Thailand has detained and deported more than 144,000 Myanmar citizens over the past three months, its labor ministry said, in a crackdown aimed at weeding out “job seekers” who use the turmoil in their country as an excuse to seek opportunities in Thailand, a Thai police chief said.
Myanmar junta forces hunting insurgents raided a reporter’s home killing him, another reporter and two other people, one of whom was a member of a rebel group, associates of the victims, including a former employer, told Radio Free Asia.
Twenty-six members of Myanmar’s persecuted Rohingya minority drowned when their boat capsized as they were trying to flee to Bangladesh, witnesses said, an accident likely to compound fears that the largely Muslim minority is facing a new round of genocide.
Myanmar authorities under the ruling junta are now preventing young adults who want to get jobs abroad from leaving the country via Yangon’s international airport, people with knowledge of the situation said.
Approximately 5,000 minority Rohingya Muslims attempting to flee from this week’s fighting in western Myanmar have been waiting for several days near the Naf River for an opportunity to cross into Bangladesh, residents said.
Landmines and unexploded ordnance are posing a greater threat to residents of western Myanmar’s Rakhine state, where intense fighting has caused junta troops to lay more landmines near their outposts.
Flooding triggered by torrential downpours has forced about 20,000 people from their homes in the Myanmar city of Bago and they now face a dire shortage of water and food with more rain expected, aid workers and residents said on Monday.
Heavy rain at the height of the monsoon is flooding large parts of northern Myanmar, destroying hundreds of homes and displacing tens of thousands of people, relief workers told Radio Free Asia on Thursday.
Myanmar prison authorities beat about 80 female political prisoners, critically injuring five of them, after prison authorities sparked a protest when they confiscated the women’s belongings, a human rights group told Radio Free Asia on Tuesday.
Junta forces arrested 13 members of an urban guerrilla group on suspicion of planning an attack on the leader of Myanmar’s military regime, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, state-run media reported.