Bangladesh on Thursday announced it would build one of the world's biggest refugee camps to house all the 800,000-plus Rohingya Muslims who have sought asylum from violence in Myanmar.The arrival of more than half a million Rohingya Muslims from Buddhist-dominated Myanmar since August 25 has put an immense strain on camps in Bangladesh where there are growing fears of a disease epidemic.A Bangladesh minister gave details of the mega camp as Myanmar's army blamed Rohingya militants f

Bangladesh has deployed secret police in the burgeoning refugee camps near its border with Myanmar, where Rohingya claiming to be members of a militant group say they have found fertile ground for recruitment.Authorities in Bangladesh, which was already grappling with its own Islamist militancy problem before the latest mass influx of Rohingya refugees, have repeatedly said there are no extremists among the new arrivals.But inside the camps are a number of self-proclaimed members of the ARSA

A senior Myanmar minister proposed Monday to take back the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya who have fled across the border after a military crackdown, Bangladesh said, but gave no details of how the huge task could be achieved.More than half a million Rohingya have arrived in Bangladesh over the last five weeks after militant attacks on police checkposts there sparked violent reprisals, with entire villages burned to the ground.Most are now living in desperate conditions in overcrowded camp

Bangladesh is to move to a camp at least 15,000 Rohingya refugees who have settled in a restive hill district near the border with Myanmar, a local official said Sunday.Most of the estimated half a million Rohingya who have arrived in southeastern Bangladesh over the last five weeks after fleeing violence in Myanmar are crammed into the camps that have sprung up on government land.But thousands of the mainly Muslim refugees have settled in the nearby district of Bandarban, part of the Chittag

More than 2,000 Rohingya have massed along Myanmar's coast this week after trekking from inland villages in Rakhine state to join the refugee exodus to Bangladesh, state media reported Saturday.They follow more than half a million fellow Rohingya who have emptied out of northern Rakhine in a single month, fleeing an army crackdown and communal violence the UN says amounts to "ethnic cleansing".The journey to Bangladesh is fraught with danger for the stateless Muslim minority, w

Rashida Begum steers clear of the water pump near the reeking latrine shared by more than 100 families in a grim corner of Bangladesh that has grown into one of the world's largest refugee settlements in just weeks."The pump works, but the water stinks, so we don't drink it," the Rohingya woman said in the squalid camp where her family of 11 has lived since fleeing Myanmar a fortnight ago.The UN has warned of a humanitarian "nightmare" unfolding in Bangladesh&#03

Malaysia has dissociated itself from the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Chairman’s statement regarding the conflict in Myanmar’s Rakhine state because it is a “misrepresentation of the reality of the situation.” In a rare turn of events, the current ASEAN Chairman and Philippine Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano broke the association’s silence on the issue when he issued a statement on Sunday at the side-lines of the ongoing UNGA (United Nations General Assembly) expressin

The World Health Organisation warned Monday of a growing cholera risk in the makeshift refugee camps in Bangladesh where more than 435,000 Rohingya Muslims have sought shelter from unrest in Myanmar.A month after the exodus began, those dispersed in some 68 camps and settlements along the border do not have safe drinking water and hygiene facilities, according to the WHO.The camps also face dire shortages of food and medicine in what has quickly become one of the world's largest refugee

The Muslim minority Rohingya people continue to flee their homes in the northern Rakhine State of Myanmar to neighbouring Bangladesh for fear of continued persecution by their Buddhist majority government and military.According to the latest numbers released by AFP, 422,000 stateless refugees have fled the conflict zone since the recent spate of violence started on the August 25 to overcrowded camps along the border between Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Muslim Rohingya fleeing their homes in Myanmar are facing "ethnic cleansing" but whether they are victims of genocide remains unclear, international justice experts told AFP.About 422,000 refugees from the stateless Muslim minority have fled Myanmar's westernmost Rakhine state to Bangladesh since August 25, alleging torture and rape by Myanmar troops and Buddhist militias.Their plight has sparked UN accusations of military-led ethnic cleansing, but French President Emmanuel Mac