The Rohingya: Persecuted in Burma, Rejected in Bangladesh
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The Burmese military regime carries out systematic repression and human rights violations against the Rohingya ethnic minority living in Burmas northern Rakhine State. The Rohingya also continue to be denied Burmese citizenship under the 1982 Citizenship Law which renders them stateless. Consequently many Rohingya asylum seekers flee to neighboring Bangladesh where the government, fearing a pull-factor, has become increasingly reluctant to harbor them.
Today Bangladesh hosts approximately 28,000 Rohingya refugees in the two camps of Kutupalong and Nayapara in its southern Cox Bazaar district. These are the Rohingya remaining from a wave of a quarter of a million who fled to Bangladesh in the early 1990s due to brutal persecution by the Burmese authorities. About 230,000 from that group were repatriated to Burma, with reports indicating many involuntary repatriations. The Rohingya currently living in the two camps refuse to go back to Burma citing fear of severe reprisals. There is also a large Rohingya population living outside the camps, estimated to be between 100,000-200,000. It is believed that many among this non-camp population returned to Bangladesh after being repatriated to Burma. The Rohingya who have come to Bangladesh after the large exodus of the early 1990s are denied entry to the camps and are not recognized as refugees by the government. Recent Rohingya arrivals living outside the camps reveal that they continue to flee from Burma because the situation for them has not improved much since the early 1990s. They report coming to Bangladesh to escape arbitrary cases launched against them by local authorities. They also cite an inability to make a living due to severe travel restrictions that prevent them from leaving their villages to access employment, markets, education and medical care. The Rohingya are required to carry out compulsory sentry duty at night, for which no compensation is provided, and have to do forced labor during the day. For Rohingya youth getting married is a huge problem as they first need permission from local authorities. The permission is usually granted after payment of large bribes of 50,000-100,000 Kyats [US$50-100], which are too much for most people to pay, and sometimes after a promise that the married couple will have no more than two children. The ability of the largely Muslim Rohingya to practice their religion is also limited. At present, four UN agencies and seven international NGOs are providing humanitarian assistance to the Rohingya community in Burma. Asylum seekers interviewed in Bangladesh stress that the presence of international humanitarian agencies and their expatriate staff in northern Rakhine State is the chief protection they have against the Burmese authorities and border security force. The Rohingya say that the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in particular plays a pivotal role in their lives and can enhance protection by increasing its expatriate staff presence. [Read the whole report, including Refugees International's recommendations for how the U.S., UN, Bangladesh, and others can help.] |
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