We welcome our newest residents
‘‘The police were there with guns and shot people and arrested [them].’’ Mohammad Shafi recalls the horrors of home
Palmerston North has opened its arms to welcome Rohingya refugees fleeing from persecution in Myanmar.
The Rohingya ethnic group are the newest community to start life afresh in Manawatu – two families were accepted into the area in the last refugee intake in December.
For Mohammad Shafi, his new life in Palmerston North is the opposite of his existence in his former home.
Shafi was born and raised in a small village near Sittwe, Rakhine.
Growing up there with his seven siblings, he said he witnessed his family’s cattle farm getting taken over by the military.
Losing his family home was upsetting and his whole village was forced to move as the military took over the land.
He saw his cousin murdered in front of him by an unknown group of people wielding machetes and knives and, as a teenager, he witnessed police raid and shoot people in the streets during unrest in 1988.
‘‘The police were there with guns and shot people and arrested [them].’’
As a 16-year-old he ran back to his school to get away from the gunfire, while others fled to the safety of the monastery.
While it was a different government back then, Shafi said the country’s leaders did not, and still do not, recognise the Rohingya ethnic group.
Rohingya people, especially Muslims, have no rights, freedom or access to higher education, he said.
Shafi said they were living under a dictatorship and did not have basic democratic rights.
Shafi managed to leave his village, using his student ID to cross the country’s boarders. He sought work in Malaysia, where he met his wife, Lailah.
The Shafi family and their children, Habiba, 5, and Muhammad Adam, 4, moved to New Zealand as refugees in 2016. They are now based in Palmerston North.
Shafi said life in New Zealand will offer his children many opportunities, including a better education.
‘‘I didn’t have an good education so when I got my two children, every night I pray. I pray for them to get a good life and to get a good future.’’
Amnesty International NZ executive director Grant Bayldon said Rohingya were one of the most persecuted groups in the world. ‘‘I know the discrimination there has been going on for decades.’’
The differences between Buddhist and Muslim faiths, the issues of greed and resources, as well as the lack of control the civilian-run Myanmar Government has over its military, has led to violence and persecution, he said.
People were attacked, raped, killed, and villages were destroyed. While those that fled could end up in slavery.
The situation there was still very much a ‘‘crisis’’, he said.
He said New Zealand’s refugee resettlement programme was helping refugees needing to rebuild their lives.