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Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims Once Again Under the Spotlight

Rohingya refugees walk to a Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) post after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border by boat through the Bay of Bengal in Shah Porir Dwip, Bangladesh, September 10, 2017. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui
Rohingya refugees walk to a Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) post after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border by boat through the Bay of Bengal in Shah Porir Dwip, Bangladesh, September 10, 2017. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui
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Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims Once Again Under the Spotlight

Rohingya refugees walk to a Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) post after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border by boat through the Bay of Bengal in Shah Porir Dwip, Bangladesh, September 10, 2017. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui
Rohingya refugees walk to a Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) post after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border by boat through the Bay of Bengal in Shah Porir Dwip, Bangladesh, September 10, 2017. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui

The modern world has in recent days expressed concern over the atrocities committed by the Buddhists in Myanmar against Rohingya Muslims. The latest round of violence has forced tends of thousands to flee to safer areas on the border with Bangladesh.

Human Rights Watch has said that new satellite data is consistent with widespread burnings in Myanmar’s Rakhine State where the violence is raging.

According to Matthew Smith, the Chief Executive of Fortify Rights, a human rights organization, villages are burning and people are getting killed. The Rohingya are running for their lives, he said.

Myanmar’s authorities are claiming to be dealing with “terrorists” who are carrying out armed attacks in Rakhine, blaming the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) for the latest round of violence.

They say only 450 people have been killed since August 25. But human rights activists have a different count of no less than 1,000 people, mainly unarmed civilians, dead.

The refugees and their horrendous stories

Nearly 400,000 refugees have poured across the border into Bangladesh. They have carried a handful of their personal belongings on their backs as they witnessed horrendous acts of violence, including rape, murder and organized looting.

UNHCR spokesperson Vivian Tan has lately said that a lot of women and children, including newborns, have been victims of violence and they need medical care for being very weak. The numbers are rising, she added.

Barefoot and running for her life, Rohingya Dilara, 20, reached Bangladesh in recent days clutching her young son, her family torn apart by violence in Myanmar.

“My husband was shot in the village. I escaped with my son and in-laws,” Dilara, 20, told the UNHCR as she trudged on mud-caked feet into Kutupalong refugee camp. “We walked for three days, hiding when we had to. The mountain was wet and slippery and I kept falling.”

Dilara lost track of her in-laws during the journey and followed her fellow villagers to the camp. “I don’t know where I am … I just knew to run to save my life,” she said in a daze, carrying her 18-month toddler and nothing else.

Who are the Rohingya?

Currently, about 1.1 million Rohingya who live in Myanmar. They are an ethnic group who have lived for centuries in the majority Buddhist Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. They are mainly concentrated in Rakhine, which is one of the country’s poorest states.

They are not considered one of the country's official ethnic groups and have been denied citizenship in Myanmar since the 1980s which has rendered them stateless.

As a result, the long-running tension between the Rohingya and the Buddhists led to bloody violence in the country's west in 2012, causing casualties and forcing tens of thousands of the minority group to flee to Bangladesh, Malaysia, Thailand, India and Indonesia.

Accusations against International Organizations

Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s office has accused international aid workers of helping “terrorists”, a claim that has prompted fears for their safety.

The US Ambassador to Myanmar Scot Marciel rejected suggestions by the Myanmar government that international aid agencies—including the US Agency for International Development (USAID)—are supporting the Rohingya, describing the accusations as “absurd.”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said that ethnic cleansing is taking place in Myanmar.

A Role for Kofi Annan

Former UN chief Kofi Annan is now in Myanmar to hand over the final report of a commission on Rakhine that he leads.

Suu Kyi established the nine-member Advisory Commission on Rakhine State on August 23, 2016.

The commission recommends that the government take concrete steps to end enforced segregation of Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims; ensure full and unfettered humanitarian access throughout the state; tackle Rohingya statelessness and “revisit” the 1982 Citizenship Law.

Suu Kyi’s Silence

Human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch, believe that the de-facto leader’s silence on the spiraling abuses against the Rohingya Muslim minority is unjustified and completely wrong.

An Indian analyst on Myanmar relations said however that Suy Kyi, who is known to be active in the field of human rights, is facing a dilemma. “She does not want to lose the support of the Buddhist majority in announcing her support for the Rohingya.”

“The situation will be very complicated,” he said.

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To Get Their Own Cash, People in Gaza Must Pay Middlemen a 40% Cut

A destroyed branch of the Bank of Palestine in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City is seen Wednesday, July 9, 2025. (AP)
A destroyed branch of the Bank of Palestine in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City is seen Wednesday, July 9, 2025. (AP)
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To Get Their Own Cash, People in Gaza Must Pay Middlemen a 40% Cut

A destroyed branch of the Bank of Palestine in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City is seen Wednesday, July 9, 2025. (AP)
A destroyed branch of the Bank of Palestine in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City is seen Wednesday, July 9, 2025. (AP)

Cash is the lifeblood of the Gaza Strip’s shattered economy, and like all other necessities in this war-torn territory — food, fuel, medicine — it is in extremely short supply.

With nearly every bank branch and ATM inoperable, people have become reliant on an unrestrained network of powerful cash brokers to get money for daily expenses and commissions on those transactions have soared to about 40%.

"The people are crying blood because of this," said Ayman al-Dahdouh, a school director living in Gaza City. "It’s suffocating us, starving us."

At a time of surging inflation, high unemployment and dwindling savings, the scarcity of cash has magnified the financial squeeze on families — some of whom have begun to sell their possessions to buy essential goods.

The cash that is available has even lost some of its luster. Palestinians use the Israeli currency, the shekel, for most transactions. Yet with Israel no longer resupplying the territory with newly printed bank notes, merchants are increasingly reluctant to accept frayed bills.

Gaza’s punishing cash crunch has several root causes, experts say.

To curtail Hamas’ ability to purchase weapons and pay its fighters, Israel stopped allowing cash to enter Gaza at the start of the war. Around the same time, many wealthy families in Gaza withdrew their money from banks and then fled the territory. And rising fears about Gaza’s financial system prompted foreign businesses selling goods into the territory to demand cash payments.

As Gaza’s money supply dwindled and civilians’ desperation mounted, cash brokers' commissions — around 5% at the start of the war — skyrocketed.

Someone needing cash transfers money electronically to a broker and moments later is handed a fraction of that amount in bills. Many brokers openly advertise their services, while others are more secretive. Some grocers and retailers have also begun exchanging cash for their customers.

"If I need $60, I need to transfer $100," said Mohammed Basheer al-Farra, who lives in southern Gaza after being displaced from Khan Younis. "This is the only way we can buy essentials, like flour and sugar. We lose nearly half of our money just to be able to spend it."

In 2024, inflation in Gaza surged by 230%, according to the World Bank. It dropped slightly during the ceasefire that began in January, only to shoot up again after Israel backed out of the truce in March.

Cash touches every aspect of life in Gaza

About 80% of people in Gaza were unemployed at the end of 2024, according to the World Bank, and the figure is likely higher now. Those with jobs are mostly paid by direct deposits into their bank accounts.

But "when you want to buy vegetables, food, water, medication -- if you want to take transportation, or you need a blanket, or anything — you must use cash," al-Dahdouh said.

Shahid Ajjour’s family has been living off of savings for two years after the pharmacy and another business they owned were ruined by the war.

"We had to sell everything just to get cash," said Ajjour, who sold her gold to buy flour and canned beans. The family of eight spends the equivalent of $12 every two days on flour; before the war, that cost less than $4.

Sugar is very expensive, costing the equivalent of $80-$100 per kilogram (2.2 pounds), multiple people said; before the war, that cost less than $2.

Gasoline is about $25 a liter, or roughly $95 a gallon, when paying the lower, cash price.

Bills are worn and unusable

The bills in Gaza are tattered after 21 months of war.

Money is so fragile, it feels as if it is going to melt in your hands, said Mohammed al-Awini, who lives in a tent camp in southern Gaza.

Small business owners said they were under pressure to ask customers for undamaged cash because their suppliers demand pristine bills from them.

Thaeir Suhwayl, a flour merchant in Deir al-Balah, said his suppliers recently demanded he pay them only with brand new 200-shekel ($60) bank notes, which he said are rare. Most civilians pay him with 20-shekel ($6) notes that are often in poor condition.

On a recent visit to the market, Ajjour transferred the shekel equivalent of around $100 to a cash broker and received around $50 in return. But when she tried to buy some household supplies from a merchant, she was turned away because the bills weren’t in good condition.

"So the worth of your $50 is zero in the end," she said.

This problem has given rise to a new business in Gaza: money repair. It costs between 3 and 10 shekels ($1-$3) to mend old bank notes. But even cash repaired with tape or other means is sometimes rejected.

People are at the mercy of cash brokers

After most of the banks closed in the early days of the war, those with large reserves of cash suddenly had immense power.

"People are at their mercy," said Mahmoud Aqel, who has been displaced from his home in southern Gaza. "No one can stop them."

The war makes it impossible to regulate market prices and exchange rates, said Dalia Alazzeh, an expert in finance and accounting at the University of the West of Scotland. "Nobody can physically monitor what’s happening," Alazzeh said.

A year ago, the Palestine Monetary Authority, the equivalent of a central bank for Gaza and the West Bank, sought to ease the crisis by introducing a digital payment system known as Iburaq. It attracted half a million users, or a quarter of the population, according to the World Bank, but was ultimately undermined by merchants insisting on cash.

Israel sought to ramp up financial pressure on Hamas earlier this year by tightening the distribution of humanitarian aid, which it said was routinely siphoned off by militants and then resold.

Experts said it is unclear if the cash brokers’ activities benefit Hamas, as some Israeli analysts claim.

The war has made it more difficult to determine who is behind all sorts of economic activity in the territory, said Omar Shabaan, director of Palthink for Strategic Studies, a Gaza-based think tank.

"It's a dark place now. You don't know who is bringing cigarettes into Gaza," he said, giving just one example. "It's like a mafia."

These same deep-pocketed traders are likely the ones running cash brokerages, and selling basic foodstuffs, he said. "They benefit by imposing these commissions," he said.

Once families run out of cash, they are forced to turn to humanitarian aid.

Al-Farra said that is what prompted him to begin seeking food at an aid distribution center, where it is common for Palestinians to jostle over one other for sacks of flour and boxes of pasta.

"This is the only way I can feed my family," he said.