Rohingya refugees fleeing anti-Muslim persecution in Myanmar are being exploited by the Arakan Army to smuggle synthetic drugs into Bangladesh. The army, which is demanding greater autonomy for Myanmar’s Rakhine State, uses money from the drug sales to purchase arms and ammunition. It moves the drugs from production centres in Myanmar’s interior to Rakhine State, where the Rohingya make the arduous trek along refugee migration routes into neighbouring Bangladesh.

Ant Financial, the Chinese operator of Alipay, announced its plans to invest US$73.5 million for a minority stake in Digital Money Myanmar Limited, a fintech company based in Myanmar locally known as Wave Money, the companies announced in a press release.Wave Money, a mobile financial services provider, allows users to send and receive money through a network of more than 57,000 agents or “Wave Shops” distributed across urban and rural areas covering approximately 89 percent of the country.&a

Emergency teams raced Friday to prevent a coronavirus "nightmare" in the world's largest refugee settlement after the first confirmed cases in a sprawling city of shacks housing nearly a million Rohingya.There have long been warnings the virus could race like wildfire through the cramped, sometimes sewage-soaked alleys of the network of 34 camps in southeast Bangladesh.Most of the refugees have been there since around 750,000 of the Muslim minority fled a 2017 military offensiv

Myanmar's military has conceded its troops abused prisoners in Rakhine State after a video of soldiers battering blindfolded detainees spread on social media - a rare admission of wrongdoing by a force often accused of acting with impunity.The video, which emerged on Sunday, shows plain-clothed men punching and kicking the heads of handcuffed and blindfolded detainees.The five detainees had been arrested on suspicion of being Arakan Army (AA) insurgents and were being transferred to Rakh

Myanmar's military must be investigated for possible "war crimes and crimes against humanity" as a conflict with rebels in the country's northwest ramps up, a United Nations (UN) rights expert said Wednesday.The military is locked in an increasingly bloody civil war against the Arakan Army (AA), an insurgent group fighting for more autonomy for ethnic Rakhine Buddhists.Scores have been killed, hundreds wounded and some 150,000 people have fled their homes since the fightin

Xenophobic sentiments on social media against “the most discriminated people in the world” – the Rohingya of Myanmar – is on the rise in Malaysia.A few weeks ago, it was reported that Malaysia denied entry to a boat carrying around 200 Rohingya refugees which was spotted by an air force jet off the north-western island of Langkawi.

The king of the Konyak tribe sleeps in Myanmar, but eats in India - his house, village and people divided by a mountain border which serves as a vulnerable lifeline now severed by a coronavirus lockdown.The Konyak are just one of dozens of Naga tribes, a people yearning to reunite the 3 million living in India with their 400,000 estranged - and much poorer - cousins in Myanmar’s isolated far north.Many from Myanmar cross the border to attend school, sell vegetables or visit a hospital, as it

Myanmar lawyer, Thiri had been excited about her wedding and new job this year – before the coronavirus threw both into doubt.