A special correspondent SOURCE : BDNEWS24.COM
Cox’s Bazar (bdnews24.com) — Sanowara and her husband waited three hours with their five kids for a chance to dodge border guards, and as night grew, began their journey.
After hours of arduous journey, on foot and by boat, they successfully reached the Bangladesh border in the early hours, and headed for the place they had been dreaming about, Kutupalong, in Cox’s Bazar.
But the 30-year-old Sanowara and her husband soon found their hope for a better life shattered amid pervasive poverty at a makeshift camp at Kutupalong, which houses many Rohingyas like Sanowara and her family, persecuted as a Muslim minority in their own country, Myanmar.
They live as undocumented Rohingyas outside the official Kutupalong UNHCR camp that is home to nearly 10,000 documented refugees who receive shelter, food and other rations.
“Life is very difficult,” Sanowara said, standing in front of her thatched hut with her one-year-old boy in her lap. “We came here to survive, but this is hard going,” she said.
She is one of some 2,500 Rohingya Muslims who seven months ago fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar’s northwestern Rakhine state, where the military government does not recognise them as one of the country’s 130-odd ethnic minorities. Rohingyas are forbidden from marrying or travelling without permission and have no legal right to own land.
Sanowara also claims that they had faced continuous violence from the Buddhist majority population in her country, and with their lands were taken away, she along with some 125 families were prompted to leave their ancestral homes and flee to Bangladesh – the latest influx from Myanmar of decades-old trouble.
ESCAPE
Thousands of the persecuted minority originally fled to Bangladesh to escape a 1978 military census of the Rohingyas called “Operation Dragon.” The stateless Muslim ethnic group numbers about 800,000 in Myanmar.
Some 250,000 fled to Bangladesh following a crackdown by the Myanmar junta in the early 1990s. Bangladesh and Myanmar, with the help of the UNHCR, repatriated most of the them in successive years.
But around 14,000 refused to return to their homestead fearing persecution or starvation there. That number has grown and Bangladesh now recognises about 25,000 Rohingyas as refugees who live in two official camps – Kutupalong and Naya Para – in Cox’s Bazar close to the Myanmar border.
But Bangladesh authorities say that most of the previously-repatriated Rohingya Muslims have also crossed back into Bangladesh.
They estimate around 200,000 to 400,000 undocumented Rohingya Muslims currently live in Bangladesh. They speak in a Bengali dialect, which is similar to a Myanmar language spoken across the border.
Bangladesh does not recognise them as refugees by international standards, fearing further influx.
Sanowara is one of those unfortunates undocumented and unrecognised by Bangladesh.
INTERNATIONAL FOCUS
Their plight gained international attention last year after boats carrying hundreds of such Rohingyas were intercepted by the navy of Thailand. Thailand allegedly detained and beat them before forcing them back to sea in vessels with no engines and little food or water.
The issue came again under international focus in recent weeks after the Physicians for Human Rights, based in Massachusetts, accused Bangladesh of “arbitrary arrests, illegal expulsion, and forced internment” of Rohingyas.
Geneva-based Medecins Sans Frontieres also alleged last month that a violent crackdown is on by Bangladesh against Rohingya.
But the allegations did not go unchallenged by Bangladesh. The foreign minister earlier this month said international reports of alleged rights abuses of undocumented Myanmar nationals living in Bangladesh were “baseless and malicious”.
Bangladesh has also requested the UN refugee agency to resume the repatriation process of “all Myanmar refugees in the soonest possible time”, rejecting all options for their rehabilitation in Bangladesh.
STARK CONTRAST
A walk through the official Kutupalong camp and the illegally built shanty camps adjacent to it show a stark contrast.
The official camp has everything: primary schools, a computer learning centre funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, health care centres, adult literacy centres, supplementary food centers for children and pregnant women.
The camp residents have a chance to get English language training by British Council, they have technical skill development centers for learning how to assemble bicycle, repair cell phones or other electrical appliances and cultivate mushroom. Many of the young men and women own mobile phones.
The camp has solar power, some facilities have generators. They have playgrounds, properly marked – a dream for common Bangladeshi villagers in any part of the country.
On the other hand, malnourished, barefoot children run around the illegally-built camps.
THE TALE GOES ON
In Cox’s Bazar, undocumented Rohingya Muslims are now depending on the forests near their makeshift shanties since, some say, they are afraid of arrests outside the area.
Still, many of them work as day labourers outside the official camps, but locals and authorities have alleged that many of them are also engaged in crimes such as robbery and mugging across the coastal region, especially during the tourism season that lasts October-April.
Thirty-eight-year-old Mohammad Hossain, a father of six children, said he came to Bangladesh about 18 years ago, but he did not want to register with local authorities as a refugee, fearing repatriation to Myanmar.
In the face of repression by his Buddhist neighbours, he said he fled to Bangladesh, considering it a nation of Muslims where he would not be discriminated against for his religion.
Hossain, who now catches fish in the Bay of Bengal and a part time rickshaw puller, said he wanted to live independently outside the official camps “like a local citizen”. He said he was never arrested by police during his long stay in Bangladesh.
He moved near to Kutupalong camp in 2007 with a hope to get rations to which the documented refugees are entitled. “I am getting older. But now they did not enlist me,” he said.
Hossain said he does not want to go back to Myanmar, but wants a chance to go to a third country like the United States, Canada or Australia, as some 800 registered Rohingya refugees have already settled this way through the UNHCR and the International Organisation for Migration.
“DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD”
M. Sakhawat Hossain, Superintendent of Police in Cox’s Bazar, has strongly denied any “crackdown” as described by some international groups.
He said currently 136 “undocumented Rohingyas” are in custody on charges of illegally entering Bangladesh or accused of crime. He said the detainees have full access to seek legal aid.
He said police began a drive as resistance from surrounding villagers was growing in the region, putting pressure on the administration to act.
Sakhawat said suddenly crime rates increased in the coastal town in recent months, and allegations have it that many undocumented Rohingyas are involved along with local suspects.
“We had to act,” he said. “Cox’s Bazar should get a special attention for its uniqueness as a main tourist destination.”
Gias Uddin Ahmed, Deputy Commissioner of Cox’s Bazar, said the issue has become a “double-edged sword” for Bangladesh.
He said if Bangladesh shows too much flexibility a huge influx may occur, while being harsh creates concern among international community.
“This is a sensitive issue. But you have to understand the situation,” he said. “We are a poor country.”
He alleged that the word is spreading that Rohingyas will be able to go to America or other European countries if they come to Bangladesh, and there is a growing concern over shrinking economic scope for Rohingyas in Myanmar that may encourage them to move to Bangladesh in larger groups.
“Can you imagine, how dangerous could it be?”
Then what is the solution?
“Repatriation in full is the best solution, I think,” Gias Uddin insisted. “We cannot bear the burden for long.”
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