Rohingya in Bangladesh Mistreated, Says Rights Group
Rohingya refugees from western Burma’s Arakan State living in neighboring Bangladesh face abuse and the denial of essential humanitarian assistance, leading many to seek refuge in neighboring countries, a human rights group said in a statement issued on Tuesday.
“The Bangladeshi government is ignoring its obligations to protect Rohingya refugees and permit international relief agencies to assist with the humanitarian needs of Rohingya refugees,” Brad Adams, Asia director for New York-based Human Rights Watch, said in the statement.
HRW also cites abuses by Bangladeshi law enforcement officers, including reports of sexual violence against women and corruption within the two official refugee camps of Nayapara and Kutupalong, where residents are denied permanent housing and access to international aid, education and employment are severely limited.
“The Bangladeshi government should be helping needy refugees instead of making life difficult for them,” said Adams. “It should work with international humanitarian agencies to create safe spaces and basic services for people fleeing persecution in Burma. This is just basic decency.”
Conditions in Bangladesh have led an increasing number of Rohingya to make the difficult and dangerous journey to other countries in the region, including Thailand and Malaysia.
According to the statement, more than 2,000 Rohingyas from Bangladesh and Burma have landed in southern Thailand by way of nearly 40 dilapidated fishing vessels, many of them reportedly destined for Malaysia.
Thai authorities have sent many of them north to Tak Province, where they suffer similar abuse or face deportment to Burma. More than 100 Rohingyas were forcibly repatriated to Burma in March to an area controlled by the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army—a pro-junta armed ethnic group that broke away from the Karen National Union in 1995.
Repatriation under these conditions, the statement says, violates the 1951 Refugees Convention and its prohibition against “refoulement,” or the return of refugees to a territory where they are likely to be persecuted and which constitutes a threat to their lives or freedom.
Malaysia currently has an estimated 10,000 Rohingya refugees registered with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, while thousands live as unregistered migrant workers. Illegal immigration to Malaysia, the statement notes, is increasingly facilitated by organized criminal networks.
The number of Rohingyas in Bangladesh is much higher. An estimated 26,000 live in Nayapara and Kutupalong camps in Cox’s Bazaar, with nearly 100,000 more living illegally near the border with Burma.
More than a quarter million Rohingyas fled Burma in 1992 in the face of a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Arakan State by the Burmese military. Since then, thousands have been detained in temporary camps in Bangladesh, while tens of thousands more have been sent back to Burma.
Irrawaddy News, 28 March 2007, Shah Paung
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