Rohingya caught in a nightmare from which they may never awake
Their houses are often made of plastic sheets, much of their food comes from aid agencies, jobs are few and there is painfully little to do.
And the nightmares are relentless.
But six months after their horror began, Rohingya Muslims who fled army attacks in Myanmar for refuge in Bangladesh can still count their blessings.
“Nobody is coming to kill us, that’s for sure,” says Mohammed Amanullah, whose village was destroyed last year just before he left for Bangladesh with his wife and three children. They now live in the Kutupalong refugee camp outside the coastal city of Cox’s Bazar.
“We have peace here,” Mr Amanullah says.
On August 25, Rohingya insurgents attacked security posts in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, killing at least 14 people.
Within hours, waves of revenge attacks broke out, with the military and Buddhist mobs marauding through Rohingya villages, killing thousands, raping women and girls, and burning houses and villages.
The aid group Medecins sans Frontieres has estimated that at least 6,700 Rohingya were killed in Myanmar in the first month of the violence, including at least 730 children younger than 5. The survivors flooded into Bangladesh.
Six months later, there are few signs that the Rohingya will be going home soon.
Myanmar and Bangladesh signed an agreement to gradually repatriate Rohingya in “safety, security and dignity”, but the process has been unclear and the dangers remain.
New satellite images have shown empty villages and hamlets levelled, erasing evidence of the Rohingya’s former lives. About 700,000 have fled Myanmar since August, and the flow continues.
So for now, the refugees wait. “If they agree to send us back that’s fine, but is it that easy?” asked Mr Amanullah. “Myanmar must give us citizenship. That is our home. Without citizenship they will torture us again. They will kill us again.”
He would only return under the protection of UN peacekeepers: “They must take care of us otherwise it will not work.”
Buddhist-majority Myanmar does not recognise the Rohingya as an ethnic group, and they face intense discrimination and persecution. Myanmar maintains security operations in Rakhine state were aimed at clearing out insurgents.
On Sunday, two Nobel Peace laureates visited camps in Cox’s Bazar and talked to rape victims. Myanmar security forces have been also been accused of raping and sexually assaulting women and girls before the attacks on their villages.
Katia Gianneschi, spokeswoman for the Nobel Women’s Initiative, accompanied Yemen’s Tawakkul Karman and Northern Ireland’s Mairead Maguire to the camp where they talked to rape victims and listened to their stories. Another laureate, Iran’s Shirin Ebadi, was due to arrive yesterday.
The three laureates accused Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi – another Nobel Peace Prize winner – and her country’s military of atrocities, and said the international community should bring those responsible to justice.
“They were overwhelmed. They cried with us,” said Minara Begum, 25, who was raped and tortured by soldiers. “They could not hold their tears. “I was also touched by their eagerness to know our sad stories.”
Ms Karman said Rohingya women were twice victimised – for being Rohingya and for being women – and were “affected by the ethnic cleansing and are also subject to high levels of sexual and gender-based violence”.