(Deutsche Welle) – UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has urged Myanmar and Bangladesh to allow humanitarian access to people impacted by recent clashes in Myanmar’s Rakhine state. “Many of those fleeing are women and children, some of whom are wounded,” Guterres’ spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said in a statement on Monday. Link
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(AFP) – Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi yesterday accused Rohingya fighters of burning down homes and using child soldiers during a recent surge in violence in troubled Rakhine state, allegations denied by the militants themselves. The impoverished western state neighbouring Bangladesh has become a crucible of religious hatred focused on the stateless Rohingya Muslim minority, who […]
(The Guardian) – Aung San Suu Kyi’s office has accused international aid workers of helping “terrorists”, a claim that has prompted fears for their safety and been condemned as dangerously irresponsible. The state counsellor office said it had learned that international aid staff had “participated while extremist terrorists besieged” a village in Rakhine state, adding it would investigate […]
(Radio Free Asia) – A former child soldier has been arrested and charged with allegedly defaming the country’s military after telling the story of his abduction and forced conscription to RFA’s Myanmar Service. Aung Ko Htway, 26, who spent nearly a decade as a child soldier, was arrested on Friday, and faces up to two years […]
(Radio Free Asia) – Myanmar’s armed forces and some of the Southeast Asian country’s ethnic armed groups have long recruited and trafficked children to serve as soldiers, particularly in conflict-prone ethnic areas in the borderlands. Military recruiters often snatch children under the pretext that they have committed a minor or nonexistent offense and tell them that they […]
(Foreign Policy) – The Donald Trump administration released the annual Trafficking in Persons Report this week, which includes the list of governments known to use or support the use of child soldiers and thus which may be prohibited from receiving U.S. weapons and military assistance. Yet this year’s list is particularly remarkable for what it lacks, namely […]
(RT) – US State Department has dropped Iraq and Myanmar from a child soldiers’ blacklist in its annual people trafficking report, despite multiple reports of continuous usage of children in armies and militias, and human rights activists’ outcry. The annual Trafficking in Persons Report unveiled by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and senior president’s advisor and […]
(HRW) – US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson should return Burma and Iraq to the US list of governments using child soldiers, Human Rights Watch said today. Reuters reported that Tillerson overruled State Department officials and senior US diplomats in ordering the two countries to be removed from the list, which will be announced on June […]
(VOA News) – U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is expected to take Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, and Iraq off a list of countries that use or recruit child soldiers, in an announcement set for Tuesday, according to media reports. The Reuters news agency reported last week that by delisting those countries, Tillerson is overruling recommendations […]
(WION) – On 23 June, the Myanmar army released 67 child soldiers from its ranks. A ‘child soldier’ can be broadly defined as “any person under 18 years of age who is part of any kind of regular or irregular armed force or armed group in any capacity – including, but not limited to, combatants, cooks, […]
