Close to 500 Rohingyan refugees have died at sea reports UNHCR

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has estimated 13,000 mostly Rohingya people have fled Burma's Rakhine State since an outbreak of violence in 2012, and close to 500 have died at sea when their boats broke down or capsized.

However Myanmar's Deputy Minister for Immigration and Population, Kyaw Kyaw Tun yesterday stated that the Rohingyan people are not included in Myanmar's more than 100 national races.

"There has never been a Rohingya race in Rakhine State. According to the censuses collected in the colonial period, in 1973 and in 1983, the country's ethnic groups include no Rohingya. That term was not mentioned either in the British gazettes," the deputy minister said.

The region of Rakhine (Arakan) was annexed and occupied by Myanmar in the 1700s, bringing the Rohingya people under Burmese occupation. As of 2012, 800,000 Rohingya live in Myanmar. The Rohingya are not recognized as citizens of Myanmar and face persecution in their daily lives in Rakhine state.

Meanwhile, on the 21st February 2013 the U.K. Senior Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Minister for Faith and Communities, Sayeeda Warsi, Baroness Warsi reported meeting Rohingyan refugees at Kutupalong Camp in Coxs Bazaar, Bangladesh.

Baroness Warsi reported the desperate situation requires urgent action from the government of Myanmar "to guarantee security, access to aid agencies and citizenship to the Rohingya community." (NewsPoint)