Arakan News Agency
KITCHENER — As thousands of Rohingya Muslim migrants linger hopelessly in the Andaman Sea with nowhere to go, Nur Hasim of Kitchener is reminded of painful memories of his own.
Hasim and his family came to the region as Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh in 2007.
He married and raised four children in a refugee camp near the border of Myanmar, the native country he fled. He lived there for 16 years in a state of limbo and has more bad memories than he could recount.
“I could write a book about it,” he said.
Now Hasim is an interpreter with four languages including Rohingya and English under his belt, a daughter going off to university in the fall and four other successful children.
As an advocate for Rohingya rights, Hasim lobbies the government through Canadian Burmese Rohingya Organization, a group he formed in 2008 with other refugees.
“When we learned about what was happening, it made us very uncomfortable,” Hasim said.
The treatment of Rohingya Muslims weaves in and out of the media spotlight, according to Hasim. But the problem has persisted since the Rohingya minority was stripped of citizenship rights in 1982.
Thousands have drowned at sea over the years and thousands more live in squalor in refugee camps scattered at Bangladesh’s southern border with Myanmar.
“It’s the Burmese government’s brutality on our people which compelled them to go and find a safe place,” he said. “It is ethnic cleansing.”
While he understands the fate many of his people face, he doesn’t understand why Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia are pushing back stranded migrant boats instead of helping them.
“I understand these countries may have laws in place but they need to have open hands,” he said. “These people don’t have a leader, they don’t belong anywhere.”
Images of ships crowded with his desperate, dying countrymen and women reminds Hasim of the way animals are treated.
“They are just left to drown at sea,” he added. “Even animals have their rights in the jungle, but these people have no rights.”
Hasim is fed up with these stories. He wants the Canadian government to take in more Rohingya refugees. He wants international governments to put pressure on Myanmar to stop persecuting Rohingya Muslims.
He wants Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia to let dying migrants cross their borders.
But Hasim knows there is only so much he can do. So he continues to advocate for Rohingya rights.
According to the United Nations refugee agency, Canada was the first country to take in small groups of Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh.
There are about 300 Rohingya refugees resettled across the country. Hasim said about 80 of them live in Kitchener in a tight-knit community.
More than 260,000 Rohingya refugees fled to Bangladesh to escape persecution from Myanmar government officials in 1991.
Hasim’s sisters are still in Bangladeshi refugee camps. He has tried several avenues to bring them to Canada, but so far nothing has worked.
He is left to worry about the fates of relatives, friends and countless Rohingya Muslims left behind in camps and floundering in the sea.
Source : therecord
