Families torn apart in Myanmar violence

A Rohingya woman, who was in her advanced stage of pregnancy and had her movements restricted, had to flee her home in Rakhine State because of the violence to Bangladesh.
The woman, Jarina Begum, 20, aided by her fellows, finally gave birth to a baby boy at Balukhali in Cox’s Bazar in the first week of September. And she had to walk through hilly areas
and cross the River Naf to safety in Bangladesh.
Jarina, exhausted by all this, could not be happy about her child as she lost her husband to violence by Myanmar’s security forces in Rasidong in Rakhine State.
‘I heard my husband was shot dead. I ran with my sister Jebeya Begum. We walked and walked to reach Bangladesh. On the way to the Balukhali camp I lost my sister,’ she said, adding that she had hope that she might find out her sister and relatives.
Burn injured Rohingya woman Begum Shahajan, 50, of Rasidong took shelter at Balukhali camp. She was visiting her sister’s house when the violence erupted on August 25.
She rushed to house only to see that her husband Shaiful Alam was burnt to death. Their son Sadrul Alam dragged her out of the house and started fleeing towards border, with her another son, grandson Osman, daughter Rashma and sister.
‘But I was unlucky, I lost my daughter and sister, as we had to take separate boats to cross the river,’ Begum Shahajan said, adding that now they were surviving at the mercy of local people who gave some dry foods in the past two days.
Rabea, 20, arrived with her three-month old child and her father, said that her husband was burnt alive and she lost her sister while fleeing her village Badurmohan in Rakhine three days ago. She could not breast feed her child as she was starving and fell sick after walking for three days and stayed several hours on a boat to reach Shah Purir Dwip.
Mohammad Alam, 35, was found at Shah Parir Dwip carrying his baby boy Abbas towards the Balukhali camp. He said that he was working while army set fire to his house. He could only manage to flee with his son from Lambaguna village and was not sure about the fate of the rests of the family.
Showing burn injuries in parts of his son’s body, he said that cruel Myanmar military did not even spare children.
Continued on page 2 Col. 5 The ethnic cleansing in Rakhine State left responsibilities for a boy of several months on his sister Rebeka, a 7-8-year old girl unable to take care of herself.
Many of Rohingya children like Rebeka now have to take care of their own and younger siblings who also lost their parents and relatives in the violence.
Rebeka was seen to land from a boat at Teknaf in Cox’s Bazar along with her brother with the help of other fellows. She could not finish a sentence properly but it was understood with help of others that they lost their parents back in Rasidong.
Rohingya leader at Balukhali Hafij Ahmed and international humanitarian aid workers said that they came to know about hundreds of incidents from fleeing ethnic minorities that they either lost their family members forever or did not know their whereabouts.
UNICEF Bangladesh child support unit director Jean Lieby said that they had identified 1,128 children separated from families. ‘We expect this number to increase a lot in the coming days,’ he said.
His information was a pointer of families that were torn apart in the violence.
Cox’s Bazar civil surgeon Abdus Salam said that they were handling hundreds of Rohingya patients whose accounts gave testimony how children were separated from parents, brothers from sisters, women from husbands and vice versa.
The ongoing ethnic cleansing ongoing began on August 25, when Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army reportedly attacked dozens of police posts and checkpoints and one military base in Rakhine.
An UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar estimated that more than 1,000 people might already have been killed in Myanmar violence, mostly minority Rohingya Muslims.
The Rohingyas are a stateless ethnic minority in Myanmar not allowed to exercise their basic rights including the freedom to move, right to education, work and other social, civil and political rights.
UNHCR estimated on Thursday that about 4,00,000 Rohingyas had fled to Bangladesh to save life since August 25 and Bangladeshi officials said another 1,00,000 were waiting at the border to enter Bangladesh.
‘We have no indication that this influx will stop soon. This is a growing humanitarian crisis and children are at the heart of this crisis,’ said Jean Lieby