The US wants Myanmar to repatriate hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas in their own villages following their exodus from violence-wracked Rakhine State towards Bangladesh, a senior State Department official said in Dhaka yesterday.

With the Rohingyas streaming into Bangladesh fleeing a brutal crackdown in Myanmar's Rakhine State, the UN rights body chief denounced the atrocities as “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing”.

Rohingyas have been telling the world numerous stories of horror, loss, murder, rape and villages burned to the ground over the last two months. The world's media have been flooded with their harrowing tales.

At least three Bangladeshis among four foreign workers are killed and 10 others missing after a landslide at a construction site in George Town, capital of the northwest Malaysian state of Penang, authorities say.

In the last few days I had the opportunity to visit the Rohingya camps in Ukhia near the Myanmar border to observe the conditions of the refugees as well as the environment of the area. I will share some very preliminary observations on the situation.

Some 30,000 Rohingyas have streamed into Bangladesh in the latest outflow of people from Myanmar into Bangladesh. As the numbers increase exponentially, so do the casualties.

October 16 marks World Food Day, an annual event which this year focuses on food security, conflict, displacement and migration. To date, about a million Rohingyas have fled Rakhine State of Myanmar, over half of them since August 25 this year.

The World Bank has suspended $200 million loan as budget support to the Myanmar government due to the persecution of Rohingyas of Rakhine State.

Former UN chief Kofi Annan urged the Security Council on Friday to push for the return to Myanmar of hundreds of thousands of Rohyingas who have been driven out in an army campaign.

World Food Programme will provide rice, pulse, oil and other daily necessities to Rohingyas well into next year.

Four Rohingya refugees, including three children, were trampled to death by an elephant in Ukhia's reserve forest area. The deceased were identified as Taslima, 32, Rumana, 11 and, siblings Salma, 7 and Safuna, 2.

The latest report presented survivors' statements about megaphones being used to announce before and during the attacks: “You do not belong here ... go to Bangladesh. If you do not leave, we will torch your houses and kill you.”

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan says he will visit Myanmar on October 23 for holding talks with the Myanmar government on repatriation of the Rohingyas, who were forcibly ousted from their homes in the Rakhine state and pushed into Bangladesh.

The proposal by Myanmar that repatriation of Rohingyas be based on the 1992 deal is unrealistic. Unrealistic primarily because Myanmar is insisting on the clause that these displaced people must have proof of citizenship, i.e. they must produce either citizenship identity cards or national registration cards or other relevant documentation.

Endless streams of Rohingyas have crossed the Naf River into Bangladesh. The deaths of children at sea stand out most vividly. Rohingyas have left behind everything they had once known in the face of the Myanmar military's brutalities against their own people.

To say that the report on the Rakhine situation, submitted to the UN in May this year and which was bottled up by the UN, is shocking, would be an understatement. And even more so given the fact that the Horsey study was commissioned by the UN itself.

Despite Myanmar's assurances that it is stopping the exodus of Rohingyas, members of the minority group continue to stream towards Bangladesh fleeing violence in Rakhine State.

Drug dealers are luring Rohingyas into yaba rackets and using them as carriers, say officials of the Department of Narcotics Control.

7:00pm As the last relief truck departs, Shafiuallah Kata Pahar, a group of hillocks, reverts back to a strange sense of calm. People, carrying sacks of rice and packs of food, begin to return to their tents. Suddenly, the hills seem to be dotted with fireflies. Lamps and candles masquerade as shining stars in the sky on a dark night, lighting up one by one.

As Rohingyas have continued to flee into Bangladesh, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Filippo Grandi warned of humanitarian disaster.