Reports of shootings, allegedly by Myanmar police, at a camp for Rohingya refugees in Rakhine state have sparked concern by United Nations officials.

Knut Ostby, the U.N. Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, tweeted that he is "deeply concerned about the reports of shooting in Ah Nauk Ye camp in central #Rakhine, #Myanmar which holds IDPs who fled violence in 2012. I call for calm, non-violence and restraint. "

I am deeply concerned about the reports of shooting in Ah Nauk Ye camp in central #Rakhine, #Myanmar which holds IDPs who fled violence in 2012. I call for calm, non-violence and restraint. Our statement: pic.twitter.com/Fz2dd2SFLx — Knut Ostby (@knutostby) November 18, 2018

The Reuters news agency quotes eyewitnesses as saying Myanmar police shot and injured four Rohingyas Sunday, while detaining two men accused of smuggling people out of a camp for displaced people in western Rakhine state.

The report said about 20 police descended on Ah Nauk Ye camp, 15 kilometers east of the state's capital Sittwe, and apprehended the two men who were accused of owning the "rickety vessel," used in an attempt to smuggle 160 people, including 25 children, out of the camp. The watercraft was stopped south of Yangoon.

An eyewitness told Reuters that when the police came into the camp "people from the camp went out to look and police shot at people."

The police, however, told the news agency that Rohingyas surrounded them with swords and threw stones at them. "I heard that Bengali from the camp tried to grab the arrested people back from the police and police had to fire warning shots," police inspector Than Htay from a nearby police station, said.

People from Myanmar call the Rohingya Muslims "Bengali," implying they are from Bangladesh and not from Myanmar.

None of the first Rohingya Muslims on a list to return to Myanmar showed up at their departure points in Bangladesh Thursday, the first day they were scheduled to be sent back under a repatriation agreement between the two nations.

About 150 Rohingya refugees were slated to be transported from the crowded camps in Cox's Bazar back to northern Rakhine state, the region where they and more than 700,000 others escaped in August 2017 from a scorched earth campaign by Myanmar's military in response to a series of attacks committed by Rohingya militants. Some of the refugees on the list are believed to have gone into hiding to avoid being sent back.

Meanwhile, about 1,000 angry Rohingyas, including children, demonstrated against the repatriation effort at one of the camps.

Bangladesh Refugee Commissioner Abul Kalam told reporters that the refugees cannot be forced to return to Myanmar under the terms of the agreement.

Human rights groups are calling on Myanmar and Bangladesh to end their plans to send Rohingya Muslims back to Rakhine State, where the United Nations says they are subject to extrajudicial killings and other atrocities carried out by Myanmar's military.

Amnesty International called the organized return of the Rohingya a "reckless move, which puts lives at risk."

"These women, men and children would be sent back into the Myanmar military's grasp with no protection guarantees, to live alongside those who torched their homes and whose bullets they fled," said Nicholas Bequelin, Amnesty's East and Southeast Asia director.

Bill Frelick, the refugee rights director for Human Rights Watch, said Dhaka "will be stunned to see how quickly international opinion turns against it if it starts sending unwilling Rohingya refugees back into harm's way in Myanmar."

A special U.N. fact-finding mission said the military acted "with genocidal intent" against the Rohingyas, citing numerous atrocities such as extrajudicial killings, gang rapes and the torching of entire villages. </s> Image copyright Reuters Image caption There is a heavy military presence in Rakhine state

Attacks by militants on police posts in Myanmar's Rakhine state have left 71 people, including 12 security personnel, dead, the authorities say.

More than 20 posts were targeted by Muslim militants in pre-dawn raids, the government said, in Rakhine's worst violence for months.

Rakhine has been hit by clashes between Muslim and Buddhist communities.

The attacks come a day after a report warned more people would be radicalised if ethnic tensions were not addressed.

Rakhine state, in western Myanmar, is home to more than a million Rohingya Muslims.

Tensions with the majority Buddhist population have been rumbling for years, and tens of thousands of Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh, accusing Myanmar authorities of ethnic persecution.

A government statement said that "extremist Bengali insurgents attacked a police station in Maungdaw region in northern Rakhine state with a handmade bomb explosive and held co-ordinated attacks on several police posts at 01:00".

The government uses the term "Bengali" to describe the stateless Rohingya, because it maintains they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

The government said one soldier, one immigration officer, 10 policemen and 59 militants were killed in the fighting. As many as 150 militants are said to have been involved.

One resident in Maungdaw told AFP news agency on Friday that they could still hear shooting and were afraid to leave the house.

Bangladesh's border guard service says it has sent back 350 Rohingya who have tried to cross into Bangladesh since the raids. It also said security was being increased along the border in the wake of the attacks.

This is the most significant outbreak of violence in Rakhine since October 2016, when nine policemen died in similar attacks on border posts. The government said they were carried out by a previously unknown Rohingya militant group.

The attacks triggered a military crackdown that led to widespread allegations of killings, rape and torture of Rohingya, and an exodus of Rohingya into Bangladesh. The UN is currently investigating alleged human rights abuses by the security forces, who deny wrongdoing.

Rakhine is the poorest state in Myanmar, the UN says. Many Rohingya are living in refugee camps in the wake of waves of communal violence, and there is deep mistrust between Buddhist and Muslim communities.

On Thursday, former UN chief Kofi Annan warned in a report that a "calibrated response" combining political, security and economic initiatives was needed in Rakhine state to reduce ethnic tensions and prevent more violence.

In a statement on Friday he condemned the attacks and said they showed "a worrying escalation of violence". </s> The Bangladesh government says it has offered a plot of land for a new camp to shelter Rohingya Muslims who have fled recent violence in Myanmar.

The violence has driven nearly 300,000 Rohingya to flee Buddhist-majority Myanmar, with many of them packed into existing camps or huddled in makeshift settlements that have mushroomed along roadsides and in open fields across Cox’s Bazar district on the border.

Bangladesh’s junior Foreign Minister Mohammed Shahriar Alam said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had 2 acres (.8 hectares) near the existing camp of Kutupalong “to build temporary shelters for the Rohingya newcomers,” according to a message posted Monday on his Facebook account.

He also said the government would be registering the new arrivals on Monday. Hasina is scheduled to visit Rohingya refugees on Tuesday. </s> UKHIYA, Bangladesh — The Latest on violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine state and the flood of ethnic Rohingya refugees into Bangladesh (all times local):

Myanmar’s military says Rohingya Muslim villagers helped them arrest six suspected Rohingya insurgents armed with swords and slingshots in the country’s conflict-torn northern Rakhine state.

The government says the six are suspected of being members of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, which attacked police posts Aug. 25. Violence since then has sent hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fleeing, burned 60 villages and left hundreds dead. The government and Rohingya blame each other.

The military commander in chief’s office said Tuesday on its Facebook page that six alleged insurgents were detained Monday by fellow Rohingya as they entered Ka Nyin Tan village in Maungdaw township.

Authorities in Buddhist-majority Myanmar refer to Rohingya as Bengalis, contending that they immigrated illegally from nearby Bangladesh, though many Rohingya families have lived in Myanmar for generations.

The U.N. refugee agency says the number of Rohingya refugees that have fled recent violence in Myanmar has spiked to about 370,000.

That new estimate given Tuesday in a statement by UNHCR is more than 50,000 higher than Monday’s estimate — a result of aid agencies reaching “more villages, hamlet and pockets where refugees have gathered.”

Thousands of ethnic Rohingya Muslims have been arriving daily by foot across the swampy border as well as by rickety wooden boats travelling on wild seas since violence erupted on Aug. 25 in Myanmar.

The influx has left Bangladesh refugee camps reeling. The UNHCR said it was flying in two shipments of aid materials including jerry cans, blankets, sleeping mats and shelter materials.

It said the goods would help some 25,000 refugees at jam-packed refugee camps in Bangladesh’s border district of Cox’s Bazar. More airlifts were planned in coming days.

Iran’s Supreme Leader has strongly condemned the killing of Muslims in Myanmar by the government.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the killing of Rohingya Muslims is a political disaster for Myanmar because it is being carried out by a government led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, whom he called a “brutal woman.”

He urged Muslim countries to take practical steps to stop the violence and said they should “increase political, economic and commercial pressures on the government of Myanmar.”

At least 313,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since Aug. 25, when Rohingya insurgents attacked police posts, prompting Myanmar’s military to retaliate with what it called “clearance operations” to root out the rebels.

Myanmar authorities said more than a week ago that some 400 Rohingya, mostly insurgents, had died in clashes with troops, but it has offered no update. It has also blamed Rohingya for burning their own homes even though new fires were occurring after Rohingya fled.

The Bangladeshi prime minister is visiting a struggling refugee camp that has absorbed some of the hundreds of thousands who fled recent violence in Myanmar.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina told a rally during Tuesday’s visit to the Kutupalong refugee camp, near the border town of Ukhiya, that she wished for peace for the Rohingya and would not “tolerate injustice” against them.

She pledged that Bangladesh would do its best to help the Rohingya, but said Myanmar should take steps soon to “take their nationals back.”

On Monday night, she lambasted Myanmar for “atrocities” that she said had reached a level beyond description.

The Bangladeshi leader has lambasted Myanmar for the “atrocities” that have driven hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims into Bangladesh in recent weeks.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina urged Buddhist-majority Myanmar to bring the Rohingya back, while parliament passed a motion Monday night urging the U.N. and other countries to pressure Myanmar for their safety and citizenship.

“Myanmar must take back every Rohingya who has entered Bangladesh and who are coming in now,” she told lawmakers late Monday. “We can co-operate to rehabilitate them in their country.”

Hasina criticized Myanmar’s authorities for the recent violence against the Rohingya, which she said had reached a level beyond description.

The United States says it is “deeply troubled” by the Myanmar crisis, which hundreds of thousands of Muslims have fled to escape violence.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders says the administration continues to condemn the violence between Rohingya Muslims and Myanmar security forces.

The United Nations reported Monday that 313,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh to escape violence in Myanmar’s western state of Rakhine — the biggest flight of the minority Rohingya in a generation.

The violence began Aug. 25, when an ethnic Rohingya insurgent group attacked police posts in Myanmar and security forces retaliated.

Villages were burned and hundreds of people died, mainly Rohingya Muslims, who are denied citizenship and regarded by Myanmar’s majority Buddhists as illegal immigrants. </s> Six year-old Noor Sahara, a young Rohingya girl whose mother is missing and who crossed over the border with her neighbour and her nephew, poses for a photograph near a refugee camp in Teknaf, in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district on Wednesday.

The foreign office has handed a formal letter to Myanmar asking the authorities to intervene so that the Rohingya Muslims fleeing the conflict-zone can return to their homes.

Bangladesh has expressed “great concern” over the ongoing crisis in Myanmar’s Rakhine State where a military operation against “Islamist jihadists” has triggered a humanitarian emergency.

The foreign office has handed a formal letter to Myanmar asking the authorities to intervene so that the Rohingya Muslims fleeing the conflict-zone can return to their homes.

In a meeting with Myo Myint Than, Myanmar’s envoy in Dhaka, the foreign office has requested Myanmar to take immediate steps to take back the Rohingyas already entered Bangladesh recently, sources said. Additional Foreign Secretary Kamrul Ahsan later told reporters that Bangladesh is looking forward to a peaceful resolution of the ongoing crisis.

Tension has been rife on the Myanmar-Bangladesh border after militants allegedly linked to Aqa Mul Mujahidin group launched attacks on Myanmar’s border police and the army, resulting in the deaths of a dozen law enforcers early this month. The Myanmar Army has since been conducting operations in Rakhine, home for the country’s over a million Rohingya people.

Meanwhile, the local commanders of the Bangladesh Border Guard and Myanmar Border Police held a meeting in Cox’s Bazar, a border town, on Wednesday to discuss migration and security issues.

Local media reported that hundreds of Rohingyas were now floating in boats in the Naaf river, struggling to enter Bangladesh territory. Bangladesh has already tightened its border security by deploying more personnel to prevent a further influx of Rohingyas as officials say the country already hosts a large number such refugees from Myanmar.

Despite tight security, many Rohingya families have entered Bangladesh along river routes after the latest crisis broke out. In some cases, the border security guards pushed them back after giving humanitarian assistance.

The UNHCR on November 18 urged Bangladesh to keep its border with Myanmar open for the Rohingyas. </s> Myanmar's government on Monday faced growing pressure from the United Nations and protesters around the world over its violent military campaign that has already forced nearly 300,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee the country. Photo: Reuters

UKHIYA, Bangladesh—The Bangladeshi prime minister visited a refugee camp that has absorbed hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees and demanded that Myanmar “take steps to take their nationals back.”

“We will not tolerate injustice,” Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said at a rally Tuesday at the Kutupalong refugee camp, near the border town of... </s> Bangladesh has agreed to free land for a new camp to shelter some of the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims who have fled recent violence in Myanmar, an official said Monday. The new camp will help relieve some pressure on existing settlements in the Bangladeshi border district of Cox’s Bazar, where nearly 300,000 Rohingya have arrived since August 25.

“The two refugees camps we are in are beyond overcrowded,” said UN refugee agency spokeswoman Vivian Tan. Other new arrivals were being sheltered in schools, or were huddling in makeshift settlements with no toilets along roadsides and in open fields. Basic resources were scarce, including food, clean water and medical aid. Still, more refugees were arriving. An Associated Press reporter witnessed hundreds streaming through the border at Shah Puri Dwip on Monday.

“Tomorrow we are expecting an airlift of relief supplies for 20,000 people,” Tan said. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had offered 2 acres near the existing camp of Kutupalong “to build temporary shelters for the Rohingya newcomers,” according to a Facebook post Monday by Mohammed Shahriar Alam, a junior minister for foreign affairs.

He also said the government would begin fingerprinting and registering the new arrivals on Monday. Hasina is scheduled to visit Rohingya refugees on Tuesday. Aid agencies have been overwhelmed by the influx of Rohingya, many of whom are arriving hungry and traumatized after walking days through jungles or packing into rickety wooden boats in search of safety in Bangladesh.

Many tell similar stories of Myanmar soldiers firing indiscriminately on their villages, burning their homes and warning them to leave or to die. Some say they were attacked by Buddhist mobs. The government hospital in Cox’s Bazar has been overwhelmed by Rohingya patients, with 80 arriving in the last two weeks suffering gunshot wounds as well as bad infections. At least three have been wounded in land mine blasts, and dozens have drowned when boats capsized during sea crossings.

The violence and exodus began on Aug. 25 when Rohingya insurgents attacked Myanmar police and paramilitary posts in what they said was an effort to protect their ethnic minority from persecution by security forces in the majority Buddhist country. In response, the military unleashed what it called “clearance operations” to root out the insurgents. Accounts from refugees show the Myanmar military is also targeting civilians with shootings and wholesale burning of Rohingya villages in an apparent attempt to purge Rakhine state of Muslims.

For all the latest World News, download Indian Express App </s> The Bangladeshi prime minister on Tuesday visited a struggling refugee camp that has absorbed some of the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya who fled recent violence in Myanmar — a crisis she said left her speechless.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina demanded that Myanmar "take steps to take their nationals back," and assured temporary aid until that happened.

"We will not tolerate injustice," she said at a rally at the Kutupalong refugee camp, near the border town of Ukhiya in Cox's Bazar district.

On Monday night, she lambasted Buddhist-majority Myanmar for "atrocities" that she said had reached a level beyond description, telling lawmakers she had "no words to condemn Myanmar" and noting that Bangladesh had long been protesting the persecution of Rohingya Muslims.

At least 313,000 Rohingya have flooded into Bangladesh since Aug. 25, when Rohingya insurgents attacked police posts, prompting Myanmar's military to retaliate with what it called "clearance operations" to root out the rebels.

The crisis has drawn sharp criticism from around the world. The U.N. human rights chief said the violence and injustice faced by the ethnic Rohingya minority in Myanmar — where U.N. rights investigators have been barred from entry — "seems a textbook example of ethnic cleansing."

"The Myanmar government should stop pretending that the Rohingya are setting fire to their own homes and laying waste to their own villages," Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein said Monday in Geneva, calling it a "complete denial of reality."

Meanwhile, a Rohingya villager in Myanmar said security forces had arrived Monday in the village of Pa Din village, firing guns, setting new fires to homes and driving hundreds of Rohingya to flee.

"People were scared and running out of the village," the villager said, speaking on condition of anonymity out of fear for his safety.

Myanmar police disputed that, saying the houses were burned by terrorists they called Bengalis. That term is used derisively by many in Myanmar to describe the Rohingya, who they say migrated illegally from neighboring Bangladesh, though many Rohingya families have lived in Myanmar for generations.

Bangladesh has said it would free 2,000 acres (810 hectares) of land for a new camp in Cox's Bazar district, to help shelter newly arrived Rohingya. The government was also fingerprinting and registering new arrivals.

Kutupalong and another pre-existing Rohingya camps were already beyond capacity. Other new arrivals were staying in schools, or huddling in makeshift settlements with no toilets along roadsides and in open fields.

Aid agencies have been overwhelmed by the influx of Rohingya, many of whom are arriving hungry and traumatized after walking days through jungles or being packed into rickety wooden boats in search of safety in Bangladesh.

Many tell similar stories - of Myanmar soldiers firing indiscriminately on their villages, burning their homes and warning them to leave or to die. Some say they were attacked by Buddhist mobs.

In the last two weeks, the government hospital in Cox's Bazar has been overwhelmed by Rohingya patients, with 80 arriving in the last two weeks suffering gunshot wounds as well as bad infections.

At least three Rohingya have been wounded in land mine blasts, and dozens have drowned when boats capsized during sea crossings.

Myanmar's authorities said more than a week ago that some 400 Rohingya - mostly insurgents - had died in clashes with troops, but it has offered no updated death toll since.

Rohingya have faced decades of discrimination and persecution in Myanmar and are denied citizenship despite centuries-olds roots in the Rakhine region.

Before Aug. 25, Bangladesh had already been housing more than 100,000 Rohingya who arrived after bloody anti-Muslim rioting in 2012 or amid earlier persecution drives in Myanmar. </s> The military moved in after armed attacks by unknown assailants on police posts along the border with Bangladesh in October. The attacks in Rakhine State were a possible sign that a small number of Rohingya were starting to fight back against persecution by majority Buddhists who view them as illegal immigrants although many have lived in Myanmar for generations.

The top U.S. diplomat for East Asia, Daniel Russel, is critical of the military's heavy-handed approach and says the escalation of violence risks inciting jihadist extremism in the country also known as Burma. He is also calling on countries, such as Muslim-majority Malaysia and Indonesia, to resist the urge to stage protests that could further stir religious passions.

Assistant Secretary of State Russel told The Associated Press that, "if mishandled, Rakhine State could be infected and infested by jihadism which already plagues Bangladesh and other countries."

The plight of the Rohingya, once characterized by the U.N. as the world's most friendless people, has attracted the attention of Muslim extremists since a spike in intercommunal violence in Rakhine in 2012 that left hundreds dead and forced more than 100,000 into squalid camps.

The Somali-born student who launched a car-and-knife attack at Ohio State University this week reportedly protested on his Facebook page about the killing of minority Muslims in Myanmar. And last weekend, Indonesian authorities arrested two militants who were allegedly planning to attack the Myanmar Embassy in Jakarta.

It has also raised hackles in the political mainstream. Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak, facing domestic pressure over an investment fund scandal, is reportedly planning to attend a protest in his religiously moderate country this weekend condemning the military operation in Myanmar.

Daniel Sullivan at the advocacy group Refugees International said increasing numbers of Rohingya are fleeing across the land border to Bangladesh, and the spike in violence could set off another exodus by sea.

Tens of thousands of Rohingya have fled by rickety boats in recent years to countries like Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, but those routes have been blocked since a crisis in 2015 when thousands were stranded at sea.

The U.S. and other nations have called for an independent investigation into the latest violence in Rakhine. Estimates of the death toll range between dozens and several hundred. Human Rights Watch said Nov. 21 that satellite imagery showed at least 1,250 buildings have been destroyed.

With journalists barred from the affected area, it's been near-impossible to substantiate reports of rapes and killings by Myanmar soldiers — the kind of conduct that has long blighted the military's reputation in ethnic conflicts.

Adama Dieng, U.N. special adviser on the prevention of genocide, said this week that if reports of excessive use of force in Rakhine were true, "the lives of thousands of people are at risk."

Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan was appointed by Myanmar's civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi in August to find ways to help resolve the communal tensions. On a fact-finding visit Friday, he said that security operations must not impede humanitarian access.

The U.N. World Food Program said Friday that since Oct. 9 it has been able to deliver food or cash to only 20,000 of the 152,000 people who usually receive assistance, and to about 7,000 newly-displaced people.

The Obama administration has diminished leverage. It was instrumental in ending the former pariah state's diplomatic isolation as it shifted from five decades of military rule but the last U.S. sanctions were lifted in October.

"We all should have confidence in her judgment and not fall prey to the idea that she does not get it and she does not care. She does get it, and she does care," he said.
Dozens of Rohingya Muslims fleeing renewed violence in Rakhine State are detained by Bangladeshi and Burmese authorities after they attempt to cross the border from Myanmar to Bangladesh. Many were en route to Kutupalong Refugee Camp, a refugee camp in Ukhia, Bangladesh, mostly inhabited by Rohingya refugees.