Resolve Rohingya crisis before too late

FRESH influx of refugees is entering Bangladesh at Teknaf border and through other points as Myanmar military flare up clash from last Friday killing Rohingya Muslims torching their homes and forcing them to leave the State. The hopeless people are crowding the riverbank on Myanmar side of the border trying to sneak into Bangladesh for safety. It appears that Burmese military and political leadership have made it easiest way to evict Rohingyas from their home as per of an ethnic cleansing operation defying cries of the ethnic community and protest from all over the world. It is a mindless genocide of a population stripping them of their citizenship and right to their ancestral homeland.

For Bangladesh it is adding to its already worst humanitarian crisis it is handling to feed the homeless refugees and give them shelter. The government has already partially opened the border on call from the International Community and trying to give them safety but this is a gigantic task having far reaching consequences. Moreover we fear that Rohingya youths for the first time have organized them in fighting groups to run militancy operation that they proved in their simultaneous attacks on 30 Myanmar police outposts in the border. They killed at least one dozen Myanmar forces and in retaliation they have killed over 77 Rohingya militants.

What is alarming is that the Rohingya crisis is heading towards armed conflict inside Myanmar border and it risks safety of Bangladesh border as unwilling witness to the fight. Any armed conflict in the region is bound to cause bigger bloodshed and spread destabilization in the region. We call upon the Myanmar regime to pay heed to what the Kofi Annan Commission recommended to end the crisis.

The clash flared up this time on the eve of the Rakhine Advisory Commission report led by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan with Aung San Suu Kyi as co-chairman. The report has called upon the Myanmar authorities to end all discrimination, review the citizenship law and allow Rohingyas to freely move in the Rakhine State. But as the conflict is spreading uprooting thousands of Rohingyas from their home following torture, killing and rape of women, the chance for peaceful solution to the crisis seems only becoming remote.  
Meanwhile over 9, 000 refugees entered Bangladesh over the last four days aggravating the humanitarian crisis. Thousands others have set up temporary shelter on Myanmar side of the border waiting to enter Bangladesh. We have over 87,000 in shelters. Bangladesh can no longer bear the load of so many refugees and Dhaka must take stronger diplomatic steps to master bigger support from ASEAN, USA and European nations to bring pressure on Myanmar to resolve the crisis. It must also call for greater support from China and Russia to end the conflict.