November 4, 2016
A mob brutally assaulted Rohingya Muslim fishermen in Punga Cweng leaving them with serious injuries.
On Friday, five men went out of the Sidurkul village to fish in the river. At one point, a mob of Rakhines armed with sticks arrived at the spot and started to assault them, leaving them with grievous injuries.
The victims were lying on the spot when a group of villagers found them and took them back to the village. They have been identified as Nobi Hossain (s/o Monu), his brother Bashir, Syed Mohammad (s/o Ezar Miah), Lal Miah (s/o Abdul Shoma) and Noor Mohammad (s/o Solim).
Sidurkul is an isolated Rohingya settlement lying in the midst of hostile Rakhine territory. Since 2012, the village has been under a virtual blockade with neighbours preventing them access to the waterways, the only source of livelihood for the depraved villagers.
The blockade of Rohingya settlements, especially in the areas where the Muslims are a minority has been described as a carefully designed strategy to enforce starvation on the beleaguered community and force them to migrate out of the territory. Rohingyas in Punga Cweng, like their counterparts in many other parts of Arakan suffer from chronic food shortages because of the siege imposed by Buddhist nationalists backed by security forces.
