More than 10,000 Rohingya Muslims supporters protest against Myanmar crisis on Bangladesh streets

Thousands of Muslims in Bangladesh are protesting against Myanmar's crackdown on Rohingya Muslims.

Rohingya protests

Islamists have marched Bangladesh to protest against the persecution of Rohingya Muslims by Myanmar. (AAP)

More than 10,000 Muslims in Bangladesh have marched toward Myanmar's embassy to protest the country's crackdown on Rohingya Muslims.

More than 412,000 ethnic Rohingya have fled from Buddhist-majority Myanmar in the past month and are living in overcrowded camps in Bangladesh. Many say their homes were burned by Myanmar's military and by Buddhist mobs.

The protesters chanted slogans and waved Bangladesh's flag as they marched through the streets of Dhaka, Bangladesh's capital. One banner said: "Stop killing Rohingya."
The march, organised by the hard-line Islamist group Hefazat-e-Islam, started from Bangladesh's main mosque but was stopped by police well before the protesters reached the embassy.

The latest wave of violence in western Myanmar began on August 25, when Rohingya insurgents attacked police posts and an army camp, killing about 12 people.

The Myanmar military response has sent more than 410,000 Rohingya Muslims fleeing to Bangladesh, escaping what they and rights monitors say is a campaign aimed at driving out the Muslim population.

Buddhist-majority Myanmar rejects that, saying its forces are carrying out clearance operations against the insurgents of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, which claimed responsibility for the August attacks and smaller raids in October.

About a million Rohingya lived in Rakhine State until the recent violence.

Most face draconian travel restrictions and are denied citizenship in a country where many Buddhists regard them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

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2 min read
Published 18 September 2017 10:18pm
Updated 18 September 2017 10:29pm
Source: Reuters, SBS


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