‘THERE IS NO WAY WE WOULD GO BACK TO MYANMAR. JUST KILL US INSTEAD’
▶ Rohingya Muslims say repatriation from crowded Bangladeshi refugee camps is no answer to their suffering
Caught on a strip of land between Bangladesh and Myanmar, 6,000 Rohingya Muslims wait to see if they will be forced to return to their homes.
Behind the scenes a tense battle is being fought by the two governments over their future and that of more than 750,000 other Rohingya who escaped a military onslaught in Myanmar and now live in camps in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh decided this week to delay the start of repatriating refugees who began streaming over the border in October 2016.
That stream turned into a flood in August last year, as Rohingya fled what the UN has described as “ethnic cleansing”.
While Myanmar claimed it was ready to accept the refugees, Bangladesh said it needed more time to prepare.
Diplomats say that Dhaka is facing pressure not to send the Rohingya back to a hostile homeland.
Life is not easy at Konarpara, a sliver of no-man’s land between a barbed-wire fence and a putrid creek, where hundreds of tarpaulin and bamboo shanties have sprouted up on a rice paddy since last August.
Those scratching out an existence there are among thousands of Rohingya who fled in the early days of the crisis and were blocked from entering Bangladesh.
They can see Myanmar soldiers patrolling the border and Burmese children flying kites beyond the frontier.
Bangladesh border forces control the other side, letting the refugees cross into their territory to collect aid and see doctors.
Husne Ara, a 26-year-old mother of five who said that her husband and two sons were killed in Myanmar, would rather die in limbo than return.
“There is no way I will go. Why don’t you just kill us here instead? I would prefer that over being sent back,” Ms Ara said.
“If Bangladesh doesn’t want us, doesn’t want to take responsibility for us, then just kill us. But I cannot go back after what they did,” she said in reference to the violence that unfolded in Myanmar late last year.
Bangladesh and Myanmar reached an accord in November to start sending the Rohingya back.
The huge operation should have started this week, with many expecting those in noman’s land to be the test of whether an official scheme can start in the giant camps around Cox’s Bazar.
Abul Naser, a 45-year-old Rohingya, said they still heard gunshots and saw flames from burning villages across the border.
“How can they talk about sending us back there? We will not go. Not first, not last,” Mr Naser said.
The UN, aid and human rights groups have doubts about the repatriation scheme. Human Rights Watch said yesterday that transit camps proposed for Myanmar would be “openair prisons”.
Myanmar’s Minister of International Co-operation, Kyaw Tin, said on Tuesday that his country is “completely ready to welcome them”.
A senior Bangladesh government official called this propaganda, saying accommodation was still inadequate.
“Myanmar has to fulfil the No 1 condition required for the physical movement of people – the conditions have to be right in Myanmar,” the official said.
He said that under the agreement, Myanmar had to inform Bangladesh of their resettlement plan but “these procedures have not started yet”.
Rohingya villages that were burnt in the violence must be rebuilt “otherwise people won’t go”, he said.
“Where will they live? People won’t live in the camps. Myanmar is not saying anything on these issues,” the official said.
Lists of possible returnees had to be drawn up, and at least a month needed for Myanmar’s approval, he said.
It would take another month to prepare the Rohingya for their return.
The involvement of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees also had to be agreed, the official said.
A foreign diplomat in Dhaka said that while there is international pressure for humanitarian action, Bangladesh’s ruling Awami League party also had to “satisfy domestic political constituencies that support the Rohingya cause”.
Refugees have staged rallies in camps near the border in Cox’s Bazar as tension mounts over the relocation.
Two Rohingya men were sentenced on Tuesday and jailed for a week for protesting against the repatriation plan.
Abdul Jabbar and Ali Hossain, both in their 60s, were sentenced after being charged with creating a public nuisance.
Bangladesh says repatriation will be voluntary, but police have ramped up security in the camps.
Bangladesh discovered that returning Rohingya across its border is not as simple as the measures that forced them to flee