Interfaith Coalition to End Genocide in Burma Brings Attention to Rohingya Crisis

Christian, Jewish and Muslim activists recently traveled to Bangladesh and spoke with dozens of the Rohingya Muslim refugees who were among the estimated 700,000 who fled genocidal violence committed by the Myanmar government last year and are now sharing the horrors that innocent families have faced.

Sixteen members of the recently founded Interfaith Coalition to End Genocide in Burma (also known as Myanmar) took part in the multi-day trip to learn more about the dire situation and spread awareness within their spheres of influence in the United States.

The United Nations estimates that over 670,000 Rohingya refugees have fled to Bangladesh from the Rakhine state since August 2017, when Burmese military forces attacked and destroyed their jungle villages, killed thousands of men and babies and systematically gang-raped the women.

Muslim imam Malik Mujahid, one of the coalition’s organizers, told The Christian Post on Thursday that there are still as many as 500 to 600 Rohingya refugees per week who are making their way to Bangladeshi refugee camps in the border town of Cox’s Bazar.

Although the refugees are living in small huts held up by thin strips of bamboo, have to bathe in water pumps, and have a lack of access to jobs, money, education and medicine, they, at the very least, feel safe in their new temporary living situations.

“I asked people multiple times why they came,” Mujahid said, adding that he and the coalition members spoke with over 60 refugees at five different camps.

“They said, ‘Well, they shot us.’ In some cases, the village chair told them to…