UN Team to Access Myanmar's Rakhine for 1st Time

Rohingya Muslims, who recently crossed over from Myanmar, carry food items across from Bangladesh's border towards no man's land where they have set up refugee camps, in Tombru, Bangladesh. AP
Rohingya Muslims, who recently crossed over from Myanmar, carry food items across from Bangladesh's border towards no man's land where they have set up refugee camps, in Tombru, Bangladesh. AP
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UN Team to Access Myanmar's Rakhine for 1st Time

Rohingya Muslims, who recently crossed over from Myanmar, carry food items across from Bangladesh's border towards no man's land where they have set up refugee camps, in Tombru, Bangladesh. AP
Rohingya Muslims, who recently crossed over from Myanmar, carry food items across from Bangladesh's border towards no man's land where they have set up refugee camps, in Tombru, Bangladesh. AP

Representatives of UN agencies will be permitted to visit Rakhine state in Myanmar on Thursday for the first time since the start of a massive exodus of minority Rohingya Muslims in August.

"There will be a trip organized by the government, probably tomorrow, to Rakhine," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Wednesday.

"We hope above all that it is a first step toward much freer and wider access to the area," he said at his daily news briefing.

He said the chiefs of UN agencies would take part in the trip.

The UN has drawn up a contingency plan to feed up to 700,000 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, and warned that those who fled will not be returning home soon.

"All the UN agencies together have now set a plan for a new influx of 700,000. We can cover if the new influx reaches 700,000," the World Food Program's deputy chief in Bangladesh, Dipayan Bhattacharyya, said on Wednesday.

UN refugee agency chief Filippo Grandi said that for those who have fled to Bangladesh - nearly half a million Rohingya refugees - "return will take time, if it happens, if the violence stops."

The International Organization for Migration has estimated that there are more than 800,000 Rohingya currently in Bangladesh, including those who fled Myanmar before the latest crisis.  

Desperately needing more help, Bangladesh’s junior health minister Zahid Malek said Dhaka has sought US$250 million from the World Bank to provide healthcare to the Rohingya.



Amnesty Accuses Iran of Firing Cluster Munitions at Israel

Amnesty International says international humanitarian law prohibits 'indiscriminate weapons'. STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP
Amnesty International says international humanitarian law prohibits 'indiscriminate weapons'. STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP
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Amnesty Accuses Iran of Firing Cluster Munitions at Israel

Amnesty International says international humanitarian law prohibits 'indiscriminate weapons'. STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP
Amnesty International says international humanitarian law prohibits 'indiscriminate weapons'. STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP

Amnesty International said on Thursday that Iran fired widely-banned cluster munitions at Israel during a war between the two countries in June, in attacks that endangered civilians.

"Last month, the Iranian forces fired ballistic missiles whose warheads contained submunitions into populated residential areas of Israel," the human rights group said, citing new research.

The organization said it analyzed photos and videos showing cluster munitions that, according to media reports, struck inside the Gush Dan metropolitan area around Tel Aviv on June 19, AFP said.

On top of that, the southern city of Beersheba on June 20 and Rishon LeZion to the south of Tel Aviv on June 22 were also "struck with ordnance that left multiple impact craters consistent with the submunitions seen in Gush Dan", Amnesty said.

"By using such weapons in or near populated residential areas, Iranian forces endangered civilian lives," said Erika Guevara Rosas, senior director at Amnesty International.

"Iranian forces' deliberate use of such inherently indiscriminate weapons is a blatant violation of international humanitarian law."

Cluster munitions explode in mid-air and scatter bomblets. Some of them do not explode on impact and can cause casualties over time, particularly among children.

Neither Iran nor Israel is among more than a hundred countries that are party to the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, which prohibits the use, transfer, production and storage of cluster bombs.

Amnesty said international law "prohibits the use of inherently indiscriminate weapons, and launching indiscriminate attacks that kill or injure civilians constitutes a war crime".

Israel and Iran fought a 12-day war sparked by an Israeli bombing campaign on June 13.

Israel said the strikes were aimed at preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, an ambition Tehran has consistently denied.