{"id":103509,"date":"2017-12-18T12:00:49","date_gmt":"2017-12-18T12:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=103509"},"modified":"2017-12-17T15:07:54","modified_gmt":"2017-12-17T15:07:54","slug":"red-cross-says-life-has-stopped-in-myanmars-rakhine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/12\/red-cross-says-life-has-stopped-in-myanmars-rakhine\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Cross Says Life Has Stopped in Myanmar’s Rakhine"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>13 Dec 2017<\/em> – Life has stopped in its tracks in Myanmar\u2019s northern Rakhine state where an estimated 180,000 Rohingya remain, fearful after violence drove 650,000 to flee to Bangladesh, the International Committee of the Red Cross said today.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dominik Stillhart, ICRC director of operations, speaking after a three-day mission to the remote area, said continuing tensions in the Muslim and dominant Buddhist communities were preventing Muslim traders from reopening shops and markets.<\/p>\n

The ICRC is one of the only aid agencies to operate in northern Rakhine after Myanmar\u2019s military waged a campaign the United Nations has called \u201cethnic cleansing\u201d in response to Aug. 25 attacks by Rohingya militants on security posts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe situation in the northern Rakhine has definitely stabilised, there are very sporadic incidents, but tensions are huge between the communities,\u201d Stillhart told reporters.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou get a sense, especially of the two main communities being deeply scared of each other. What surprised me is the fact that not only the Muslim communities are scared, but that the others are actually scared as well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Stillhart went to Maungdaw, Buthidaung and Rathedaung in northern Rakhine, where the ICRC is providing food, water and other aid 150,000 people. By year-end, it hopes to reach all of the 180,000 Rohingya it estimates remain in the \u201cpolitically-sensitive\u201d region, among 300,000 throughout Rakhine, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201dYou travel through the countryside and you really see on both sides of the road, villages that are completely destroyed.<\/p>\n

It just gives you a bit of a sense of the scale of destruction. There is also this pervasive sense of absence.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is as if life has stopped in its tracks, people do not move, markets are closed in Muangdaw town,\u201d Stillhart said.<\/p>\n

Myanmar\u2019s army released a report last month denying all allegations of rapes and killings by security forces.<\/p>\n

No Significant Returns <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe main problem for the Muslim communities today is not that they are being attacked, or that there are incidents,\u201d Stillhart said.<\/p>\n

Rather it is fear and uncertainty, and \u201cthe very limited possibilities for them to access their own livelihoods like fields, and especially markets and services\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n

Myanmar and Bangladesh signed an agreement last month for the voluntary repatriation of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya within several months.<\/p>\n

The returns must be voluntary and safe, Stillhart said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut for now we really don\u2019t see a significant return movement and I\u2018m also not expecting that we will see massive return anytime soon,\u201d he said. About 300 Muslims still flee daily, he added, citing U.N. figures.<\/p>\n

The ICRC visits detainees held in Rakhine, including Rohingya arrested since Aug 25, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201dWhat I can tell you is there are very few people who have been rounded up, surprisingly few people have been rounded up.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it\u2019s not as if we met like hundreds or thousands of people rounded up in these detention centres.\u201d<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 reuters.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

13 Dec 2017 – Life has stopped in its tracks in Myanmar\u2019s northern Rakhine state where an estimated 180,000 Rohingya remain, the International Committee of the Red Cross said today. \u201cYou get a sense of the two main communities being deeply scared of each other. What surprised me is the fact that not only the Muslim communities are scared, but that the others are actually scared as well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":103510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[224],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-human-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}