Myanmar | Actor Matt Dillon puts rare celebrity spotlight on Rohingya

American actor Matt Dillon poses with Rohingiya children at a camp for refugees, north of Sittwe in the western state of Rakhine

American actor Matt Dillon put a rare star-powered spotlight on Myanmar’s long-persecuted Rohingya Muslims, visiting a hot, squalid camp for tens of thousands displaced by violence and a port that has been one of the main launching pads for their exodus by sea.
It was “heartbreaking,” he said after meeting a young man with a raw, open leg wound from a road accident and no means to treat it.
Mothers carrying babies with clear signs of malnutrition stood listlessly outside row after row of identical bamboo huts, toddlers playing nearby in the chalky white dust.
“No one should have to live like this, people are really suffering,” said Dillon, one of the first celebrities to get a first-hand look at what life is like for Rohingya in the western state of Rakhine. “They are being strangled slowly, they have no hope for the future and nowhere to go.”
As they become increasingly marginalized, several groups are warning that the building blocks of genocide are in place.
“I know that’s a very touchy word to use,” said Dillon, wearing his trademark black T-shirt and jeans. “But there’s a very ominous feeling here.”
“I’ve been to some places where the threats of violence seemed more imminent,” said Dillon, who has also visited refugee camps in Sudan, the Congo and elsewhere. “Here it’s something else. It feels more like people are going to be left to wither away and die.”
Dillon said he decided to come to Myanmar following a desperate, urgent appeal by Rohingya activist Thun Khin at a Refugees International fundraiser in Washington, just over a month ago. In Japan to promote his new television series, “Wayward Pines,” he decided it was a good time to make the trip.
“There are people working here, people who know a hell of a lot more about it than I do,” Dillon said after hearing grumbling from some aid workers about what he hoped to achieve. “But listen, if I can use my voice to draw attention to something, where I see people suffering, I’ll do that any day of the week. I’m happy to do that.” Robin McDowell, Sittwe, AP