Myanmar
Cyclone Mocha intensifies further; May cross Cox’s Bazar-North Myanmar’s coast between 6 am to 6 pm on Sunday
Very severe cyclonic storm Mocha over east central Bay and adjoining area moved North-Northeastwards and intensified further over the same area.
It is likely to intensify further, move in a north-northwesterly direction and cross Cox’s Bazar-North Myanmar’s coast between 6 am to 6 pm on Sunday (May 14), according to Bangladesh Metrological Department.
The maritime port of Cox’s Bazar has been asked to hoist great danger signal 10, it said.
Besides, the maritime ports of Chattogram and Payra have been advised to hoist great danger signal 8 while maritime port of Mongla has been advised to hoist local warning signal 4.
Also read: Cyclone Mocha: Maritime ports asked to hoist great danger signal 8
It was centred about 605 km south-southwest of Chattogram port, 525 km south-southwest of Cox’s Bazar port, 625 km south of Mongla port and 565 km south of Payra port around 6 pm on Saturday, said the latest Met office bulletin.
Coastal regions of Chattogram and Barishal divisions will experience the peripheral effect of the very severe cyclonic storm by Saturday night, said the bulletin.
Maximum sustained wind speed within 74 km of the very severe cyclone centre is about 170 kph, rising to 190 kph, in gusts or squalls.
Sea will remain very rough near the storm centre.
Read More: Cox's Bazar Airport to be closed from Saturday 7am to Sunday 7pm
The coastal districts of Cox’s Bazar, Chattogram, Feni, Noakhali, Laxmipur, Chandpur, Bhola and their offshore islands and chars will come under great danger signal no 10.
Under the peripheral effect of very cyclone and steep pressure gradient, the low-lying areas of the coastal districts of Cox’s Bazar and Chattogram and their offshore island and chars are likely to be inundated by the wind driven surge height of 8-12 feet above normal astronomical tide.
The low-lying areas of the coastal districts of Feni, Noakhali, Laxmipur, Chandpur, Bhola and their offshore island and chars are likely to be inundated by the wind driven surge height of 5-7 feet above normal astronomical tide.
Under the effect of very severe cyclone, Chattogram, Sylhet and Barishal divisions are likely to experience heavy to very heavy rainfall. Due to very heavy rainfall landslide may occur a places over the hilly regions of Cox’s Bazar, Bandarbans, Rangamati, Khagrachhari and Chattogram.
All fishing boats and trawlers over North Bay have been advised to remain in shelter till further notice.
Indian Ocean Conference in Dhaka on May 12-13: Myanmar not invited
Bangladesh's partnership with countries in the Indian Ocean will become stronger through hosting the Indian Ocean Conference (IOC) in Dhaka on May 12-13, Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen said on Wednesday.
Mauritius President Prithvirajsing Roopun, minister and state minister-level delegation from 25 countries including Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar will attend the conference.
Briefing reporters at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dr Momen also said around 150 foreign guests will participate in the conference including representatives from D8, SAARC and BIMSTEC.
The participating ministers will also visit Bangabandhu Memorial Museum at Dhanmondi 32 to pay respect to the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
State Minister for Foreign Affairs Md Shahriar Alam said Bangladesh maintains good relations with Mauritius and the relations will further strengthen through the visit of the country's president.
Responding to a question, Dr Momen said Myanmar was not invited to the conference.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will inaugurate the conference at a Dhaka hotel on May 12. The Prime Minister will also host a dinner in honour of the guests.
The 6th edition of the conference is being organised by India Foundation in association with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of Bangladesh.
With the theme of “Peace, Prosperity and Partnership for a Resilient Future”, the conference would bring together a luminary gathering of key stakeholders to chart the roadmap for strengthening the Indian Ocean Region.
External Affairs Minister of India Dr S. Jaishankar will deliver the keynote address of the evening alongside special addresses by the Deputy Secretary of State of USA Wendy Sherman and Vice President of Maldives Faisal Naseem.
The inaugural session will also be graced by the presence of Foreign Minister Dr Momen and Foreign Minister of Oman Sayyid Badr bin Hamad bin Hamood Albusaidi.
The Foreign Minister of Singapore (Dr Vivian Balakrishnan) will be represented by Dr Maliki Osman, Minister in the Prime Ministers' Office and Second Minister of Foreign Affairs of Singapore.
Official delegations led by Heads of State/Government, Deputy Heads, Cabinet Ministers, Deputy Ministers and Senior Officials from 27 countries and multilateral organisations will address the conference on May 13.
The conference will also bring together a gathering of over 300 social and corporate leaders, policy practitioners, scholars, professionals and media personnel from over 40 countries.
The Indian Ocean Conference (IOC) was started in 2016 and in the last six years it has emerged as the "flagship consultative forum" for countries in the region on regional affairs.
The conference endeavours to bring critical states and principal maritime partners of the region together on a common platform to deliberate upon the prospects of regional cooperation for Security and Growth for All in the Region (SAGAR).
The first edition of the conference was held in Singapore in 2016.
It was attended by over 300 delegates from 22 countries including ministers, political leaders, diplomats, strategic thinkers, academics, and media.
HRW accuses Myanmar of using fuel-air explosive on a crowd
Myanmar’s military used an "enhanced blast" munition known as a fuel-air explosive in an airstrike that killed more than 160 people, including many children, at a ceremony held last month by opponents of army rule, a human rights monitoring group charged in a report Tuesday.
Human Rights Watch accused the military of dropping the weapon, also known as a thermobaric or vacuum bomb, on a crowd that had gathered for the opening of a local office of the country’s resistance movement outside Pazigyi village in Myanmar’s central Sagaing region on the morning of April 11. The area is about 110 kilometers (70 miles) north of Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city.
The attack caused “indiscriminate and disproportionate civilian casualties in violation of international humanitarian law, and was an apparent war crime,” the New York-based group said.
Thermobaric weapons consist of a fuel container and two separate explosive charges, with the first detonating to disperse the fuel particles and the second igniting the dispersed fuel and oxygen in the air, creating a blast wave of extreme pressure and heat that creates a partial vacuum in an enclosed space. That makes the weapon particularly deadly for people in an enclosed space, such as the office that was being opened.
Also Read: Alarm over Myanmar, sea feud under ASEAN summit spotlight
Myanmar is wracked by violence that began after the army ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021 and brutally suppressed nonviolent protests. That triggered armed resistance and combat in many parts of the country, with the military increasingly using airstrikes to counter the opposition and secure territory.
Human Rights Watch said it based its conclusion that a thermobaric weapon had been used on a review of 59 photos of the victims’ bodies and a video of the site following the attacks.
It said it also analyzed eight photographs and two videos of the remnants of the weapons posted online by the National Unity Government, an underground group that calls itself the country’s legitimate government. It presented them during a news conference three days after the bombing of the building that was supposed to be a local office for the organization.
The attack killed 168 civilians, including 40 children under 18 years old, it said. A 6-month-old girl was the youngest victim and a 76-year-old man was the oldest, the statement said. Its tally could not be independently confirmed by The Associated Press.
A witness told the AP on the day of the attack that a fighter jet dropped bombs directly onto a crowd of people and a helicopter appeared about half an hour later, firing at the site. The witness, who asked not to be identified because he feared punishment by the authorities, said those killed also included leaders of local anti-government armed groups and other opposition organizations.
Myanmar’s army acknowledged the attack but defended its actions, accusing anti-government forces in the area of carrying out a violent campaign of terror. It said the People’s Defense Forces — the armed wing of the National Unity Government -- had terrorized residents into supporting them, killing Buddhist monks, teachers and others.
The military government’s spokesperson, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, told state television MRTV there was evidence the attack had set off secondary blasts of explosives hidden by the People’s Defense Forces around the site.
Human Rights Watch said that according to a witness, the People’s Defense Forces stored goods, funds, medicines and also some ammunition in the office building, which was intended for civilian uses such as filing taxes, township meetings and judicial processes.
“The presence of opposition combatants and ammunition would make the building a legitimate military objective subject to attack,” said Human Rights Watch.
“Even so, the use of an enhanced-blast weapon for the attack was unlawfully indiscriminate because its use in a crowded civilian area could not minimize the loss of civilian life. In addition, the initial strike and ensuing attacks on hundreds of fleeing civilians was almost certainly an unlawfully disproportionate attack, and possibly a deliberate attack on civilians.”
The use of thermobaric weapons is rarely publicly acknowledged because of the indiscriminate destruction they can cause.
The United States has used varieties of fuel-air explosives in conflicts in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. In Afghanistan, the U.S. Air Force dropped what it described as its “largest non-nuclear conventional weapon,” the 9,840-kilogram (21,693-pound) Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb.
Russia, which acknowledges producing fuel-air munitions, has been accused of using them in several conflicts, including in Ukraine. The weapons have also been reported to have been used by Azerbaijan in fighting against neighboring Armenia, and by government forces in Syria’s civil war.
20 Indonesian trafficking victims freed in Myanmar
Indonesian officials said Sunday they freed 20 of their nationals who were trafficked to Myanmar as part of a cyber scam, amid an increase in human trafficking cases in Southeast Asia.
Indonesia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a statement that its embassy in Yangon with help from local networks had managed to release the victims from Myawaddy township and brought them to the Thai border on Saturday.
The Indonesian Embassy in Bangkok will work closely with Thai authorities to repatriate the victims to Indonesia, the statement said. Myawaddy is in eastern Kayin state along the Thai border and is the site of an armed conflict between Myanmar’s military and ethnic Karen rebels.
Fake recruiters had offered the Indonesians high-paying jobs in Thailand but instead trafficked them to Myawaddy, about 567 kilometers (352 miles) south of Naypyidaw, the capital, to perform cyber scams for crypto websites or apps, said Judha Nugraha, an official in Indonesia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry.
The situation drew a national outcry in Indonesia after a video made by one of the victims went viral on social media last month. It showed dozens of grim-faced Indonesian workers in a dormitory room, asking their government to help them out of “the war zone” where they see violence almost every day.
“Please help us back to Indonesia, because our life here is very miserable and threatened,” one person said, describing how they had been transferred from one company to other companies over the past eight months before being stranded in Myawaddy. The victim said they were tortured when they failed to reach certain work targets, receiving beatings, electrocutions and other physical punishments.
Authorities said the victims were likely trafficked to Myanmar by illegal means since no records were found of their arrival in Myanmar’s immigration system.
The case had prompted Indonesian President Joko Widodo to order the Foreign Affairs Ministry to make an “all out” effort to help rescue the victims, telling a news conference on Thursday: “They have been deceived and taken to an unwanted place by the traffickers."
It was unclear how their release was secured, but National Police spokesperson Sandi Nugroho said negotiations were held with the company that employed them.
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi told a news conference on Friday that the government is also working to help Indonesian victims of online scams in Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and the Philippines.
She said the Indonesian Embassy in Manila said Friday that Philippine authorities have rescued more than 1,000 trafficking victims from 10 countries, including 143 Indonesians, who will be repatriated to their countries of origin.
“As the chair of ASEAN this year, Indonesia is trying to raise this issue at the 42nd ASEAN Summit,” Marsudi said.
ASEAN includes Brunei, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippine, Singapore and Thailand. Indonesia will host the bloc’s leaders’ meeting on May 10-11 in Labuan Bajo on Flores island.
China "unswervingly mediating" between Bangladesh, Myanmar to promote Rohingya repatriation: Ambassador Yao
Chinese Ambassador to Bangladesh Yao Wen on Saturday (May 06, 2023) said China, as a responsible major country, has been "unswervingly mediating" between Bangladesh and Myanmar to promote the repatriation of the Rohingyas to their homeland.
"A local friend once told me sincerely that many people provide lip-services, but only China is actually doing practical things to proceed with the repatriation," he said.
The ambassador was delivering keynote speech at a symposium as part of the Cosmos Dialogue Ambassadors’ Lecture Series entitled "Bangladesh-China Relations: Prognosis for the Future" at hotel in Dhaka.
The discussion was chaired and conducted by President, Cosmos Foundation and former foreign affairs advisor Dr Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury.
Chairman of Cosmos Foundation Enayetullah Khan delivered the welcome remarks.
Bangladesh is hosting over 1.1 million Rohingyas in Cox's Bazar and Bhasan Char.
A 27-member delegation including 20 Rohingyas visited Myanmar’s Rakhine on Friday to see the preparation to resettle the possible returnees. They visited 15 villages and other infrastructure built for the Rohingyas.
Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner (RRRC) Mohammed Mizanur Rahman, also the leader of the delegation said, “We returned with 20 Rohingyas after visiting the arrangements made for them around Maungdaw town. I have seen the goodwill of the Myanmar government regarding repatriation. We want to start repatriation.”
Also Read: Momen sees hope for Rohingyas' repatriation in latest Chinese initiative
Responding to a question, Ambassador Yao said the Rohingya issue is a humanitarian tragedy and it should never happen again.
Rohingyas not bothered about facilities, their demand centres citizenship
A 27-member delegation including 20 Rohingyas that left for Myanmar’s Rakhine on Friday morning returned to Bangladesh on Friday (May 05, 2023) around 5.50 pm after visiting 15 villages and other infrastructure built for the Rohingyas.
“We have visited the places in our village, but I still don't see any opportunity to go there before fulfilling demands. We want to see the fulfillment of our demand from here (Bangladesh) and then we will return to Myanmar,” said Sufian, a member of the delegation and a resident of Rohingya camp number 26 while speaking at a briefing after returning at Teknaf-Myanmar Transit Ghat in Cox's Bazar.
"We went there and made our demands. We have demanded citizenship, we have demanded our land," Sufian added.
However, Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner (RRRC) Mohammed Mizanur Rahman, also the leader of the 27-member delegation team that went to Rakhine State, said, “We returned today with 20 Rohingyas after visiting the arrangements made for them around Maungdaw town. I have seen the goodwill of the Myanmar government regarding repatriation. We want to start repatriation.”
Read More: China "unswervingly mediating" between Bangladesh, Myanmar to promote Rohingya repatriation: Ambassador Yao
"We also had Rohingya representatives with us. Basically this event is for them. They will be deported, so they have been shown it in person. Myanmar authorities have briefed, visited various places," he added.
At that time, Mizanur Rahman also assured that there are a lot of Rohingya in Maungdaw city.
“As far as I can tell, about 80% of the Rohingya are doing business. I have spoken to them and told them that they are not facing any problem,” he said.
Mohammad Selim, a Rohingya member of the delegation and a resident of Rohingya camp number 26, said that after many years, we have had the opportunity to see our country Myanmar.
Read More: Rohingyas not bothered about facilities, their demand centres citizenship
“Our last word is that if we are not given security, citizenship and land, we will not go back to Myanmar,” Selim said.
Additional Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner (Additional Secretary) Mohammad Khalid Hossain, Assistant Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Biswajit Debnath and senior officials of various government agencies were present in the delegation.
Earlier, a list of more than 800,000 Rohingyas was sent to Myanmar from the Bangladesh government. The country had identified about 1,140 people in the first phase as a pilot project to repatriate from the list.
Later, Myanmar voiced objections regarding 429 individuals on the list.
Read More: Rohingya delegation leaves for Rakhine to monitor repatriation arrangements
On March 15, a 19-member technical team came to Cox’s Bazar’s Teknaf, and met 480 members of 177 Rohingya families and returned to Myanmar.
Pardon frees more than 2,100 Myanmar political prisoners
Myanmar’s ruling military council on Wednesday said it was releasing more than 2,100 political prisoners as a humanitarian gesture. Thousands more remain imprisoned on charges generally involving nonviolent protests or criticism of military rule, which began when the army seized power in February 2021 from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
State-run MRTV television reported that the head of Myanmar’s military council, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, had pardoned 2,153 prisoners on the most important Buddhist holy day of the year, marking the birth, enlightenment and death of Buddha.
The releases began Wednesday, but may take a few days to be completed. The identities of those released were not immediately available, but would not include Suu Kyi, who is serving a prison term of 33 years on more than a dozen charges her supporters say were trumped up by the military.
Also Read: US urged to create “safe protection zone” in Myanmar to facilitate Rohingya repatriation
According to an official announcement on state media, all of the prisoners granted pardon on Wednesday had been convicted under a section of Myanmar’s penal code that makes it a crime to spread comments that create public unrest or fear, or spread false news, and carries a penalty of up to three years in prison.
The terms of the pardon warn that if the freed detainees violate the law again, they will have to serve the remainder of their original sentences in addition to whatever term they are given for their new offense.
Mass prisoner releases are common on major holidays in Myanmar. The last release of so many political prisoners at one time occurred in July 2021, when 2,296 prisoners were freed.
In November last year, several high profile political prisoners, including an Australian academic, a Japanese filmmaker, an ex-British diplomat and an American, were released as part of a broad prisoner amnesty that also freed many local citizens held for protesting the army takeover.
The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners had said Tuesday that 17,897 people taken into custody since the 2021 army takeover remained in detention. The group keeps detailed tallies of arrests and casualties linked to the repression of the military government.
Prisoner releases appear to be efforts by the hard-line military government to soften its image as a major human rights abuser.
Last week, former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged Myanmar’s military to take the initiative in finding a way out of the country’s violent political crisis, including releasing political detainees, after a surprise meeting with Min Aung Hlaing.
A statement following the meeting said Ban “supported the international community’s calls for the immediate release by the Myanmar military of all arbitrarily detained prisoners, for constructive dialogue, and for utmost restraint from all parties.”
The amnesty also came a day after Min Aung Hlaing met with the visiting foreign minister of China, which has provided key support to his regime since it seized power.
MRTV said Tuesday that Qin Gang held talks in the capital, Naypyitaw, with Min Aung Hlaing and other top officials and exchanged views on bilateral relations, Myanmar’s political situation and conditions needed for its stability and development.
China has strategic geopolitical and economic interests in Myanmar, its southern neighbor, and is one of the few large nations that has maintained good relations with its military government, which is shunned and sanctioned by many Western nations for its takeover and brutal repression of its opponents.
Myanmar has been in turmoil since the army took power. Its takeover prompted peaceful protests that security forces suppressed with bloody violence. Violence has since escalated with the rise of armed resistance around the country and major military efforts to suppress it.
As of Tuesday, 3,452 civilians had been killed by the security forces since the military takeover, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.
Myanmar junta dissolves Suu Kyi's party, much of opposition
Myanmar’s military government took another major step in its ongoing campaign to cripple its political opponents on Wednesday, dissolving dozens of opposition parties including that of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi for failing to meet a registration deadline ahead of elections.
Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, or NLD, was one of 40 parties ordered dissolved in an official announcement by the election commission published Wednesday in the state-controlled press. The NLD governed Myanmar with overwhelming majorities in Parliament from 2015 to 2021 before being overthrown by the military.
The NLD had already announced that it would not register, denouncing the promised polls as a sham.
The party, and other critics, say the still-unscheduled polls will be neither free nor fair in a military-ruled country that has shut free media and arrested most of the leaders of Suu Kyi’s party.
The NLD won a landslide victory in the November 2020 election, but in February 2021, the army blocked all elected lawmakers from taking their seats in Parliament and seized power, detaining top members of Suu Kyi’s government and party.
The army takeover was met with widespread popular opposition. After peaceful demonstrations were put down with lethal force, many opponents of military rule took up arms, and large parts of the country are embroiled in conflict.
Suu Kyi, 77, is serving prison sentences totaling 33 years after being convicted in a series of politically tainted prosecutions brought by the military. Her supporters say the charges were contrived to prevent her from participating in politics.
Kyaw Htwe, a member of the NLD’s Central Working Committee, told The Associated Press on Tuesday night that the party’s existence does not depend on what the military decides, and it “will exist as long as the people support it.”
His statement was a reference to a message Suu Kyi sent to her supporters through her lawyers in May 2021 when she appeared in court in person for the first time after the military seized power, She said “Since the NLD was founded for the people, the NLD will exist as long as the people exist.″
“The party will continue to fulfill the responsibilities entrusted by the people.” Kyaw Htwe said in a text message.
The army said it staged its 2021 takeover because of massive poll fraud, though independent election observers did not find any major irregularities. Some critics of Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, who led the takeover and is now Myanmar’s top leader, believe he acted because the vote thwarted his own political ambitions.
The new polls had been expected by the end of July, according to the army’s own plans. But in February, the military announced a six-month extension of its state of emergency, delaying the possible legal date for holding an election. It said security could not be assured. The military does not control large swaths of the country, where it faces widespread armed resistance to its rule.
“Amid the state oppression following the 2021 coup, no election can be credible, especially when much of the population sees a vote as a cynical attempt to supplant the landslide victory of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy in 2020,” said a report issued Tuesday by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group think tank.
“The polls will almost certainly intensify the post-coup conflict, as the regime seeks to force them through and resistance groups seek to disrupt them.”
The military government enacted a new political party registration law in January that makes it difficult for opposition groups to mount a serious challenge to the army’s favored candidates. It sets conditions such as minimum levels of membership and candidates and offices that any party without the backing of the army and its cronies would find hard to meet, especially in the repressive political atmosphere.
The new law required existing political parties to re-apply for registration with the election commission by March 28.
Ninety parties ran in the 2020 election, of which just under half have been dissolved. The state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper on Wednesday published the election commission's list of 50 existing parties that had registered by the Tuesday deadline, and 40 that had not, meaning they would be dissolved as of Wednesday.
The surviving parties are unlikely to pose a meaningful electoral challenge to the junta: they won only a handful of seats in the 2020 election, and most will not mount national campaigns.
“Among these 63 parties, 12 parties will launch election campaigns across the nation and 51 parties only in one region or state,” the state-run paper reported.
The military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party, which ran a distant second to the NLD in 2015 and 2020, registered again. The Shan Nationalities League for Democracy, and NLD ally that won the third largest number of seats in 2020, did not.
Thirteen new parties registered, and the announcement said the opportunity for new parties to register was still open.
The National League for Democracy was founded in 1988 in the wake of a failed uprising against military rule. It won a 1990 general election that was invalidated by the country’s military rulers. It was technically banned after it boycotted a 2010 election held under military auspices because it felt it was not free or fair, but was allowed to register when it agreed to run in 2011. It took power after a landslide victory in the 2015 general election.
Bangladesh seeks unity, concerted efforts from int’l community to resolve Rohingya crisis
Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen has underscored the urgent need for unity and concerted efforts from the international community to resolve the Rohingya crisis, in the true spirit of responsibility and burden sharing.
He urged the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy on Myanmar, Noeleen Heyzer, to enhance her engagements with Myanmar authorities as well as other stakeholders to improve the conditions in Rakhine so that the Rohingyas can return to their homes without delay.
Momen particularly emphasized on addressing root causes of the crisis which lie in Myanmar.
The foreign minister had a bilateral meeting with the special envoy at the Permanent Mission of Bangladesh to the UN in New York on March 21.
Also Read: UNHCR ‘not involved’ in discussions on Bangladesh-Myanmar pilot project on Rohingya repatriation
Referring to the resolutions adopted by the General Assembly and the Security Council on Myanmar, Momen called upon the special envoy to continue taking a multi-pronged approach and remain engaged with all global and regional actors including ASEAN leadership, with a view to fostering lasting peace in Myanmar.
He highlighted the various humanitarian initiatives and skills development programmes undertaken by the government of Bangladesh at the temporary shelter of Rohingyas in Cox’s Bazar and Bhashan Char, including the introduction of Myanmar curriculum-based education in those camps.
Momen urged the special envoy to mobilize adequate funding from the international community to provide for the Rohingyas especially in meeting their most urgent needs, such as food and shelter.
Also Read: PM meets UK’s cross-party delegation, discusses Rohingya
“If given opportunities, the Rohingya people can be important members of Myanmar society and contribute to their socio-economic prosperity,” he said.
11 killed as strong earthquake rattles Pakistan, Afghanistan
A magnitude 6.5 earthquake rattled much of Pakistan and Afghanistan on Tuesday, sending panicked residents fleeing from homes and offices and frightening people in remote villages. At least 11 people died in the two countries.
More than 100 people were brought to hospitals in the Swat valley region of Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in a state of shock, Bilal Faizi, a spokesman for Pakistan's emergency services told The Associated Press.
“These terrified people collapsed, and some of them collapsed because of the shock of the earthquake,” he said. Faizi said most were later discharged from the hospital.
Faizi and other officials said nine people were killed when roofs collapsed in various parts of northwestern Pakistan. Dozens of others were injured in the quake, which was centered in Afghanistan and also felt in bordering Tajikistan. The earthquake triggered landslides in some of the mountainous areas, disrupting traffic.
Also Read: 6.5 magnitude quake rattles Afghanistan, Pakistan
Taimoor Khan, a spokesman for the provincial disaster management authority in the northwest, said at least 19 mudbrick homes collapsed in remote areas. “We are still collecting data about the damages,” he said.
The powerful tremors sent many people fleeing their homes and offices in Pakistan's capital of Islamabad, some reciting verses from the Quran, Islam's holy book. Media reports suggested cracks had appeared in some apartment buildings in the city.
In Afghanistan, Sharafat Zaman Amar, Taliban’s appointed spokesman for the public health ministry said, so far at least two people died and around 20 others were injured in the earthquake in Afghanistan.
Zaman Amar said “Unfortunately, there could be more casualties as the quake was so powerful, in most parts of the country” all hospitals and health facilities are ready to save lives of people, he added.
The scene was repeated in Kabul and other parts of Afghanistan.
"The quake was so strong and terrifying, we thought houses are collapsing on us, people were all shouting and were shocked,” said Shafiullah Azimi, a Kabul resident.
Aziz Ahmad, 45, another Kabul resident, said “In my life this was first time I have experienced such powerful quake, everyone was terrified,” He added he and all his neighbors stayed out of their homes for hours, afraid of aftershocks. “We couldn't dare to get back homes."
The U.S. Geological Survey said the epicenter of the magnitude 6.5 quake was 40 kilometers (25 miles) south-southeast of Jurm in Afghanistan's mountainous Hindukush region, bordering Pakistan and Tajikistan. The quake struck 188 kilometers (116 miles) deep below the Earth's surface, causing it to felt over a wide area.
Physician Rakhshinda Tauseed was at her hospital in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore when the earthquake hit. “I quickly asked patients to go move to a safer place,” she said.
Khurram Shahzad, a resident in Pakistan's garrison city of Rawalpindi, said he was having dinner with his family at a restaurant when the walls started swaying.
“I quickly thought that it is a big one, and we left the restaurant and came out,” he told The Associated Press by phone. He said he saw hundreds of people standing on the streets.
The situation was similar in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on the border with Afghanistan, where people were seen standing outside their homes and offices.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif in a statement said he asked disaster management officials to remain vigilant to handle any situation.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the main spokesman for the Taliban government in Afghanistan, tweeted that the Ministry of Public Health had ordered all health centers to be on standby.
The region is prone to violent seismic upheavals. A magnitude 7.6 quake in 2005 killed thousands of people in Pakistan and Kashmir.
Last year in southeastern Afghanistan, a 6.1 magnitude quake struck a rugged, mountainous region, flattening stone and mud-brick homes. Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers put the total death toll from the quake at 1,150, with hundreds more injured, while the U.N. has offered a lower estimate of 770.