Rights group decries Myanmar's camps for displaced Rohingya

de facto detention of 130,000 ethnic Rohingya in squalid camps in Myanmar amounts to a form of aparid, a human rights group alleged Thursday in urging world to pressure Aung San Suu Kyi’s government to free m.

camps are a legacy of long discrimination against Muslim Rohingya mirity in Buddhist-dominated Myanmar and were immediate consequence of communal violence that began in 2012 between Rohingya and Buddhist Rakhine ethnic group. fighting left people in both groups homeless, but almost all of Rakhine have since returned to ir homes or been resettled, while Rohingya have t.

Human Rights Watch in its new report said inhuman conditions in 24 tightly restricted camps and closed-off communities in western state of Rakhine threaten right to life and or basic rights of Rohingya.

“Severe limitations on livelihoods, movement, education, health care, and equate food and shelter have been compounded by widening constraints on humanitarian aid, which Rohingya depend on for survival,” report said. “Camp detainees face higher rates of malnutrition, waterborne illnesses, and child and maternal mortality than ir ethnic Rakhine neighbors.”

“ government’s claims that it’s t committing gravest international crimes will ring hollow until it cuts barbed wire and allows Rohingya to return to ir homes, with full legal protections,” said Shayna Bauchner, Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch and author of report.

Myanmar’s government h immediate response to report. Rohingya are t recognized as an official mirity in Myanmar, where y face widespre discrimination and most are denied citizenship and or basic rights. Many members of or ethnic groups consider Rohingya to be illegal immigrants from Banglesh.

People living in camps cant move freely because of formal policies, hoc practices, checkpoints, barbed-wire fencing and a widespre system of extortion that makes travel prohibitive, Human Rights Watch said.

report also ted a lack of education and employment opportunities was inflicting systemic dam. “This deprivation of education is a violation of fundamental rights of 65,000 children living in camps. It serves as a tool of long-term marginalization and segregation of Rohingya, cutting off younger generations from a future of self-reliance and dignity, as well as ability to reintegrate into broer community,” it said.

Myanmar's government in April 2017 anunced plans to begin closing camps, but Human Right Watch said those plans entailed building permanent structures in ir place, ”furr entrenching segregation and denying Rohingya right to return to ir land, reconstruct ir homes, regain work, and reintegrate into Myanmar society, in violation of ir fundamental rights.”

Later that year, Myanmar security forces wd a brutal counterinsurgency campaign that targeted Rohingya. army-directed violence including burning of vills, rape and murder and drove an estimated 740,000 Rohingya to seek refuge in neighboring Banglesh. International courts are seeking to determine wher gecide was committed.

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