Bangladesh: Rohingya refugees commemorate the "genocide" of their people by Burma
Rohingya protest at a refugee camp near Cox's Bazar on November 15, 2018 (Illustration).
AP - Dar Yasin
Text by: RFI Follow
3 mins
Five years ago, some 750,000 Rohingyas, a stateless and persecuted Muslim minority in Burma, took refuge in Bangladesh to flee abuses by the Burmese army.
Several thousand of them demonstrated this Thursday, August 25 to mark five years of repression.
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Several thousand
Rohingyas
, refugees in makeshift camps in southeastern Bangladesh, demonstrated this Thursday, August 25 to mark the fifth anniversary of the massacres of their people in Burma, which they describe as "
genocide
".
With banners and slogans, this mostly Muslim community gathered in the maze of Cox's Bazar, the largest refugee camp in the world.
Many took the opportunity to demand the repeal of a Burmese law of 1982, which deprived them of their citizenship in their country of origin, which is predominantly Buddhist.
These thousands of Rohingyas, mostly dressed in the traditional Burmese longyi (sarong) and shirt, lined up peacefully for this "
Genocide Remembrance Day
".
One million refugees
Five years after the repression suffered in Burma, nearly a million Rohingya refugees still live crammed into these unsanitary camps, in Cox's Bazar and on the island of Bahsan Char.
Floods, insecurity, presence of gangs, the living conditions are deplorable, while the return of the Rohingyas to Arakan in Burma is more than compromised, especially since the coup d'etat of the Burmese junta which plunged the country into the chaos.
Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, November 1, 2017 (Illustrative image).
AP - Bernat Armangue
In Bangladesh “
the confinement situation is really appalling
”, reports Alexandra de Mersan, anthropologist, researcher and teacher at INALCO.
“
People in the camps are prohibited from working.
They are subject to extremely important restrictions of freedom.
It is important that international bodies can really care about the fate of these populations there in the refugee camps
, ”she also believes, at the microphone of
Jelena Tomic
of RFI.
Many Rohingyas continue to flee to Malaysia in particular, one of the neighboring countries.
“
The Rohingyas who were in Arakan also experienced a form of imprisonment, but it is confinement at the level of their region, whereas there they live in conditions of promiscuity, precariousness and psychological and psychological violence, and violent short.
It's an extremely hard daily life
, ”says Alexandra de Mersan.
Deterioration of living conditions in Burma
The approximately 600,000 Rohingyas who have remained in Burma live, for their part, in equally difficult conditions.
They are housed in camps after being displaced in previous waves of violence or live a precarious existence at the mercy of the military and border guards.
Most of them are denied citizenship and are subject to restrictions on movement, access to health care and education, treatment which, according to the NGO Human Rights Watch, amounts to to "
apartheid
".
The military's return to power last year has further dampened hopes of a path to citizenship or even an easing of current restrictions.
The junta's crackdown on dissent has "
exacerbated the deterioration of the humanitarian situation, particularly for minority ethnic and religious communities, including the Rohingya
", US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday.
This group "
remains among the most vulnerable and marginalized populations in the country
", he added.
Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing, who led the armed forces during the 2017 crackdown, called the Rohingya identity "
imaginary
".
For those in the camps, even returning home is unlikely, says Marjan Besuijen of Médecins Sans Frontières.
“
Even if they were able to move around, many of the villages and communities they lived in no longer exist
,” the humanitarian said.
►Also read: Bangladesh: two Rohingya leaders killed in a refugee camp
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Burma
Bangladeshi
Rohingya
International Migrations