MUSLIMS LIVING AS MINORITIES
Life in Rohingya Refugee Camps An ongoing humanitarian crisis that never seems to end BY ADNAN KHAN, WITH ASSISTED TRANSLATIONS/REPORTING BY KYSAR HAMID [Editor’s Note: Islamic Horizons invited Adnan Khan, a multi-platform journalist, to offer readers a peek into the challenges faced by the Rohingya Muslim refugees. He currently serves as a producer for NowThis News.]
Muhammad Saleem fled his home village in Mrauk-U District with his seven family members. It took them one month and ten days to reach the relief centers in Bangladesh. Oct 2017
M
yanmar’s security forces have inflicted yet another bloodbath on its people, killing 100+ anti-coup protesters since a young woman succumbed to her bullet wounds in the head on Feb. 19. The post-coup [Feb. 1] military junta has detained hundreds of elected officials, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, and declared a year-long state of emergency. This is the same junta that, on Aug. 25, 2017, started a campaign of mass killing, rape and arson on Rakhine state’s Rohingya Muslims, sending 250,000 of them fleeing for their lives to neighboring Bangladesh. Both the UN and several human rights groups have categorized these atrocities as genocide. Human rights groups estimate that 740,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh and other neighboring countries since 2017. “They started spraying us with gunfire; we fled into the trees. When the military was done shooting at us, they took the living women and girls and raped them. When they were finished, they burned the homes with the girls inside them; there were 70 girls in our village,” said Hamida Begum.
At a relief center in Sabrang, Teknaf, Cox’s Bazar, a child stares at a truck that will take them to one of the camps in Cox’s Bazar.
On Aug. 30, 2017, the military attacked Hamida Begum’s village of Tulatuli in Rakhine state and forced her, her elderly mother, ailing husband and their five children to flee their farm. Hamida says that when she saw her home burning she lost her memory, “I did not know which way was east or west.” Joining a caravan of other displaced Rohingya villagers, it took the family 15 days to reach Bangladesh — eventually entering through Kanjurpara, a border point with Teknaf.
Survivors reported that the military had targeted their villages, burned down their homes, mercilessly killed thousands and tortured and raped hundreds of women and young girls. Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Boarders; msf.org) reports that since 2016, the military has killed 6,700+ Rohingya, including at least 730 children under five. The junta claims that its military “clearance operations” were in retaliation for attacks on Rakhine police posts and army
SALEEM SAYS THE UNLIKE THE MUSLIM ROHINGYA, THE HINDU AND BUDDHIST ROHINGYA HAVE NATIONAL IDENTIFICATION CARDS. IN 1982, THE BUDDHISTMAJORITY GOVERNMENT OF BURMA — THE MILITARY GOVERNMENT RENAMED THE COUNTRY IN 1989 TO REFLECT ITS NAME IN BURMESE: “MYANMA” — ENACTED THE BURMA CITIZENSHIP LAW, WHICH DENIED MUSLIM ROHINGYA CITIZENSHIP BECAUSE THE GOVERNMENT DOESN’T RECOGNIZE THEM AS ONE OF ITS NATIONAL RACES. MAY/JUNE 2021 ISLAMIC HORIZONS 35
