but much smaller series of attacks on security posts prompted a brutal military response dogged by allegations of rights abuses.
‘Now the situation is not good. Everything depends on them––if they’re active, the situation will be tense,’ said police officer Tun Hlaing from Buthidaung township, referring to the Rohingya insurgents.
‘We split into two groups, one will provide security at police outposts and the other group is going out for clearance operation with the military,’ he said.
The Asian Legal Resource Centre and Bangladeshi human rights organisation Odhikar in a joint statement on Monday wished to bring the situation of the Rohingyas to the notice of the United Nations Human Rights Council. ALRC and Odhikar sought immediate, effective action from the international human rights community to protect the victim Rohingyas from ethnic cleansing by the military and security forces of Myanmar. 
Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson Khaleda Zia on Monday urged the government and law enforcement agencies to provide shelter to Rohingyas fleeing violence in Myanmar.
The BNP chairperson said the situation turned ‘worst’ due to ‘inattentive’ Bangladesh government’s ‘weak diplomatic efforts’ over the Rohingya crisis. 

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net