Rohingya Genocide – An Urgent Crisis

Media Release 7/9/17

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Rohingya Genocide – An Urgent Crisis

Since last Friday, 25 August 2017, the Myanmar military force, supported by local extreme Rakhine Buddhists and the Government, who are allegedly claiming to be fighting armed Rohingya forces, have been massacring and killing innocent Rohingyas.

Recent reports have indicated that the situation has worsened in the past few days. Despite the International Community’s pressure on Myanmar government, the genocide is still ongoing and villages are being burned down every day in an attempt to systematically eradicate the Rohingya race.

A field worker for the Action Contre Le Faim (ACF), based in Buthidaung has reported the following.

- Around 9,000 to 10,000 innocent Rohingya civilians have been killed.

- At least 183 Rohingya villages have been burned down and satellite images are a clear indication of this.

- More than 120,000 Rohingyas have fled to Bangladesh for survival.

- More than 200,000 Rohingyas are internally displaces, including a majority of them hiding in forests and mountains without any food or shelter.

- The ACF field worker has reported to witness at least 2000 fleeing Rohingya men to be slaughtered brutally.

We would like to stress the fact that fatality figures supplied by the Myanmar Government are propaganda and biased. There is little or no access by independent media to the affected region. They underestimate the deaths by a significant order of magnitude in order to deflect international attention. The figures provided by Myanmar are not to be used at all as that would be a denial of genocide. We urge the Australian Government and the International Community to immediately condemn and put an end to this ongoing massacre of innocent Rohingya civilians.

The Myanmar Government are blatantly disregarding expressions of concern and condemnation by the entire world. We urge that sanctions be put in place immediately in an order to pressurize the Myanmar government to end the killings of these helpless Rohingyas, and also pressurize them to allow aid access, media access and UN fact-finding mission access.

In the past week there have been demonstrations in Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne to raise awareness of this issue.

On the 4th of September 2017, members of the Rohingya Community from Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne had protested outside the Parliament House in Canberra and also the Myanmar Embassy.

The Union Aid Abroad APHEDA had held rallies today Thursday 7 September 2017 in Sydney and Melbourne outside the offices of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).

Given the emergency state for our people in Arakan State, Myanmar, we ask the Australian Government to help us. These are the requests of the Rohingyan community in Australia.

- We urge the Myanmar Government to immediately stop the ethnic cleansing of innocent Rohingyas in Arakan State, Myanmar.

- We urge the UN to intervene and immediately end the massacre of innocent Rohingya civilians.

- We urge the Australian Government to immediately pressurize the Myanmar Government to end the ongoing genocide of innocent Rohingyas.

- We urge the Bangladeshi Government to provide food and shelter to the helpless Rohingya fleeing violence in Myanmar.

- We urge the UN to intervene and provide security for the surviving Rohingyas in Arakan State, Myanmar.

- We urge the Myanmar Government to allow immediate aid access for the displaced Rohingyas in Arakan State, Myanmar.

- We urge the Myanmar Government to allow independent media access into Arakan State, Myanmar.

- We urge the Myanmar Government to allow immediate access to the UN fact-finding missions into Arakan State, Myanmar.

- We urge the Myanmar Government that Kofi Annan’s peace treaty be implemented.

- We urge the Australian Government implement immediate sanctions on Australia’s Aid Program to Myanmar, as part of the agreement was to maintain peace and stability especially pertaining to ethnic tensions.

- We urge to increase the numbers of Rohingya refugees accepted into Australia.

- We urge to speed up the processing of refugees.

Signatories:

- Burmese Rohingya Community in Australia (BRCA)

- Burmese Rohingya Association in Queensland-Australia (BRAQA)

- Queensland Rohingya Community (QRC)

- Australian Burmese Rohingya Organisation (ABRO)

- Central Queensland Rohingya Community Inc. (CQRC)

- Arkan Rohingya Community of Australia (ARCA)

Refugee Action Committee Sydney:

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