Monday March 22 was another tragic day for the Rohingyas. The tragic occurrence that day was an immense fire that swept through the Balukhali refugee camp at Cox’s Bazar in southern Bangladesh. The worst blaze damaged thousands of shanties and killed many refugees. Another huge inferno tore through the camp on January 14, demolishing around 550 shack shelters and forcing at least 3500 refugees, including children and women, to flee their huts. The most recent blaze is also the latest episode in the tragedies for the Rohingyas.
The Rohingya Muslims are indigenous to Myanmar’s western state of Rakhine, which they have been inhabiting for centuries. According to estimates, the total population of the community in Rakhine was 1.1 million in 2017. What havoc life has wrecked with the Rohingya is that they have yet not been acknowledged as one of its official ethnic groups by Myanmar. The people have never been given nationality by the country under its 1982 citizenship law. Although under Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human rights everyone has the right to nationality, Myanmar, violating the article, has systematically rendered the Rohingyas a stateless people.
For the last five decades, the Rohingyas in Rakhine were dreadfully attacked in 1978, 1992, 2016 and lastly 2017. Of the four onslaughts, the 2017 military crackdown on the minority group was the most atrocious and damaging. In just five days, about 700 buildings were set ablaze; at least 400 people were cruelly killed and hundreds of women and girls were mercilessly raped. We can say that, currently, the Rohingyas are the most persecuted people in the world.
The Cox’s Bazar refugee camp that hosts more than a million Rohingya refugees is said to be the largest camp in the world. Of the overall refugees at the camp, around 750,000 of them had fled Myanmar to Bangladesh in the aftermath of the damaging assault of 2017. The world’s largest camp consists of shacks made from timber and other inflammable material. The refugees have been living painful and grieved lives in the shack houses with no provision of even basic things like nutritious food, schooling, healthcare or sanitation. However, the 1954 and the 1961 UN Conventions on the Status of Stateless Persons and the Reduction of Statelessness emphatically direct member countries that the stateless people should be treated in the same way as citizens/nationals of any country. It concludes that the stateless are to be provided with all the basic rights to housing, justice, schooling and healthcare by a host country.
What role Pakistan should play for the Rohingya refugees is to make political, social and economic efforts for the settlement of their plight and challenges they have been experiencing, and to raise a voice time and again for their rights on the platforms of the UN and the OIC and other powerful international organizations.
According to estimates of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are around 79.5 million displaced people across the world and about 45.7 million of them are displaced within their own country. Of the overall displaced people, more than two thirds of the total has come from Somalia, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Syria and Myanmar. The main reasons for the displacement are conflicts and persecutions. There are at least 4.2 million stateless people who have not been given nationality and access to schooling, healthcare and employment. Amongst these stateless people, more than 1 million are the Rohingyas.
The shocking fact is that currently the rights of refugees and displaced people are being threatened as the world is facing a global solidarity crisis. The international community, especially affluent nations, are unwilling to shoulder the responsibility for supporting and protecting refugees. Many European states are deporting people seeking asylum back to their country of origin to undergo oppression, rapes and violence. It is developing countries who are acting fairly in accordance with their economic standings to resolve the problems of the displaced. They host around 85 percent of the global refugees. Amnesty International claims it has been making utmost efforts to convince the developed countries to agree to a global and fairer system for protecting refugees.
At present, what the world urgently needs is to formulate a new global plan for original and unhypocritical cooperation and fair sharing of responsibilities. Increased global funding for the protection of refugees and provision of basic needs to them is urgently and severely required. To this end, the developed nations have to make contributions on the fair share basis and have to resettle a huge number of refugees.
Since its foundation in 1984, the Islamic Relief, the world’s largest relief and development organization, in partnership with 16 organizations has been working in conflict-affected regions across the world to support refugees, displaced people and the nations that host them. This organization, in coordination with WHO, UNHCR, UNICEF and other international donor agencies, has to play the productive and humanitarian role for the Rohingya refugees. Until and unless the problem of their return to their native place is settled, they need permanent housing along with the provision of all basic needs.
What role Pakistan should play for the Rohingya refugees is to make political, social and economic efforts for the settlement of their plight and challenges they have been experiencing, and to raise a voice time and again for their rights on the platforms of the UN and the OIC and other powerful international organizations.
