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The Rohingya military group Arsa carried out deadly massacres and abductions of the Hindu community in Myanmar’s Rakhine state last year, a new report by Amnesty International has revealed. Testimony collected by Amnesty from dozens of witnesses and survivors of the attacks in Rakhine in August have detailed how up to 99 Hindu men, women and children were killed by Arsa militants armed with knives, swords and sticks. Only those who agreed to convert to Islam were spared. They rounded up all 69 Hindu men, women, and children, before executing 53 of them. Some who agreed to convert from Hinduism...

Pope Francis on Saturday said he wept hearing the plight first-hand of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, adding that this meeting was a condition set for his trip to Myanmar and Bangladesh. The Rohingya meeting was a highly symbolic gesture of solidarity with the Muslim minority fleeing violence in Myanmar, and the pontiff told journalists on his plane flying back to Rome that the refugees cried as well. “I knew that I was going to meet the Rohingyas, but I did not know where and how; for me, it was one of the conditions of the trip,” he said. The usually...

Thousands of cows and goats grazed in abandoned fields and wandered through charred out Rohingya Muslim villages after a military crackdown sent nearly a half-million members of Myanmar’s long-persecuted religious minorities fleeing across the border. Now, more than a half-dozen witnesses told The Associated Press, soldiers and police are cashing in on the humanitarian catastrophe. They all spoke on condition of anonymity because of security concerns. In violence-wracked northern Rakhine state, where village after village has been burned to the ground, security forces and local administrators have been collecting the livestock and bringing it by foot, truck and sometimes boat...

Myanmar claims 'Jamaat link' Friday, June 15, 2012 Front Page Sectarian Clash Dipu Moni tells JS Staff Correspondent The Myanmar government has conveyed its anxiety to the Bangladesh mission there that the Jamaat-e-Islami had been helping the Rohingya groups in Bangladesh with arms to incite sectarian clashes in Myanmar. Foreign Minister Dipu Moni said this in a statement in parliament yesterday. “For the sake of its national security, Bangladesh will not allow any more Rohingya in,” she said. Referring to appeals from different human rights bodies and non-government organisations to allow the Rohingyas to enter Bangladesh, Dipu Moni said Dhaka...