Arakan News Agency
For Dil Mohammad and his family, a cramped refugee camp on the edge of southeastern Bangladesh has become a reluctant home for almost a quarter-century.
The 61-year-old Muslim Rohingya refugee brought his family here 23 years ago from neighboring Myanmar, fleeing persecution and discrimination at the hands of the majority Buddhist population of Myanmar’s Rakhine state.
Conditions in the two camps at Nayapara and Kutupalong, in Cox’s Bazar district, are often squalid, packed with more than 30,000 registered Rohingya. Their lives have become largely dependent on aid from the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the Bangladesh government.
Compared to the strife in his homeland, however, life has been relatively peaceful. Back in Myanmar, Mohammad says the government exploited members of the Rohingya community, forcing many like him to work in the fields or carry stones from quarrying sites without pay. He says he was physically beaten two or three times. When Rakhine mobs burned down homes in his village for a third time, he decided it was time to leave.
Now, Mohammad and other refugees are wondering if their lives will again be thrown into chaos. Fears have been spreading since November last year, when Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina announced that the government was planning to relocate Rohingya refugees to a “better place” — though details of any relocation plan have been scant.
“We have left everything in Rakhine and have gathered life here bit by bit over the years,” Mohammad told ucanews.com during a recent visit to the camp. “We fear that we might lose what we have if we are relocated and start everything all over again.”
With no official announcement of the relocation plans, refugees can only resort to rumors to predict their futures. One has it that the refugees will be relocated to separate districts in southern and central Bangladesh that are said to be prone to disasters.
Mohammad worries that life will become even more difficult for him and his family than it is now. However, he knows he is in no position to make demands.
“Being in a foreign land, we must accept what is in our fate,” he said.
Life is even more uncertain for non-registered Rohingya living in Bangladesh; they are, in the eyes of the government, illegal.
The UNHCR estimates that there are at least 10 times more unregistered Rohingya in Bangladesh — more than 300,000 people.
Some 15,000 of the undocumented Rohingya live in an informal settlement just beside Nayapara camp, including Harez Mohammad Tayub, who left Rakhine state eight years ago.
For Tayub, 32, it is the registered refugees who are the lucky ones.
“Registered refugees have good housing, food, security, and are able to fulfill basic human needs,” he said. “We have heard they will be moved to an even better place. They are lucky people. We are not.”
Bangladesh government officials declined to talk about the relocation plan when approached by ucanews.com. Farid Ahmed Bhuiyan, commissioner of the Rohingya Refugee Repatriation Committee under the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief, said the relocation plan includes registered refugees only and is still at a preliminary stage.
The country office of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) also declined to comment on the issue.
Persecution
Often described by human rights groups as one of the most persecuted peoples in the world, Rohingya refugees have effectively been rendered stateless. Though many have lived for generations in Myanmar, they are commonly viewed as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. The government frequently refuses to recognize Rohingya citizenship or even use the term when referring to Rohingya.
Rohingya have felt the brunt of a recent uptick in clashes between Buddhist and Muslim civilians, which has sent a new wave of refugees fleeing, by boat to other countries in Southeast Asia, or across the border to Bangladesh.
Going home
Rights groups say that any government relocation plan that excludes unregistered refugees will fail.
“Over the years, it’s become abundantly clear in Bangladesh’s interactions with this group that Dhaka wants to get rid of them but doesn’t know how to make that happen,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at New York-based Human Rights Watch.
“Many of these unregistered Rohingya live in the so-called ‘makeshift’ camp right next door to the official camps that the Bangladesh government wants to move. So then what happens to that still unrecognized group? Without a solution also for the unrecognized group, none of this will work.”
Robertson stressed that any attempt to relocate Rohingya, registered or not, must be done voluntarily.
Source : ucanews
