Rohingya people

Bangladesh summoned Myanmar’s ambassador on Match 1 over an increased security presence near their border, where thousands of Rohingya Muslims have been sheltering just inside Myanmar, Bangladesh’s foreign ministry said.

Hundreds of desperate Rohingya Muslims are still pouring over the Myanmar border into Bangladesh every week, bringing harrowing accounts of torture and murder, six months after a military crackdown sparked the massive refugee crisis.

Satellite imagery shows Myanmar authorities have bulldozed at least 55 Rohingya villages in northern Rakhine in recent months, Human Rights Watch said on Feb. 23, condemning the government for erasing evidence at sites where troops are accused of atrocities.

The European Union will start preparing sanctions against Myanmar generals over killings of Rohingya Muslims by formally calling on the bloc’s foreign policy chief next week to draw up a list of possible names, two diplomats said.

Representatives from Bangladesh and Myanmar will meet on Feb. 20 to discuss the repatriation to Myanmar of more than 6,500 Rohingya Muslims trapped on a strip of unclaimed land between the two countries, Bangladeshi officials said.

A Myanmar minister told Bangladesh’s president that Myanmar is ready to take back Rohingya Muslims who fled violence, though Bangladesh said it wanted the hundreds of thousands of refugees to have a safe and dignified return.

British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson met with Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar’s capital on Feb. 11 to press for action on the Rohingya crisis, as the country faces mounting pressure to punish troops accused of atrocities against the Muslim minority.

The U.N. human rights chief warned Monday that possible acts of “genocide and ethnic cleansing” against Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim minority could fuel a religious-based conflict that spreads beyond the country’s borders.

With a barbed wire fence on one side and a putrid creek on the other, 6,000 Rohingya Muslims in a strip of land between Bangladesh and Myanmar anxiously wait to see if they will be sent back to homes few want to return to.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Jan. 23 that the plight of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar was even worse than media portrayals.