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Less than one kilometer from the largest refugee settlements in southeastern Bangladesh, 101 Rohingya Hindu families are waiting to be saved from their "minority" status in the largest minority community. persecuted in the world – the Muslim Rohingyas. 19659002] Rohingya Hindu families – nearly 410 people, most of them children – live in a "Hindu camp" just outside Camp 1, the first of the 27 refugee camps that make up the Kutupalong camps -Balukhali.
More than 1.1 million Rohingya Muslims live here after being forced to flee Myanmar following Myanmar's brutal campaign of violence that began on August 26, 2017.
Visibly Different
The Hindu camp stands out from the rest
This is the only camp where the police are present 24 hours a day. Women, wearing saris and colorful bracelets and wearing a vermilion sindoor are visibly different. The camp is built around a small bamboo temple and tarpaulin to Lord Krishna and his wife Radha. The families were isolated from the main camp as a measure of "excessive caution," said Mohammad Reza, head of the oldest refugee camps that emerged after the first wave of violence against the Rohingya in 1991-92. 19659002] "The Bangladeshi government decided to place them outside the main camp because, inside the camps, if something went wrong, we would not be able to provide them with security. ", explained Mr. Reza
. Tensions between Rohingya Muslims and Buddhists in Rakhine State in Myanmar have existed for decades. The point of inflection came in 1982, when Myanmar pbaded the controversial law on Burmese citizenship. He has stripped eight ethnicities of citizenship. Although the Rohingyas were not part of it, almost overnight, the community lost its freedom and was violently persecuted for decades.
In the 1991 violence, only six affected families were Hindu, among the 30,000 Rohingya Muslims refugee camps. "These families have been integrated into the Rohingya Muslim community, they continue to have good relations, but we do not want to take risks with refugees who have arrived since August 2017," Reza said. the world is fighting for resources – land, food and shelter – tensions can intensify.
The & # 39; majhi & # 39; or camp leader for Hindu Rohingya families is 32-year-old Shishu Sheel, who was forced to flee his home in Maungtaw District in Rakhine on August 28 last year. "When neighboring Hindu villages were attacked, my wife, my two children and I decided to leave before the army attacked our village and my parents stayed," says Sheel. His entire village, Chikanchari, decided to evacuate after Myanmar army-led mine clearance operations in the nearby Hindu village of Fakirabazaar, where 86 people were reportedly killed.
The Hindu camp has families belonging to the sub-sects Pal and Sheel, most of them third-generation citizens of Myanmar.The Myanmar government gave them national verification cards (NVC), which gives their "race" as "Indian." "My grandfather moved to Burma and our family has been living there ever since. But we are considered "guests of India" [in Myanmar] and do not have citizenship status, said Sheel
Officials from the Department of External Affairs of Dhaka and Yangon confirmed that their missions were in contact with the group of 101 Hindu families and had recorded their details, but denied that the identity cards, which gave their "race" as "Indian", meant that they were Indian citizens. When asked if India would be asked to accept the families, a senior official said: "It is understood that in Myanmar, people who do not are not from that country [Myanmar] are identified by their ethnic or national origin. This certainly does not mean that these people [the Hindu Rohingyas] will be deported to India.
Indian officials maintain that the refugees they met were eager to return to Myanmar and that this was pbaded on to the Myanmar government. "The Myanmar Government has authorized its speedy repatriation to Myanmar and has sent the necessary documents to the Government of Bangladesh and we are told that they [Bangladesh] have not yet moved to facilitate repatriation," said the official, who did not want to be identified In December 2017, Myat Aye, Myanmar's Minister of Social Affairs, Relief and Resettlement, visited the families, promising that refugees would be allowed to cross the border into Myanmar January 22, the first step in the repatriation process This did not happen
However, UN humanitarian workers disputed the claim that Rohingya Hindu refugees were willing to return to Myanmar, given the conditions that prevail. "Indian diplomats may have met with the leaders of the group and had this impression, but most refugees are too afraid to return to Rakhine, "said a refugee coordinator.
million. Sheel says that no one can guarantee their safety when they return to Myanmar, so they want to go to India. " Khushi se " (thankfully). "We want to go to India, if the Indian government is going to pick us up, we've been saying it many times and we've never heard about it from the Indian government," says Sheel. 19659004] Meanwhile, with restrictions of movement and limited integration into the camps, refugee Hindu families are aware of repatriation – long-term settlement – that is the goal. aptly that they are the least sought after among the most undesirable people in the world.
( Entries of Suhasini Haider )
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