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Rights Group: Bangladesh Forcing Burmese Muslims into 'Starvation' Camps

   VOA News 09 March 2010
   Rohingya  migrants  sit  on  the  ground at Kuraburi police station in
   Pang-nga province, southern Thailand

Photo: AP

   Thousands  of  Bangladeshis  and  Rohingyas,  members  of a stateless,
   Muslim  ethnic  group that fled to Bangladesh to escape persecution in
   Burma,  leave  Bangladesh  aboard  rickety boats each year in hopes of
   finding  work  elsewhere.  One of the most popular migration routes in
   recent  years  was  by boat to Thailand then overland to Malaysia. (AP
   Photo)

   A U.S.-based rights group says Bangladesh has forced tens of thousands
   of ethnic Rohingya Muslims from neighboring Burma into makeshift camps
   where they face starvation.
   In  a  report published Tuesday, Physicians for Human Rights describes
   the  Bangladeshi camps as "open air prisons" for unregistered Rohingya
   refugees.   It  says they are starving because Bangladesh's government
   has blocked aid groups from providing food to the camps.
   Thousands  of  Rohingya  people  have  crossed  from  northern Burma's
   Rakhine state into Bangladesh in recent years, many fleeing unrest.
   Bangladesh  is home to an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 Rohingya people
   but  only  recognizes  28,000 of them as refugees and calls the others
   economic migrants who must be repatriated.
   Physicians for Human Rights says Bangladesh has been waging a campaign
   of  arbitrary  arrest,  forced  internment  and  illegal  expulsion of
   Rohingya people to Burma in recent weeks.  Bangladesh says allegations
   of ill-treatment of the Rohingya are "baseless and malicious."
   The  rights  group says Bangladesh is cracking down on Rohingya people
   in  an  apparent  attempt  to dissuade others from crossing the border
   ahead  of  elections  that  Burma's military has promised to hold this
   year.

   Some information for this report was provided by AFP and AP.

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