Rohingya Muslims

The authorities of Myanmar have ordered the Rohingya Muslims to evacuate the narrow space of no man’s land between the borders of Myanmar and Bangladesh, The Dawn newspaper reported.

The refugees said that the security forces of Myanmar have been broadcasting this order on the loudspeakers.

Pertinently at least 6,000 refugees from the persecuted minority have been camping on the narrow stretch of land since fleeing a brutal military crackdown in Myanmar’s west last August, media reports said.

The most of the refugees settled in the camps being established in Bangladesh. However, a few were staying in the buffer zone between the borders.

Myanmar had agreed in February to stop using loudspeakers to order the stranded Muslims to leave the area immediately and cross into Bangladesh.

The army also withdrew some of its personnel from the edge of no-man’s land, where refugees camped on the other side of a barbed wire fence had complained of intimidation.

The messages — broadcast in Burmese and Rohingya — warned the refugees to “leave the area under Myanmar’s jurisdiction or face prosecution”.

“We’re citizens of Myanmar. It’s our fatherland. We have every right to remain here. Why should we go elsewhere?” said another community leader, Dil Mohammad, reports said.

The broadcasts also refer to the refugees as “Bengalis”, the term used by many in Buddhist-majority Myanmar to refer to the Rohingya, whom they consider interlopers from Bangladesh, reports further said.