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| Image credit: Money Sharma/AFP |
Amidst crackdown in faraway Myanmar, Rohingya refugees in
Delhi camp worry about relatives back home
Refugees
narrate stories of the horror in their homeland gleaned from telephone
conversations with relatives in Rakhine.
It does not take much time for news from Rakhine in
Myanmar’s western coast to reach a camp for Rohingya refugees at Kalindi Kunj,
a locality in the South East periphery of New Delhi, adjoining the Yamuna
river.
“I have not heard from my family members for the past 10
days,” said Abdul Kareem, a Rohingya refugee who migrated to India in 2009.
“The last time we spoke over the phone, my brother told me that some military
men have removed the fence of our house. Now since they have not called up or
taken my call for so long, I fear that something is wrong.”
Over the past few weeks, Burmese security forces have
launched an offensive in Rakhine state, which is dominated by the Rohingya – a
minority, Bengali dialect-speaking, ethnic Muslim group in the predominantly
Buddhist nation who have been persecuted for decades. Though the military says
the action started after security forces in the area were attacked in October
and is directed at insurgents, it has been accused of indiscriminately
targeting ordinary Rohingya. Thousands of Rohingya have fled the country since
the offensive started. The crackdown has drawn international condemnation. A
senior United Nations official was quoted in the media as saying that Myanmar
was carrying out “ethnic cleansing” of Rohingya Muslims while Malayasian Prime
Minister Najib Razak has referred to the action as “genocide”.
Watch V-clip: https://youtu.be/fKiQYSOX6g4
Worried about home
Abdul Kareem is a Rohingya
Muslim in the Kalindi Kunj camp who migrated to Bangladesh from Myanmar three
times. He said that the Bangladesh government deported him twice. Kareem
finally made his way to India with his wife and children and settled first at a
camp in Jammu. In Delhi, he initially worked as a driver for an ambulance operated
by the United Nations Human Rights Council, and now runs a makeshift shop
outside the refugee camp.
Recalling news from home that
he received last month from a relative, Kareem narrated how the Rohingya were
unwanted both in Myanmar and neighbouring Bangladesh.
“Some houses in a village were
set on fire by the military,” he said. “Around four to five inhabitants of
those houses later managed to cross the border and reach Bangladesh. They were
caught there and asked to go back immediately. When they were crossing the
river to return to Myanmar, they were shot dead by the military.”
In the neighbouring house,
Abdullah, the youngest of seven brothers of which four still live in Myanmar’s
Rakhine, is worried about his older brother back home. He said that Army
personnel had called his brother on Monday, and asked him to report to the
nearest Army camp at the earliest. “We spoke on Monday evening,” he said. “I
asked my brother to go there with his wife, who is a Burmese by ethnicity, for
his safety. I am expecting his call soon.”
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| Abdullah with his son. (Photo credit: Abhishek Dey). |
Abdullah left Myanmar for
Bangladesh in 2012, and moved to India that same year. He works as a security
guard at a Delhi University college. He said that he is paid in daily wages,
and does not get a regular salary, as other than a refugee card, he does not
have any document that will enable him to enter into a contract with an
employer.
“On Monday, my brother informed
me about how 10 boys in the village were picked up by Army personnel and
thrashed mercilessly,” he said. “A cattle shed in the village was also put on
fire and the cattle have now gone missing.”
Set up by a non-governmental
organisation in 2012, the Rohingya camp in Kalindi Kunj is home to around 48
families. Several Rohingya refugees in the city also live in areas like Vikas
Nagar in North Delhi and Khajoori Khas in the North East of the national
capital. However since there are no such camps in those areas, they have to
rent rooms.
A persecuted group
“It is good that leaders
worldwide are taking up the issue,” said Ali Johar, a young refugee who
enrolled himself for a Bachelor’s degree via correspondence at the University
of Delhi earlier this year. “Even if they [the leaders] have vested political
interests, it does not matter. Such statements will ultimately put pressure on
the Myanmar government to stop what they are doing to us.”
Ali was referring to a
statement made on Sunday by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak at a protest
rally by thousands of Rohingya in Kuala Lumpur. Razak called for foreign
intervention to stop what he called the “genocide” of Rohingya Muslims in
Myanmar.
Ali, who lives with his parents
at the Kalindi Kunj camp, said he got to know about the political developments
regarding the Rohingya issue through social media, and from friends whose
families have fled to other countries like Malaysia, Thailand and Bangladesh.
Ali finished his schooling from Bangladesh, and came to India in 2012. He and
his family first lived in Haryana before moving to Delhi.
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| Children pose at the entrance of the Kalindi Kunj camp. (Photo credit: Abhishek Dey). |
“Unless the international
community takes up the issue, there is nothing much the world can know about
what is going on at Rakhine,” he said. “No media or aid worker can go to the
restricted zone. That is why news of crime – including arson, rape and murder –
committed by the military there does not come to light. How can they ever be
held accountable for such atrocities?”
He added: “The victims are not
only the Rohingyas, who belong to the Indo-Aryan race, but also several other
groups – in the Chin state, Karen state, Kachin state and even the Mogs in
Rakhine – who are racially the same but ethnically different from the Burmese.
The Rohingyas are probably the weakest, so they ended up as the worst victims
of persecution.”
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One of the oldest members in
the camp (Photo credit: Abhishek Dey).
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