“They pushed me away. I couldn't even fight back because I had my baby with me and he could have gotten hurt,” Shanwara Begum in her mid-twenties says, her arm wrapped around her two-year old boy. Her eyes are a rare light shade of blue. They might have sparkled once; now they are dull.

The situation on the Bangladesh-Myanmar border is extremely volatile. Thousands of refugees are streaming into Bangladesh following fresh crackdowns on Rohingyas led by the Myanmar army. Hundreds of Rohingyas have been killed so far.

During a visit to India in 2013 as UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres observed, “India's refugee policy is an example for the rest of the world to follow.”

The United Nations has denounced Myanmar's “brutal security operation” against Rohingyas in Rakhine State as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”. Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, the UN high commissioner for human rights, yesterday told the 36th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva that the operation is disproportionate to insurgent attacks carried out last month.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in parliament last night criticised Myanmar for carrying out atrocities on the Rohingyas and said it must take back every Rohingya from Bangladesh, and ensure their safe accommodation and security in Myanmar.

The government has decided to shelter the Rohingyas, who have entered Bangladesh since August 25, in a particular place and bring all of them under biometric registration.

Tasmin has lost everything, literally, when the Myanmar army burned down her house in Andaung village in Maundaw. But that is past and she has no time for that now. Her current concern is her eight-month-old son, Firozmin, who has been suffering from dysentery, fever and cough.

Dhaka yesterday urged the global community to come up with urgent humanitarian assistance to help Bangladesh address the refugee crisis and make Myanmar agree on immediate and unconditional implementation of Kofi Annan Commission's recommendations.

While it is encouraging to know that Bangladesh has taken diplomatic initiatives to bring the ongoing Rohingya refugee crisis to the international fora, the question is whether it has devised a strategy to go forward.

In the wake of an active genocide in Myanmar and the resulting influx of the Rohingyas into Bangladesh, Dhaka should launch a vigorous diplomatic initiative to internationalise the crimes Myanmar is committing in Rakhine state and solicit support for its peaceful solution, experts have said.

Amid a shortage of resources, the authorities are struggling to provide water, food, medicine, shelter and other basic needs to the huge number of Rohingyas streaming into Bangladesh from Myanmar every day.

Police in Thailand detain a woman accused of taking off with dowries after marrying at least seven men. But it remains unclear what charges she might face in the high-profile case, reports Bangkok Post.

Hefajat-e Islam, a Chittagong-based Islamist group, threatens to besiege Myanmar Embassy in Dhaka on September 19 if the “genocide” of Rohingya people is not stopped by then.

Myanmar, on its part must, realise that blaming all the current atrocities on the so-called terrorists and claiming that its security forces had nothing to do with the crimes committed, in spite of unvarying accounts of thousands of refugees to the contrary, is neither credible nor helpful in solving the situation.

International outcry over the atrocities against Rohingyas is growing with politicians, rights activists and Nobel laureates castigating the Myanmar government, as an estimated 2,70,000 of the persecuted community have sought refuge in Bangladesh over the past two weeks.

While growing up in Myanmar's Rakhine, Noor Sabah, now 70, was constantly reminded the country didn't own her. Her movement was restricted and her access to education, health and other basic services was limited. People of her community also had to pay extra tax for getting married and building homes. Braving all these odds, they lived there for generations.

India has declined to be a part of an international parliamentary conference's declaration that expressed concern over the ongoing violence in the Rakhine state of Myanmar.

Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi said yesterday her government was doing its best to protect everyone in the strife-torn state of

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte symbolically honoured Ferdinand Marcos yesterday by declaring the late dictator's 100th birth

Hong Kong students have accused their universities of suppressing freedom of speech after banners and signs calling for the city's