Wading through waist-deep water with children strapped to their sides, the refugees told Reuters they had walked through bushes and forded monsoon-swollen streams for days.
A seemingly never-ending flow entered Bangladesh near the village of Palongkhali. Many were injured, with the elderly carried on makeshift stretchers, while women balanced household items, such as pots, rice sacks and clothing, on their heads. “We couldn’t step out of the house for the last month because the military were looting people,” said Mohamed Shoaib, 29, who wore a yellow vest and balanced jute bags of food and aluminium pots on a bamboo pole. “They started firing on the village. So we escaped into another.
“Day by day, things kept getting worse, so we started moving towards Bangladesh. Before we left, I went back near my village to see my house, and the entire village was burnt down,” Shoaib added.
They joined about 536,000 Rohingya Muslims who have fled Myanmar since August 25. The European Union said yesterday it would suspend invitations to Myanmar’s army commander-in-chief and other senior generals “in the light of the disproportionate use of force carried out by the security forces”.
A statement issued after a meeting of EU foreign ministers also called for thorough investigation of “credible allegations of serious human rights violations and abuses”.
Refugees who made the perilous journey said they were driven out by hunger because food markets in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state have been shut and aid deliveries restricted. They also reported attacks by the military and Rakhine Buddhist mobs. The influx will worsen the unprecedented humanitarian emergency unfolding in Cox’s Bazar, where aid workers are battling to provide refugees with food, clean water and shelter.
Yesterday, the Red Cross opened a field hospital as big as two football fields, with 60 beds, three wards, an operating theatre, a delivery suite with maternity ward and a psychosocial support unit. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya had already been in Bangladesh after fleeing previous spasms of violence in Myanmar, where they have long been denied citizenship and faced curbs on their movements and access to basic services.
Yesterday’s EU move to shun further contacts with Myanmar’s army top brass comes after officials told Reuters the European bloc and the United States were considering targeted sanctions against military leaders.
