The Rohingya people,
an ethnic Muslim minority group, have fled murder and persecution by the army
of Myanmar to seek refuge in camps in Southern Bangladesh, but their arrival
has been less than welcome. Special correspondent Tania Rashid reports.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But,
first, we turn to Bangladesh and the plight of the Rohingya.
They are an ethnic
minority group seeking refuge there, many having been forced from their homes
in neighboring Myanmar.
But as special
correspondent Tania Rashid found, they are hardly more welcome in Bangladesh.
By the tens of thousands, they are stuck in a deadly limbo.
And a warning: Parts
of this story may disturb some viewers.
TANIA RASHID: The Island
is isolated, covered in bushes, and underwater half of the year. It’s called
Thenga Chor, and it lies on the coast of Bangladesh.
It’s a hard and long
day’s boat ride from the nearest port. This rough spot might be the new home
for the Rohingya, a group of more than 300,000 people the U.N. calls the most
persecuted minority in the world.
But on a camp on the
mainland, Hafez, a Rohingya activist, says that is no place they want to go.
HAFEZ, Rohingya
Activist (through interpreter): If we go to Thenga Chor, we will get sick. We
can die. We are used to being here, and we feel safe here.
TANIA RASHID: It’s
only a relative safety, close to half-a-million have fled murder and
persecution by the army of Myanmar to seek refuge in camps in Southern
Bangladesh.
The Muslim Rohingyas
have lived in mainly Buddhist Myanmar for centuries, but are viewed as illegal
ethnic Bangladeshis by the Myanmar government.
The de facto leader
of Myanmar, Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, has denied a U.N. charge of
ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya’.
But in the last
eight months, the numbers of Rohingya fleeing for their lives have surged to
more than 70,000 but now their lives are more precarious than ever before.
Monsoon season and a
punishing cyclone damaged many Rohingya settlements. So, the Bangladeshi
government plans to resolve the Rohingya’s continued displacement by moving
60,000 of the refugees to this remote island.
Aid agencies like
the UNHCR and Human Rights Watch have expressed alarm over the planned
relocation.
Our journey to the
island was difficult. We began a week before the cyclone. We traveled first by
ferry, then by a private boat, where a local fishermen agreed to take us to the
island.
It was a dangerous
journey. Pirates are known to control these seas and take hostages for ransom.
But the island is not easy to access. The tides are too high on the bigger
ship, so we had to get a smaller boat to take us to the island.
We just made it on
the island. We managed to find a muddy bog to land near, and get us across to
the island. The government has already moved forward with the plan of making
the island more habitable by planting trees. But this local official doesn’t
want the Rohingyas moving into his district.
He thinks it will
create more problems for his community.
MINAZUR RAHMAN,
Local Government Official (through interpreter): In the past, the Rohingya were
related to the drug problem. They are linked to drugs, linked to smuggling. Most
of the people here, their main livelihood is fishing. The bad character and
influence of the Rohingya people will impact the locals here.
TANIA RASHID: But
the Bangladeshi government believes the Rohingyas cross the border at will,
with the help of smugglers and corrupt border guards.
The government
argues the relocation will guarantee their isolation from the rest of the
population. But the island is formed by river sediment, making it unstable, and
it could be eroded in five years’ time.
Dr. Ainun Nishat is
a leading expert on climate change in Bangladesh.
DR. AINUN NISHAT:
The main history of the coastal belt of Bangladesh is highly vulnerable to
storm surges and cyclonic weather.
Due to impact of
climate change, we believe that the frequency of climate change may not be
increasing, but intensity of the storm surges are definitely going to increase.
So, they should be accommodated in good concrete structure, where at the time
of emergency people should we — can be moved to a height of 20 feet and above.
TANIA RASHID: Today,
about one million Rohingyas live in apartheid-like conditions in internment
camps in Rakhine State of Myanmar, separated from the Buddhist majority. They
have no citizenship, and need permission to marry or to travel outside of their
own villages.
On October 9 of last
year, Rohingya militants killed nine Myanmar police officers. The Myanmar
military then led a wide and brutal counterinsurgency campaign in retaliation,
where they killed more than 1,000 Rohingyas, torched homes and mosques.
The Myanmar
government calls these accusations exaggerations and denies charges of ethnic
cleansing.
Dil Nawaz is one of
70,000 Rohingya’s who fled to Bangladesh. She was gang-raped by soldiers, and
witnessed her husband’s murder in front of her eyes.
I’m looking at a
photo of her husband who was hacked to death about five months ago, and this is
a photograph she took shortly after she was murdered.
DIL NAWAZ, Rohingya
Refugee (through interpreter): They used a machete on my husband in front of me
on the road. I saw it with my own eyes. They chopped him into pieces in front
of me in a rice field. Then, the army came and took all the women out to the
rice fields and took several women.
Five men took turns
raping them. They took people’s gold jewelry, rings and earrings. They killed
some children. Then they burned all the houses down, followed by the mosque.
Then the military went back to a Buddhist area. This is why we fled to Bangladesh.
TANIA RASHID:
Activist Hafez says they have found refuge here.
HAFEZ (through
interpreter): Bangladesh is small, and overpopulated, but they gave us a place
to stand. This is a big thing.
TANIA RASHID: But
like many other Rohingya, he wants a sense of permanence.
HAFEZ (through
interpreter): Instead of sending us to Thenga Chor, if the Myanmar government
could, we request that they grant us citizenship.
TANIA RASHID:
Forty-five-year old Dilbar hopes for a last-ditch political solution.
DILBAR, Rohingya
Refugee (through interpreter): If the Bangladesh government and the Myanmar
government negotiate a deal and send us back, then we will be happy. If this
doesn’t happen, then please bomb us. We came here, left our homes, rice. We
came here to save our lives. If we have no peace, then it’s better to die.
Our children died
there. We sacrificed everything and came here for peace. If you take us to the
island, it will be like killing us, slaughtering us. We are like ants. We are
nothing. It won’t take much to kill us. Just bomb us. Nobody will make a case
against you, because we have no ground under our feet.
TANIA RASHID: Their
hope, to find that safe ground one day. But, for now, they remain in limbo, not
of this land and not pushed from it.
For the PBS NewsHour,
I’m Tania Rashid on Thenga Chor Island, Bangladesh.
Source: http://to.pbs.org/2uWH2l5