Rohingya crisis offers earning opportunity

TEKNAF (BANGLADESH): Captain Min Min, a Buddhist from Myanmar, looks on as a stream of Muslim Rohingya labourers zig-zag up narrow gangplanks hauling sacks of ginger from his boat onto Bangladeshi soil − one of many seizing the economic opportunities presented by a refugee crisis.

“I don’t worry about conflict... evj erything is just business,” the ethnic Rakhine skipper says, offering whiskey, cigarettes and big betel nut-stained smiles as he waits for his nine-tonne cargo to be unloaded.

The Bangladeshi district of Cox’s Bazar now hosts around one million Rohingya from Myanmar, the vast majority of whom fled their country a year ago, driven out by the army and mobs of ethnic Rakhine, who falsely brand the Muslim minority as “Bengali” intruders.

The makeshift Rohingya camps have now congealed into tent cities spread out across hills and farmland.

They contain new and dynamic economies, pump-primed by donor money and driven by a captive market of hundreds of thousands in need of food, shelter, work and − for those who can afford it − consumer goods.

For generations trade has diluted ethnic and religious rivalries among the Rakhine, Rohingya and Bangladeshis who flit between the two countries.

Commerce was barely interrupted as scores of Rohingya villages were torched in August last year, sparking an exodus of around 700,000 people by land and sea into Bangladesh.

The skies were heavy with smoke, but Min Min says he carried on delivering his “Made in Myanmar” cargo to Teknaf port − rice, ginger, make-up, noodles and the “ainshi” chestnuts ubiquitous at Rohingya snack stalls.