• HomeForgotten Rohingyas and Host Communities in Mae Sot

Livelihoods and Community: Sustainable Solutions for the Forgotten Rohingyas and Host Communities in Mae Sot

Rohingyas and other vulnerable Myanmar Muslim communities are living in a de facto refugee and protracted displacement situation. In line with the European Union’s Aid to Uprooted People (AUP) programme objectives, the proposed actions will help vulnerable Rohinyas, other marginalised Myanmar Muslims and Thai persons, through community development, education and skills acquirement, to build sustainable livelihoods with a view to the local integration or potential repatriation of Rohingya and Myanmar Muslim populations currently living in Thailand.

The overall objectives of this action are two-fold: firstly, to promote livelihood opportunities and the socio-economic self-reliance of vulnerable Rohingya, Myanmar Muslim and disadvantaged Thais in communities in Tak province; and secondly, to strengthen and facilitate the relationships, understanding and cooperation between vulnerable Rohingya, other marginalised Myanmar Muslims, Thai communities, NGOs, CBOs, and other relevant stakeholders. In these regards the action will relate to livelihoods, education and community development.

Key Objectives

The proposed action intends to:

1. Provide vocational training to vulnerable Rohingya, Myanmar Muslim and Thai youth (15-25) in community leadership and humanitarian skills training;
2. Provide vocational training to a further vulnerable Rohingya, Myanmar Muslim and Thai women in income-generation skills including sewing and general financial mathematics/accounting skills; 
3. Promote the importance of education within households and communities; 
4. Establish a “Household Support Fund” (HSF) to help to relieve some of the financial burden associated with child education; 
5. Contribute to community development, participation and integration through the establishment of a joint Rohingya, Myanmar Muslim and Thai, Local Community Youth Council (LCYC) which will encourage positive community cohesion and facilitate various community events.

Alongside all of these actions will be an effort to raise awareness among beneficiaries and stakeholders of the project activities and the issues facing vulnerable and displaced Rohingya, Myanmar Muslim and Thai persons.

Details

Time-frame: The action will take place over a period of 24 months, beginning 15 January 2013 and end 14 January 2015.

Location: Mae Sot, Tak Province, Thailand

Donors

This project is co-financed by the European Union (EU), Aid to Uprooted People in Thailand (AUP) programme and the Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC).

      

Contact

For further details, please contact:

Ms. Claudia Natali
Labour Migration Programme Manager
IOM Thailand
Tel: +66 2343 9354

Burma Unbound: Photos from a Waking Nation by Adam Ferguson

Adam Ferguson—VII for TIME

Burma's President Thein Sein is interviewed by Time Magazine correspondent Hannah Beech at the Presidential Palace in Naypyidaw, Myanmar on Nov. 27, 2012.

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When I landed in Rangoon for the first time in April 2012 to photograph Burma’s historic parliamentary by-elections, I sped from the airport to my hotel in a rickety but relatively late-model taxi. A spirit of optimism informed my daily interactions. Jovial taxi drivers boasting Aung San Suu Kyi stickers and buttons, reveled in relating the failings of their government and their support for the National League for Democracy — just as any taxi driver might talk about politics in Dublin, London or New Orleans. The people on the street were free to speak. And as a foreign journalist, my cameras were out and working — not hiding — from the streets to the presidential palace. The Burma I encountered seemed vastly different from the relentlessly authoritarian state I’d heard so much about: here, I felt, was a country in vital transition.

But beyond my naïve first impressions formed in the optimism and bustle of Rangoon, Burma remains a nation fractured along ethnic and religious lines. Approximately two-thirds of its population live in impoverished rural areas. In the town of Sittwe, in the state of Arakan (also known as Rakhine) in the west, I witnessed the ethnic divide between Rohingya Muslims and Arakanese Buddhists. A series of clashes had forced the Rohingya minority into makeshift camps on the outskirts of Sittwe. A small steel fence with rusty barbed wire and young paramilitary guards formed a government-sanctioned line of control, with Muslims on one side and Buddhists on the other.
My English-speaking Rohingya guide, eager to expose the plight of his people, told me (half-jokingly) that the situation resembled the fraught and perilous era in Western Europe before the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Adam Ferguson—VII for TIME

Cover of Jan. 21, 2013 edition of TIME International

Naypyidaw, Burma’s new administrative capital 240 miles north of Rangoon, boasted wide, sweeping boulevards replete with opulent fountains, but largely devoid of humanity aside from the occasional street sweeper. I had arrived there, along with TIME’s East Asia correspondent and China Bureau Chief Hannah Beech, to photograph Burma’s president, Thein Sein. He was a polite and measured man, offering lengthy answers to Beech’s questions in an hour-long interview. For my part, I was sweaty and shaky after anticipating this moment all day. I grabbed the president’s hand and pleaded for ten minutes of his time. He not only obliged, but seemed genuinely happy to pose — despite the ceaseless efforts of his minders, who repeatedly attempted to end the portrait shoot.

Afterward, as we drove down the boulevards on our journey back to Rangoon, we passed hotels and a shopping mall, islands of modernity like nothing one will find in provincial Burma. Thousands of decorative lights lined the roads, and I pondered the enormous expense of power invested in this political façade, especially in light of the power outages that continually bedevil Burma’s population.
Ten hours from Rangoon, on a road that turned to dirt then meandered through hills long ago deforested, I arrived at the president’s childhood village, Kyonku. Semi-official-looking men wielding handguns and radios had stopped us just short of Kyonku, insisting we go no further, but a “no” can almost always be transformed into a “yes” in Asia — after some light negotiation — and having displayed our official government letter of transit, we were allowed to pass. In the village, as the sun dropped over rice paddies and thatched roofs, clearly drunk men smoked strong local cigarettes over a game of snooker and families gathered in doorways of dilapidated timber homes. This might have been any other village in Burma — but for the remarkable fact that this one was where a boy from a poor farming family joined the military, climbed the ranks and eventually ascended to the presidency. There were, it seems, nascent elements of democracy within the former dictatorship.

On my last day of photographing in Burma, during a Buddhist full moon festival, I wandered through a slum in the north of Rangoon. People gathered in the street around stalls offering free food from local businesses. Girls in brightly colored dresses mingled at doorways. In front of one stall, an overweight man sat on a plastic stool, microphone in hand, his t-shirt creeping above his bulging belly. In time with an American rap music track, he chanted, urging passersby to receive his offering of free food. People sat around small plastic tables eating food with their fingers. In Burmese he insisted I join them, but through my translator, I reluctantly declined. As I strolled down the street toward the river, he yelled into his microphone, in English: “We are poor. But we are happy!”

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Adam Ferguson is a frequent contributor to TIME. Represented by VII, Ferguson has covered conflict for several years, primarily in Afghanistan. See more of his features on LightBox and in this week’s issue of TIME.

Read more: http://lightbox.time.com/2013/01/10/burma-unbound-photos-from-a-waking-nation-by-adam-ferguson/#ixzz2Hzmql6wo

    

Maung Kyaw Nu's comment-

We are asking all national and international parties  to save the Rohingya .Thailand needs to deal this unfortunate Rohingyas as war of refugee and facility them full UNHCR access . Rohingya' lives are full of danger in their century old Burma.
.
Please stop pushing back Rohingya to killing camps in Burma.

Posted by Maung Kyaw Nu,President,Burmese Rohingya Association in Thailand,(BRAT) on January 15, 2013 04:55

Children among boatpeople apprehended on Phuket on January 1 Photo by phuketwan.com/file '1000 Rohingya' Off Phuket as Scale of Trafficker Trade is Revealed By Chutima Sidasathian and Alan Morison Monday, January 14, 2013 UPDATE NINE boats containing about 1000 Rohingya men, women and children are off the coast in the Phuket region now, maritime authorities said on Monday. Two boats that were being ''helped on'' are now being brought to shore, the authorities said. Original Report PHUKET: Two boatloads of would-be Rohingya refugees are being ''helped on'' off the coast north of Phuket today as one senior military officer in the Andaman region called for the Thai government to clarify its policy. ''We are encountering so many boats already this year with woman and children on board,'' he said, preferring not to be named. ''Signs are that they will come in even greater numbers now.'' Another senior officer said that the boats were coming in such vast numbers that the Thai military could no longer accurately tally passenger totals. The latest interceptions occurred off the coast from the fishing port of Kuraburi in Phang Nga province today, with the Thai Navy and Marine Police checking the health and welfare of passengers at sea. ''We cannot hope to intercept all the boats,'' the second senior officer said. Another sign that a vast, unstoppable migration by sea is underway comes with the raids on clandestine camps on the Thai-Malaysia border over the past few days. The raids have netted more than 900 men, women and children and incriminated a local mayor and his deputy in a lucrative people trafficking trade that has operated with impugnity for years. The Army cracked down on two camps and local police and Immigration instigated a third raid. The latest raid overnight Saturday, executed by the Army, exposed a former cockfighting arena where hundreds of Rohingya were being held and fed just one meal a day. All of the raids have taken place around the Pedang Besar region of Thailand's Songkhla province, close to the border with Malaysia. The latest camp to be discovered was equipped with expensive security cameras. Rohingya are said to be forced to pay 50,000-60,000 baht per person to purchase their illegal passage to Malaysia. One man said that after a 20-day journey by boat, he had been kept in a camp for two months and beaten regularly because he had failed to raise the border transfer fee from family or friends. Tacitly sanctioned ethnic cleansing in Rakhine State in Burma has left thousands of Rohingya homeless and with no source of income, triggering a rush to board smugglers' boats south in hope of finding sanctuary and a fresh start. Since Buddhist neighbors began torching Rohingya villages in June, hundreds of women and children have joined the epic sea voyages for the first time. A spokesperson at a refuge in Songkhla where 105 women and children are being held said today access by outsiders was not permitted, and the group's needs were being met. Hundreds of Rohingya men are being held mostly at crowded police station cells around Songkhla while their future is decided. The 10 nations of the Asean regional grouping have consistently avoided dealing directly with Burma's race-hate policy towards the Rohingya, preferring instead to pretend there is no exodus, and no abuses. The raids on the traffickers' camps and the growing number of sailings of Rohingya boats from Bangladesh and Burma show that Thailand's ''help on'' policy has simply allowed traders in human flesh to help themselves. Other stories Thailand's Flesh Trade Exposed as Camp Captives Flee into Jungle Second Rohingya Trafficking Camp Raided, Rights Group Calls for UN Intervention Burma Must Recognise Rohingya Thai Army Raids Traffickers' Border Camp, 366 Rohingya Held Captive Phuket Boat People: At Sea Again But Not Forgotten Boatpeople Families 'Already Back at Sea' Save Phuket Boat Families Today, Rights Group Tells Thai Government Phuket Boat Families Trucked Back to Burma Border in Tears Phuket Boat Kids Brought Ashore as Future is Debated Will These Phuket Boat Children End Up For Sale by Human Traffickers? Phuket Stop for Boatpeople: Rohingya Children Now Fleeing 'Certain Death' in Burma Phuket Hopes and Dreams, Suffocated in a Death Truck Rohingya Trucked North: Checkpoint Exposes 127 in Minivan Convoy Desperation Marks Rohingyas' Fight for Rights and Survival Phuket NY Countdown: The Saddest Story Why Singapore Lacks a Real Heart Hundreds of Rohingya Held Captive as Three Boats Land on Thai Islands Fleeing Rohingya Captive on Thai Border Phuketwan Writes a Letter of Hope Beginning, 'Dear President Obama . . .' Boatpeople 'Destined for Factories or Trawlers' Voyage of The Lost. Where is Mahud, 14? Comments Add your comment using the form below. Want an avatar for your comments? Register with Gravatar. Name (not required, displayed if provided) Email (required, not displayed) Comment (text-only, no links or tags, thanks) Keep up the good work, PW. Never let this issue fade away. Posted by Buster on January 14, 2013 18:30 We are asking all national and international parties to to save the Rohingya .Thailand needs to deal this unfortunate Rohingyas as war of refugee and facility them full UNHCR access . Rohingya' lives are full of danger in their century old Burma. . Please stop pushing back to killing camps in Burma. Posted by Maung Kyaw Nu,President,Burmese Rohingya Association in Thailand,(BRAT) on January 15, 2013 04:55

Nasaka tries to attempt rape in Maungdaw

Published on Monday, 14 January 2013 17:06

Maungdaw, Arakan State:  Burma’s border security force (Nasaka) personnel tried to attempt rape a Rohingya family on January 8, at Maungdaw north, a close relative of the victims who denied to be named for the cause of security reason. 

“On that day, at around 1:30 pm, a group of Nasaka, numbering in six with the collaboration of Village Administration officer and the head of 10 houses (Bseim Gaung in Burmese) entered the house of Abdu Salam (40), son of Ali Meah, hailed from Pawet Chaung village under the Nasaka area No.5 of Maungdaw Township.  Breaking the door, the Nasaka personnel and the collaborators entered the home, and tortured the whole family members including wife, sons and daughters discriminately without any provoking them.”
Meanwhile, the wife of Abdu Salam taking a knife axed the one Nasaka officer and Village Administration officer- Rashid Ahmed (45), son of Abdul Fatta - injuring them to their face and finger.  Hearing the hue and cry, the nearby villagers rushed to the spot, so the Nasaka fled from the scene, said another relative of the victims.

However, on January 11, morning, the local Nasaka Commander of the Nasaka area No.5 called the Nasaka personnel who committed crimes, house owners and the Nasaka collaborators to the Nasaka camp to inquiry the event, the relative said.
During the event, the Nasaka lost one bullet in the house, so the Nasaka collaborator Noor Khobir (the head of the said 10 houses) was sent to the house by the Nasaka to find the lost bullet.  Luckily, the collaborator fond the lost bullet and returned to the Nasaka, an aide of Nasaka said.
So far, the victims are not getting real judgment from the local Nasaka commander office, a local businessman said.

Besides, the Nasaka Commander of Nasaka area No. 7  of Maungdaw south and the Deputy  Commander of Light Infantry Battalion (LIB )-353, which is situated at Aley Than Kyaw village of Maungdaw committed robberies against the Rohingya villagers sending their solders to nearby villages  in every night. They went to Rohingya villagers along with local Natala villagers and taking even old clothes, tools and pots of the Rohingya villagers, according to local villagers.  A village elder said, “The present quasi-civilian government is trying peace with all ethnic minorities across the country, but in Arakan and Kachin States, the concerned authorities have been harassing the Rohingya and Kachin communities.
source-KPN

One of the camps for captive Rohingya exposed in a series of ''rescue'' raids Photo by Metee Mooktaree Thailand's Flesh Trade Exposed as Camp Captives Flee into Jungle By Chutima Sidasathian and Alan Morison Sunday, January 13, 2013 News Analysis PHUKET: Fresh raids overnight on people traffickers' camps near the Thai-Malaysia border scattered hundreds of captives into the jungle as the push to clean up Thailand's flesh trade continued. Only 151 people - mostly Rohingya - were taken into custody by the Thai Army. Others fled. One raided traffickers' camp, largest in the region, was expected to contain 800 people. Captives are held in secret in Thailand and beaten until relatives or friends provide the price for smuggling them into Malaysia. If the fee is not paid, the men and boys are sold to fishing trawlers. The scale of the nightmare trade has been exposed in a series of raids this week that have netted close to 1000 men, women and childen and at least eight alleged traffickers. The number of women and children involved as innocent victims should alarm policymakers in Thailand, as well as UN and US officials and NGOs. It could even disturb the Asean governments that have pandered to Burma's racist policies and allowed this iniquitous trade in human flesh to grow and flourish, to the benefit of the region's slavers. Several local border politicians have already been implicated in the series of raids around the Pedang Besar region of Thailand's Songkhla province. Long-standing allegations that local Thai police and Immigration officials take their cut from the people smugglers are now likely to be properly investigated for the first time. It's believed that this week's raids have been triggered after months of planning by the Army on information provided by people who have seen and in some cases experienced the smuggling and the slavery at first hand. The exposure of the shocking nature of the trade in Thailand comes as the UN noted the increasing number of Rohingya being forced to flee by sea from persecution and deprivation in Burma's Rakhine state. According to UNHCR officials in Geneva, about 2000 Rohingya fled by boat in the first week of January. Other organisations have noted the huge increase in Rohingya catching boats south because of the hopelessness of being torched from their homes since June and their uncertain future in displaced persons' camps. Many of the boatpeople pay people smugglers for their passage then pay traffickers again on landing in Thailand or Malaysia. With 366 Rohingya ''rescued'' in the first raid and 307 in the second, scores of women and children are now being housed in a refuge in Songkhla, with the men crowding cells at the local Immigration centre and surrounding police stations. Exposure of the evil racket may even force Thailand to recognise the part officials are playing in the covert flesh trade and do something to end it. A real solution, however, lies within Burma where the government's racist policies remain in place and where ethnic cleansing of the stateless Rohingya continues to shame Asean and individual governments throughout the entire region. Other stories Fleeing Rohingya Captive on Thai Border Second Rohingya Trafficking Camp Raided, Rights Group Calls for UN Intervention Burma Must Recognise Rohingya Thai Army Raids Traffickers' Border Camp, 366 Rohingya Held Captive Phuket Boat People: At Sea Again But Not Forgotten Boatpeople Families 'Already Back at Sea' Phuket Boat Families Trucked Back to Burma Border in Tears Phuket Boat Kids Brought Ashore as Future is Debated Will These Phuket Boat Children End Up For Sale by Human Traffickers? Phuket Stop for Boatpeople: Rohingya Children Now Fleeing 'Certain Death' in Burma Sailing Past Holiday Phuket, Record Numbers of 10,000 Boatpeople Making a Shameful Exodus Phuket Hopes and Dreams, Suffocated in a Death Truck Comments Add your comment using the form below. Want an avatar for your comments? Register with Gravatar. Name (not required, displayed if provided) Email (required, not displayed) Comment (text-only, no links or tags, thanks) words fail me...what animals man has become....I am about to start a home for rescued and orphaned children here in Ghana - then will spread throughout Asia Goid willing. Wish I could do it much faster to help these poor people. Posted by iRENE on January 13, 2013 22:39 Bengalis from Bangladesh, a country smaller in size than the state of Iowa, have been migrating illegally to neighboring countries because of overpopulation (over 150 million) and scarcity of resources. Bangladesh is also a breeding ground for Islamic terrorism where the Government of Bangladesh has identified over 70 Islamic terrorists groups (including Islamic Rohingya terrorists) and one million trainees in extremist Islamic schools. As far back as 1975, the then Bangladesh Ambassador to Myanmar Khwaja Mohammed Kaiser admitted that "there were upward of 1/2 million Bangalee (Bangladeshi) trespassers in Arakan (Rakhine state) whom the Burmese (Myanmar) had some right to eject. He had implored the Burmese authorities not to press this issue during Bangladesh's present troubles [COUP of August and November 1975] and had been pleased that the Burmese had not taken advantage of his country's misfortune in this respect. CNN news media have recently published numerous reports of Bengalis illegally migrating eastwards by sea and land. Refer to CNN report of Nov 1, 2012, and Khabar South Asia of Dec 24, 2012. Once they cross the border, they identify themselves as Rohingya to gain international sympathy and unquestioning acceptance by news media. Bangladesh newspaper UNBConnect of Nov 21 and Dec 27, 2012 admitted that Bangladeshis are camouflaging themselves as Rohingya. These so called Rohingyas trained in terrorism in Bangladesh have now joined the Islamic insurgency groups in southern Thailand and terrorizing the country side. In addition, approximately 12 million to 17 million Bangladeshi immigrants have come to India illegally since the 1950s and thereby terrorizing, infiltrating and displacing the indigenous population in the border areas. Posted by Ray on January 13, 2013 23:54 Editor Comment: Ray, experts on the southern insurgency say not one single Rohingya has ever been found among the dead or injured in years of skirmishes involving thousands of victims. So much for your theory. More racism? No thanks. This is our ardent appeal to the Honorable Prime Minister,Law makers and civil society of Thailland not to hand over or push back the rescued Rohingyas to racist Burmese government. Since last week of May 2012 ,Thien Sein government sponsored genocidal killing, burning homes ,uprooting, widespread raping have been on Rohingyas in their century old home in Arakan. A quarter millions people were internally displaced and whole Rohingyas lives are dire due to block of food,medicines and other necessity supplies by government forces and local goons. In the main times,the neighboring country Bangladesh intentionally closed border for Rohingyas. So the Rohingyas are compelled to voyage to third countries.It's sadly to say that hundred of thousands died in the sea. Rohingyas are not economic Refugees. They are the most persecuted people in the world. Their all Rights including citizenship are stolen by the racist regime .They are not protected in their own land by the racists. If they were pushed back to Burma ,they will again fall in genocide. Every Rohingya life is in danger in their forefathers' land. By considering above facts, please grand the shelter to Rohingay in Thailand.The Rohingya will go back home ,when they are sure to be protected there. Rohingya deserve international protection urgently. Save the Rohingya from hidden genocide in Arakan and give the shelter in Thailand on humanitarian ground. Maung Kyaw Nu, President , BRAT, email-brat.headoffice@gmail.com web-site- http:rohingyathai.blogspot.com Posted by Maung Kyaw Nu,President,Burmese Rohingya Association in Thailand,(BRAT) on January 14, 2013 03:11 The number of women and children involved as innocent victims should alarm policymakers in Thailand, as well as UN and US officials and NGOs. BUT IT DOESN'T. It could even disturb the Asean governments that have pandered to Burma's racist policies and allowed this iniquitous trade in human flesh to grow and flourish, to the benefit of the region's slavers. BUT IT WON'T. Posted by Charles on January 14, 2013 05:50

Police take action after Rohingya roundup

Published: 11/01/2013 at 06:33 PM

• Online news: Local News

SONGKHLA - Police have filed charges against eight suspects in connection with trafficking more than 700 Rohingya migrants into the country on their way to work in Malaysia.

The Rohingya from Myanmar were rounded up by authorities on Thursday and Friday and detained in four separate locations. They will be sent back to their countries.

 

 Another 307 Rohingya, including women and children, were rounded up in Songkhla province on Friday.(Photo by Vichayant Boonchote)

Police did not reveal the names of the suspects, saying only that two of them were Thais, two were Myanmar nationals and four were Rohingya.
Pol Col Krissakorn Pleetanyawong, deputy commander of Songkhla police, said they were charged with arms possession and sheltering illegal migrants.
Two more suspects, one of them a local politician, will be summoned for questioning about whether they are involved in the operation, he added.

The officer did not name the other two suspects. But the crackdown on Thursday took place at a rubber plantation on the border with Malaysia in Sadao district of Songkhla province. The plantation is owned by Prasit Lemlae, deputy mayor of the Padang Besar municipality.
Mr Prasit could not be reached for comment on the issue.

Immigration officers and local police detained 397 Rohingya on Thursday. Another 307 were rounded up near the same location on Friday.
They were divided into three groups and detained at the Padang Besar immigration office, and at three police stations in tambon Padang Besar, Sadao district and tambon Khlong Ngae.

Pol Maj Thanusilp Duangkaewngam, chief of the Songkhla immigration bureau, said all would be deported to Myanmar as they had entered Thailand illegally.
The migrants told police that they had voluntarily left their country to work in Malaysia by travelling through Thailand.

But Pol Maj Thanusilp was not convinced, saying that more investigations would be undertaken to take action against the traffickers behind the case.
He said the refugees rounded up on Friday included 230 men, 31 women, 22 boys and 24 girls. The group rounded up on Thursday also included children and women in the group who appeared to be exhausted and were crammed under a sheet-metal roof.
The Rohingya told police on Thursday that they had been kept on the rubber plantation for more than three months and were still waiting to go to Malaysia.

Once in Malaysia, they were to be sold off by agents for 60,000 to 70,000 baht to work on fishing boats.

The Rohingya now being detained are the last of some 2,000 that Thai and Myanmar traffickers had brought into Thailand on 10-wheeled trucks via Ranong.
The rest had already been sent out of Sadao district, they said.
Sectarian violence in Myanmar involving the Rohingya has left hundreds dead and many more homeless in recent months.

The United Nations estimates the Rohingya population in Myanmar at 800,000, but the government does not recognise them as one of the country's 135 ethnic groups, and most are denied citizenship.
Rohingya speak a Bengali dialect and resemble Muslim Bangladeshis, with darker skin than most people in Myanmar. They are widely regarded as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and are heavily discriminated against, but Bangladesh also refuses to accept them as citizens.
Last week, Thai authorities deported back to Myanmar 73 Rohingya who had been found adrift on a boat off Phuket.