- Title: Timeline of plight of Rohingya Muslims, as UN convenes Global Refugee Forum
- Date: 6th December 2019
- Summary: On August 25, one day after an advisory commission chaired by Kofi Annan passed their findings to the Myanmar government, Rohingya insurgents attacked police posts and an army camp in western Myanmar's Rakhine State, killing about 12 people. Rights monitors and fleeing Rohingya say Myanmar security forces and Rakhine Buddhist vigilantes responded with what they describe as a campaign of violence and arson aimed at driving out the Muslim population. A day after the outbreak of violence, Reuters reporters saw hundreds of Rohingya crossing into Bangladesh near a border village as gun shots could be heard from the Myanmar side. BORDER AREA NEAR COX'S BAZAR, BANGLADESH (FILE - AUGUST 26, 2017) (REUTERS) BUILDINGS AND TREES, AUDIO OF GUNFIRE FROM MYANMAR ROHINGYA MUSLIMS FLEEING MYANMAR WALKING TO BANGLADESH Footage taken discreetly by a Rohingya refugee while he was fleeing a village in Myanmar showed villages on fire in Myanmar's Rakhine State amid the latest spasm of violence. KYEING CHAUNG VILLAGE, MAUNGDAW, RAKHINE STATE, MYANMAR (FILE - AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2017) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (VIDEO OBTAINED BY REUTERS) VARIOUS OF BURNING VILLAGES, PLUMES OF BLACK SMOKE Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims flooded into Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar as the violence in Rakhine State continued. BAY OF BENGAL, COX'S BAZAR, BANGLADESH (FILE - SEPTEMBER 5, 2017) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF ROHINGYA REFUGEES WALKING TOWARDS A NEARBY VILLAGE TO TAKE SHELTER COX'S BAZAR, BANGLADESH (FILE - SEPTEMBER 6, 2017) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF ROHINGYA MUSLIMS WALKING TO BANGLADESH VARIOUS OF BOATS CARRYING ROHINGYA MUSLIMS HEADING TO BANGLADESH
- Embargoed: 20th December 2019 00:45
- Keywords: Bangladesh Myanmar Rohingya Rohingya Muslims Rohingya crisis Rohingya timeline file footage refugee camps timeline
- Location: COX'S BAZAR, DHAKA AND GHUMDUM, BANGLADESH / YANGON, RAKHINE STATE AND NAYPYITAW, MYANMAR / PUNJAB, INDIA / LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM / NEW MEXICO, UNITED STATES
- City: COX'S BAZAR, DHAKA AND GHUMDUM, BANGLADESH / YANGON, RAKHINE STATE AND NAYPYITAW, MYANMAR / PUNJAB, INDIA / LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM / NEW MEXICO, UNITED STATES
- Country: Various
- Topics: Asylum/Immigration/Refugees,Government/Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA001B8UXUTJ
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: This video timeline chronicles an ongoing crisis involving ethnic Rohingya Muslims who have fled Myanmar in droves since August 2017, as the UN convenes Global Refugee Forum in Geneva.
More than 730,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled to neighbouring Bangladesh since a 2017 crackdown by Myanmar's military, which U.N. investigators say was carried out with "genocidal intent". Buddhist majority Myanmar denies accusations of genocide.
Rights monitors and fleeing Rohingyas said Myanmar security forces and Rakhine Buddhist vigilantes had launched a campaign of violence and arson aimed at driving out the Muslim population.
Myanmar had said its forces were carrying out clearance operations against the insurgents of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, which claimed responsibility for the August attacks and similar, smaller, raids in October in 2016.
The strife had triggered an outpouring of response from global bodies and humanitarian agencies.
Myanmar's State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi called the Rohingya crisis a "complex" issue which her government had inherited. She said that the strife between Muslims and other communities in Rakhine state had existed since the 19th century and restoring trust and harmony would take time.
Myanmar has publicly blamed the crisis on Rohingya "terrorists", referring to militants who attacked security posts in August 2017, prompting the army crackdown, and has branded reports of atrocities, including gang-rapes and mass killings, as fake news.
(Production: Phyllis Xu) - Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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