Northern Rakhine State clashes

Mulla was one of three Rohingya in the Kikinda camp near Serbia's northern borders with European Union members Hungary and Romania.

Ali Mulla at Kikinda refugee camp. Photo: BIRN

Besides the three in Kikinda, Serbia's Commissariat for Refugees says it has registered only four other Rohingya, in the summer of last year.

Turkey's state-run aid agency opened a clinic in Rakhine state, homeland of Rohingya Muslims in western Myanmar, on April 22.

A Turkish lawyer on Sept. 20 filed a criminal complaint against several Myanmar officials on charges of committing genocide against Rohingya Muslims and crimes against humanity in Myanmar's Rakhine State.

Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi on Thursday robustly defended the jailing of two Reuters journalists who were reporting on the Rohingya crisis, as she hit back at global criticism of a trial widely seen as an attempt to muzzle the free press.

Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett told the U.N. Security Council on Aug. 28 that nothing prepared her for "the extent and depth of suffering" she saw when she visited camps in Bangladesh for Rohingya Muslim refugees who fled a violent crackdown by Myanmar's military.

United Nations investigators on Monday called for an international probe and prosecution of Myanmar's army chief and five other top military commanders for genocide against the country's Rohingya minority.

Hundreds of desperate Rohingya Muslims are still pouring over the Myanmar border into Bangladesh every week, bringing harrowing accounts of torture and murder, six months after a military crackdown sparked the massive refugee crisis.

Satellite imagery shows Myanmar authorities have bulldozed at least 55 Rohingya villages in northern Rakhine in recent months, Human Rights Watch said on Feb. 23, condemning the government for erasing evidence at sites where troops are accused of atrocities.

The European Union will start preparing sanctions against Myanmar generals over killings of Rohingya Muslims by formally calling on the bloc’s foreign policy chief next week to draw up a list of possible names, two diplomats said.

Representatives from Bangladesh and Myanmar will meet on Feb. 20 to discuss the repatriation to Myanmar of more than 6,500 Rohingya Muslims trapped on a strip of unclaimed land between the two countries, Bangladeshi officials said.