Sunday, September 08, 2013

'Prison camps' or risking death at sea: Anti-Muslim mob violence provokes dilemma in Myanmar...

Driven from their homes by mob violence, many members of one of the world's most persecuted minorities face a harrowing dilemma: to tolerate horrendous conditions in sites likened to "prison camps" or to risk their lives fleeing aboard rickety boats.

"I cannot stay here in the camp, I must go," said Mamuda, a Rohingya Muslim, as she sat in a threadbare bamboo shelter, cradling her young children and watching her husband Nasir’s body be prepared for burial.

"He came home with a bullet wound," said the 27-year-old, who plans to make the perilous more than 1,000-mile sea journey to Malaysia as soon as she can. "He kept saying, 'It's too much pain, it's too much pain,' until he collapsed.”

According to Mamuda, police shot Nasir after he and other Rohingyas tried to stop them from reaching the site of an earlier clash.

Mamuda and her family are among tens of thousands living in internally displaced person (IDP) camps in Myanmar in the wake of sectarian violence. Since June 2012, Rohingyas have found themselves targeted by Buddhists in attacks that have left hundreds dead and entire villages razed. Full story...

Related posts:
  1. Buddhists torch Muslim homes in Myanmar...
  2. Why Burma could become another Rwanda...
  3. U Wirathu, Burma’s 'bin Laden of Buddhism’
  4. No justice for Muslims massacred by Myanmar Buddhists...
  5. Massacre in Myanmar ignored by everyone...
  6. Burma's Buddhist mobs sow fear amid widening unrest...
  7. Video shows Burmese police standing by as Buddhists attack Muslims...

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