Rohingyas in Bangladesh seek global support during Guterres visit
Kutupalong, July 2: Hundreds of Rohingyas on Monday called for support from the international community during a visit of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to refugee camps in Bangladesh, which host more than 915,000 members of the Muslim minority who have fled Myanmar.
Mud and heavy monsoon rains did not prevent hundreds of Rohingyas from leaving their huts with banners and chanting slogans as Guterres, who is on a two-day official visit to Bangladesh, visited the camps, Efe news reported.
"We want to return to Myanmar as dignified citizens, with security and our all rights," Amir Ahmed, one of the demonstrators in the massive Kutupalong camp, told the news agency.
The camps in Bangladesh host some 915,000 Rohingyas, including around 700,000 who have sought refuge in the country since August 25, 2017 when the Myanmar military launched an offensive in retaliation to an attack on multiple government outposts by Rohingya rebels in the western state of Rakhine.
A Rohingya representative in Kutupalong, Mohammad Mohibulla, said they had 13 demands to deliver to Guterres, who was accompanied by World Bank president Jim Yong Kim.
Mohibulla, who is chairman of the Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace and Human Rights, said their requests included the need for those who committed "genocide" against members of their community in Myanmar to be tried and for compensation for human and material losses.
"We want the UN to deploy troops in an uninterrupted manner in Arakan (Rakhine), we want full citizenship under the name of ethnic Rohingya," instead of identity cards announced by Myanmar in which they would be recognized only as "Bengali", he said.
Myanmar authorities do not recognize the Rohingyas as a distinct ethnic group and instead consider them illegal Bangladeshi immigrants and deny them citizenship and other basic rights.
International pressure led Myanmar and Bangladesh to ink a deal on November 23 to repatriate the Rohingya refugees starting from January 23. However, seven months later, the formal repatriation process is yet to begin.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
