No Direction Home
An ethnic group caught between Bangladesh and Burma, the Rohingya still aren’t able to make themselves at home in either
01 September, 2010
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"text": "In February, the French NGO, Médecins Sans Frontièrs, protested the Bangladeshi crackdown on Rohingya refugees. Within a few weeks, hundreds had been arrested and forced back to Burma or detained indefinitely. Fearing arrest, thousands are now crowding in makeshift camps on the Bangladeshi side of the border, where they lack decent sanitation and ways of earning a living. US-based Physicians for Human Rights warns of acute malnutrition in the Kutupalong makeshift camp, and monsoon rains threaten to disintegrate the little shelter they have.",
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"text": "Along the Naf River is where many Rohingya pass between Burma and Bangladesh. Since a boat filled with Rohingya refugees turned up in Thai waters in 2009 and became international news, the Burmese junta has erected a fence along the Naf’s riverbank. In combination with the Bangladeshi crackdown, far fewer Rohingya attempt to cross the border there. While inside Burma, all they have are the promises made to them by candidates in the upcoming Burmese election.",
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"text": "Nasima Begum had lived in Bangladesh for a year when she, her husband, their five-year-old son and her sister’s family were arrested and forced back to Burma. During the journey back through the jungle to Bangladesh, her son died. Six months ago, both her sister and husband disappeared after leaving the Kutupalong camp for the village to find work.",
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"text": "The river Naf between Burma and Bangladesh can also be seen as the border between an Islamic and Buddhist Asia. The Rohingya, caught between the two worlds, continue to flee, or to be pushed, from one riverbank to the other.",
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"text": "The Rohingya’s future is uncertain. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is inactive, international NGOs have grown silent. Bangladesh, with China acting as a mediator, is trying to force Burma to take the Rohingya back. Meanwhile, the minority Muslims carry on with their lives—unwanted, illegal and homeless everywhere they go.",
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"text": "The Rohingya’s future is uncertain. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is inactive, international NGOs have grown silent. Bangladesh, with China acting as a mediator, is trying to force Burma to take the Rohingya back. Meanwhile, the minority Muslims carry on with their lives—unwanted, illegal and homeless everywhere they go.",
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"text": "Being the poorest part of Bangladesh does not make it easy to absorb additional inhabitants. Jasmine Shazeda and her mother, Ayesha Begum, are two of the nearby villagers who have felt the impact of the Rohingya influx. Wage labour salaries have decreased and rumour has it that the newcomers receive large amounts of aid from foreign NGOs. In reality, the Bangladeshi government has made it difficult for NGOs to reach the Rohingya, even if aid groups promise to extend their services to the local population.",
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"text": "Noor Nahar escaped to Bangladesh with her husband nine years ago. Unable to find a job, he found himself a seat on a refugee boat to Malaysia. Since then, Noor has not heard from her husband, and she tries to take care of their six children on her own.",
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"text": "The fear of leaving Kutupalong has strained the refugees’ livelihoods. Many families survive by collecting firewood—which in turn, has put pressure on the local ecology, along with local villagers’ patience. Thirteen-year-old Shazeda Begum is one of many Rohingya affected by Bangladeshi neighbours turned violent. On one trip to collect firewood, she was raped by two local boys.",
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} The Rohingya are a people without a country. Over the past two centuries in Rakhine, a Burmese state bordering Bangladesh, the local Muslims have developed a unique culture, drawing on both their Burmese and Bengali heritage. They view themselves as a distinct Burmese minority, but in the eyes of the Burmese military junta, they are merely illegal Bengali immigrants. Many flee the oppression, but cannot escape the label, and illegal immigrants are exactly what they become when they arrive in Bangladesh.
The British brought in Indian workers during their rule in Burma. After Burmese independence from Britain in 1948, discrimination continued against Muslims and people of Indian descent. The Rohingya’s post-independence demands for an independent state, or at least accession to East Pakistan, made them a target for further discrimination. Under current dictator Than Shwe, the Rohingya need permission to marry, to travel outside their villages or to repair their houses. The army uses them for hard labour, and extorts and punishes them severely and arbitrarily.
On two occasions since independence, the Rohingya have fled the junta’s persecution en masse: in 1978, 200,000 escaped after the state cracked down on what they viewed as illegal immigrants, and after the regime’s sham election in 1991, 250,000 Rohingya crossed into Bangladesh. Most of these refugees were repatriated, many of them forcefully. After returning to Burma and finding their land confiscated, the majority of them eventually trickled back into Bangladesh. In many cases, assimilation into local communities has worked well, but Bangladeshi authorities are unwilling to let this happen on a large scale. This past year, the message from the Bangladeshi government has been clear: Rohingya are not welcome.
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