A Rohingya refugee leads by swimming on the sea as others arrive near a shore on a makeshift boat after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, at Shah Porir Dwip near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh November 9, 2017. REUTERS/Navesh Chitrakar
COX'S BAZAR/YANGON, November 9 (Reuters) - Blessed by calmer seas, several hundred more Rohingya Muslims on Thursday joined a multitude of refugees in Bangladesh, as calls grew for upcoming regional summits to exert more pressure on Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi to stem the crisis.
A Myanmar military operation has driven out more than 600,000 Rohingya since late August and the latest refugees to find sanctuary in predominantly Muslim Bangladesh say many thousands more are still trying to leave.
Ariful Islam, of Bangladesh's Border Guard, said about 200 people arrived on Thursday morning on the stretch of coast he commands at Teknaf, on the southern tip of Cox's Bazar district.
Abdus Sabir was among a group that came ashore at Shamlapur after a six-hour boat journey, the final leg of an escape begun weeks ago.
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Rohingya refugees walk on the shore as they arrive on a makeshift boat after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, at Shah Porir Dwip near Cox's Bazar November 9, 2017. REUTERS/Navesh Chitrakar[/caption]
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A boat used by the Rohingya refugees who arrived early in the morning after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, lies on the shore at Shah Porir Dwip near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh November 9, 2017. REUTERS/Navesh Chitrakar[/caption]
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Clothes belonging to Rohingya refugees are left to dry on an abandoned boat after they arrived at Shah Porir Dwip near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh November 9, 2017. REUTERS/Navesh Chitrakar[/caption]
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Newly arrived Rohingya refugee children eat bread as they wait to get transported to a refugee camp after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, at Teknaf near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh November 9, 20017. November 9, 2017. REUTERS/Navesh Chitrakar[/caption]
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Rohingya refugees wait at the shore after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border on a makeshift boat as Border Guard Bangladesh verify and count their number, at Shah Porir Dwip near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh November 9, 2017. REUTERS/Navesh Chitrakar[/caption]
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Rohingya refugees sit on a makeshift boat as they wait permission from Border Guard Bangladesh to continue after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, at Shah Porir Dwip near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh November 9, 2017. REUTERS/Navesh Chitrakar TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY[/caption]
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A group of Rohingya refugees, who fled from Myanmar by boat last night, walks towards a makeshift camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, November 9, 2017. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain[/caption]
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Rohingya refugees who arrived in Bangladesh last night by boat, drink water in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, November 9, 2017. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain[/caption]
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A group of Rohingya refugees who came last night by boat, sit on the roadside with their children while detained by Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, November 9, 2017. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain[/caption]
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Rohingya refugees who arrived in Bangladesh last night by boat, drink water in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, November 9, 2017. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain[/caption]
"We fled because the military is still burning our houses," Abdus, who had abandoned his home in the Rathedaung region of Myanmar's Rakhine State, told Reuters.
Nearby, Husain Shorif, from the Buthidaung region, said he had rowed for four hours to help bring across 56 people on a raft cobbled together from bamboo and plastic jerrycans.
"Some boatmen were asking for huge money we didn't have. So we made our own boat and came," Shorif said, adding that thousands more Rohingya were still stranded at Pa Nyaung Pin Gyi at the mouth of the Naf river.
Reuters were unable to verify that claim as Myanmar's military has restricted access to northern parts of Rakhine, where it launched a clearance operation it says was aimed at Rohingya militants behind attacks on 30 security posts on Aug. 25, but which UN officials described as "ethnic cleansing".
The storm of opprobrium over the humanitarian crisis will expose Myanmar to more diplomatic pressure, at least from leaders of Muslim-majority countries and the United States, during three summits hosted by Vietnam and the Philippines.
Suu Kyi, the de facto leader of Myanmar's less than two-year-old civilian administration, left on Thursday to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in the Vietnam's central seaside resort of Danang.
Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for standing up to the generals who had ruled the country for nearly half a century, Suu Kyi now effectively shares power with them, under a constitution drawn up in 2008 when junta was still in control, and has little control over what they do.
After Friday's APEC summit, Suu Kyi will attend a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) grouping in Manila on Sunday, followed by an East Asia Summit in Angeles, just north of the Philippine capital.
Setting up a regional trade block, and concerns over North Korea's ambitions to become a nuclear-armed state are summit priorities, but New York-based Human Rights Watch beseeched them to ensure stronger action by Myanmar to end the crisis.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will meet Suu Kyi on Nov. 15 for talks on the Rohingya crisis, and they are expected to hold a joint news conference.
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"World leaders shouldn’t return home from these summits without agreeing to targeted sanctions to pressure Burma to end its abuses and allow in independent observers and aid groups," Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement that referred to Myanmar by its old name.
Adams said the leaders should discuss how to investigate alleged rights abuses and atrocities in Rakhine, and refer them to the International Criminal Court in the Hague.
The rights group also urged the Security Council to impose an arms embargo, economic sanctions and travel bans targeting Myanmar military officials.
U.S. senators seek to adopt measures for the United States to impose such sanctions.
The Security Council this week opted for a strongly worded statement scolding Myanmar, as diplomats said China and Russia would have vetoed any resolution.
China has publicly supported the Myanmar government's efforts to "maintain stability" in Rakhine. The stance taken by China and other Southeast Asian governments fighting insurgencies by Muslim militants should spare Myanmar from any harsh spotlight in the summits' final communiques.
"On the Rohingya, the leaders will agree that there is no quick fix to the long-standing inter-communal problem with deep historical roots that needs to be carefully managed," an ASEAN diplomat told Reuters, adding that the group aimed to deliver $500,000 of relief supplies to Myanmar.
