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FILE - Boys search for useful items among the
ashes of burnt houses
after fire destroyed shelters at a camp for internally
displaced Rohingya
Muslims in the western Rakhine State near Sittwe, Myanmar,
May 3, 2016.
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Many Rohingya
Muslims who fled alleged killings and other rights abuses during a Myanmar
military crackdown in northern Rakhine state say they are not willing to return
to their homes, despite last week's announcement that the military operation in
the region has ended.
Quoting Myanmar’s
national security adviser Thaung Tun, a statement from the office of State
Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi last week said the situation in northern Rakhine was
stabilized and the clearance operation by the military had been halted.
But many Rohingya
say that despite the end of the military operation, the situation in Myanmar,
also known as Burma, continues to remain hostile for them.
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Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi
delivers a speech during
Union Day celebrations in Panglong, Myanmar, Feb. 12,
2017. Suu Kyi
has called on all armed ethnic groups to sign a nationwide
cease-fire.
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Too
scared
“That military
operation might have ended, but the oppression of the Rohingyas in Burma has
not ended. Rohingyas still cannot freely go for livelihood-related activities
like fishing, farming and collecting firewood in Burma. If some Rohingyas are
found in such work, they are being arrested by police. Life continues to be
full of hardships for all Rohingyas in Burma,” Dil Mohammad, a 30-year-old
Rohingya refugee living in a shanty-colony in Cox’s Bazar district, told VOA.
“In such a situation I shall not return to Burma. I think as many as 96 or 97
percent of the new refugees in Bangladesh will not return to Burma.”
Rohingya community
leader Nurul Islam said most of the Rohingya who fled Myanmar during the recent
military crackdown were so petrified by the killings and torture they witnessed
that they are too scared to go back to their homes in Rakhine.
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Rohingya refugee man Dil Mohammad, 30, with his
wife and three of
their children at a Rohingya colony in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. During
military crackdown in Rakhine, Mohammad fled to Bangladesh with his
family. He says he would never return to Myanmar.
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"Since violence
subsided in Rakhine in the past weeks, some Rohingya from Bangladesh began
returning to their homes," said Islam, the Britain-based chairman of
Arakan Rohingya National Organization, who is in Cox’s Bazar now." They
are mostly those who had left part of their families in Rakhine while suddenly
fleeing violence. They are going to Burma mostly to wind up their
livelihood-related activities there and to bring the rest of their families
back to Bangladesh."
Islam told VOA that
crackdowns against the Rohingya are ongoing "in many other ways"
adding that "All Rohingya refugees are aware of the risks and hardships
they will face in Burma. So, Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh are largely not
willing to return to Burma."
Abuse allegations
After nine policemen
were killed in Rakhine on October 9 in an armed attack blamed on Rohingya
insurgents, Myanmar military launched a “clearance operation” in the area to
ferret out the insurgents.
Soon after the
operation started, Rohingya began fleeing the area, accusing soldiers, police
and local Buddhist groups, who accompanied the forces during the raids, of
abuses, including rapes, killings and arson.
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| A Rohingya refugee girl wipes her eyes as she
cries at Leda Unregistered Refugee Camp in Teknaf, Bangladesh, February 15, 201 |
Up to 100,000
Rohingya, as estimated by the community’s leaders, crossed into Bangladesh.
Earlier this month, the
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said the action of the security forces
in northern Rakhine were very likely “crimes against humanity.”
A week later, two
senior U.N. officials working among the Rohingya refugees said more than 1,000
Rohingya may have been killed during the four-month security operation in
northern Rakhine.
However, quoting a
military report, Myanmar presidential spokesman Zaw Htay said last week that
less than 100 people had been killed during the operation. The Myanmar government
has also consistently denied allegations of widespread abuses against the
Rohingya people during the military operation.
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Yanghee Lee (C), the UN's Special Rapporteur on
the situation of human rights
in Myanmar, visits the Balu Khali Rohingya camp
in Cox's Bazar, Feb. 21, 2017.
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A
question of status
A controversial 1982
law renders the members of the Rohingya community ineligible for citizenship.
The community was excluded from the 2014 census because the government refused
to identify them as "Rohingya" and they refused to be enlisted as
"Bengalis."
In recent weeks, the
authorities have resumed the process to issue National Verification Cards (NVCs)
to the Rohingya community members in Rakhine. Those who are holding the NVCs
are identified as residents of Myanmar but their citizenship status is under
scrutiny.
According to
Rakhine-based Rohingya rights activist Aung Aung, Rohingya are being coerced by
authorities to accept NVCs and those who refuse are arrested.
"For a Rohingya
holding an NVC virtually means he is not a citizen of Myanmar but a declared
Bengali immigrant," Aung explained." So, most Rohingyas are not
willing to accept NVCs.
"In recent
weeks, in many villages, the security forces are not allowing the Rohingyas to
move out of their villages if they cannot produce their NVCs. With this new
restriction on movement the Rohingyas are unable to perform many
livelihood-related activities in Rakhine, which has brought new miseries to
them," Aung told VOA.
The activist said he
fears a Rohingya exodus from Arakan in the coming days.