National Post

GIRL’S PLIGHT EPITOMIZES ROHINGYA STRUGGLE.

IN MYANMAR, ONE EMACIATED GIRL’S PLIGHT EPITOMIZES RAVAGES OF ETHNIC DIASPORA

- in Dar Paing, Myanmar Todd Pitman With files from Esther Htusan

Ever since she was born in this squalid camp for displaced members of Myanmar’s ethnic Rohingya minority, Rosmaida Bibi has struggled to do something most of the world’s children do effortless­ly: grow.

Frail and severely malnourish­ed, she looks a lot like every other underfed child here — until you realize she’s not really like any of them at all.

A tiny girl with big brown eyes, Rosmaida is four — but barely the size of a one-year-old.

She wobbles unsteadily when s he walks. Bones protrude through the flimsy skin of her chest. And while other kids her age chatter incessantl­y, Rosmaida is listless, only able to speak a handful of first words: “Papa.” “Mama.” “Rice.”

Half a decade after a brutal wave of anti- Muslim violence exploded in this predominan­tly Buddhist nation, forcing more than 120,000 Rohingya Muslims into a series of camps in western Myanmar, this is what the government’s policy of persecutio­n, segregatio­n and neglect looks like up close.

It’s a policy born of decades of military dictatorsh­ip and fear that Muslims are encroachin­g on what should be Buddhist land. The troubling thing today, rights groups say, is that this stance has been adopted by the administra­tion of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace laureate and longtime opposition leader who rose to power after her party swept national elections last year.

And any hope that Suu Kyi — once lauded worldwide as a human rights icon — might turn things around has been shattered by her silence and the reality that life for the Rohingya has deteriorat­ed by the day.

“This is worse than a prison,” Rosmaida’s 20- year- old mother, Hamida Begum, said of the makeshift hut they call home — the place where her daughter was born that floods with every heavy rain.

Poor, unemployed, and prohibited from crossing checkpoint­s into more affluent Buddhist- only areas, Begum has been unable to find anyone who can help.

“I want to give her an education. I want to send her to school like all the other kids,” she said as Rosmaida burrowed into her lap in Dar Paing, near the state capital, Sittwe. “But it’s not possible because she’s so sick ... she cannot grow.”

The Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic group, have long been denied citizenshi­p, freedom of movement and basic rights in Myanmar, a country that largely sees them as foreigners from neighbouri­ng Bangladesh even though most were born here.

Although tensions in Rakhine state go back decades, the neighbourh­ood Begum grew up in, in Sittwe, was mixed, and she said people there used to get along.

That changed dramatical­ly on June 5, 2012, when Buddhist mobs began attacking Muslims and setting homes ablaze.

Today her neighbourh­ood — where denuded trees and the destroyed remains of homes are still visible — is occupied by Buddhist squatters. Although Begum said her grandparen­ts owned their family’s house there, they have neither been allowed to return nor compensate­d for its destructio­n.

Aside from a single district, Sittwe is now entirely Buddhist, and Muslims are prohibited from walking its streets.

Matthew Smith, who runs the advocacy group Fortify Rights, said: “It’s scandalous that these internment camps still exist five years on ... The reality is that there’s a lot she (Suu Kyi) could be doing, but isn’t.

“The Rohingya are no closer now to getting their rights ... and in some respects the situation is much worse,” he said. Over the past year, “there’s been mass killing, mass rape, widespread forced labour and other violations, all committed with complete impunity.”

After a Rohingya insurgent group killed nine officers in northern Rakhine state in October, security forces responded by burning entire villages, raping women and killing an unknown number of people in a rampage that sent 75,000 people fleeing into neighbouri­ng Bangladesh.

Although southern Rakhine state, where Rosmaida lives, was not directly affected, the region has experience­d a spike in tensions. On Tuesday, a 100- strong Buddhist mob in Sittwe killed one Rohingya man and injured six others who ventured into the city under police escort to buy boats.

Suu Kyi says her administra­tion is dealing with the issue by implementi­ng the recommenda­tions of a commission led by former UN secretary- general Kofi Annan, which called on the government to close the displaced camps and allow their inhabitant­s to return home.

Most of the camps remain open, though, and Suu Kyi’s administra­tion restricts access to the region, blocking journalist­s from independen­t access to the north altogether.

Vanna Sara, a Buddhist abbot at Sittwe’s Seik Ke Daw Min monastery, said harsh policies were necessary to protect Buddhists. Western Myanmar is on the frontline of a population explosion, and Muslims, he said, are trying to “swallow the whole region.”

“They can’t be trusted. No Muslim can be trusted. They’re all scary,” Sara said.

When Begum settled in Dar Paing after the 2012 violence, she tried to start her life anew. But the man she married died shortly after he was detained in Malaysia, where he was trying to take his family for a better life. Their son died a few hours after birth.

Begum has since remarried, but her fisherman husband sometimes comes home from a day of work with less than a dollar, or nothing. That makes it hard to care for her biggest concern — her daughter.

A report issued by UNICEF in May said a staggering 150 children under the age of five die every day in Myanmar, while nearly 30 per cent are malnourish­ed.

Rosmaida is now being helped by an internatio­nal humanitari­an charity that is giving her readyto-eat packets of therapeuti­c food paste to alleviate severe acute malnutriti­on. But Begum is concerned because her daughter’s appetite is so low, “she has trouble eating all of them.”

Soon, Begum will have another reason to worry: She is pregnant again.

IT’S SCANDALOUS THAT THESE INTERNMENT CAMPS STILL EXIST.

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 ?? TODD PITMAN / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ?? Rosmaida Bibi, a four-year old Rohingya girl who suffers from severe malnutriti­on, stands next to her mother Hamida Begum inside a squalid tent at the Dar Paing camp in Myanmar.
TODD PITMAN / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Rosmaida Bibi, a four-year old Rohingya girl who suffers from severe malnutriti­on, stands next to her mother Hamida Begum inside a squalid tent at the Dar Paing camp in Myanmar.

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