The pain in the eyes of the Rohingya children haunts us

Dr. Jane Carter’s eyes fill with tears. On the way back from Cox’s Bazar on 1 November I had asked her what she thought of the Rohingya refugees she had seen.

The physician was at a loss for words. She managed to mutter, “Indescribable, inhuman, unimaginable. Millions of people see this as a better option for them. So one can only imagine the horrific situation in Myanmar that continues to send thousands of refugees across the border. Have such a large mass of people fled from their own country into the unknown before?”

Jane Carter is a tuberculosis specialist at Brown University. She is an emerging leader in the campaign to eliminate diseases from the world. This campaign has also started in Bangladesh. Another researcher from the same university, Dr. Ruhul Abid, heads the organisation Health and Education for All (HAEFA). When the Rohingyas gradually began to arrive, Dr. Carter and Dr. Abid began to work at the refugee camp. They have opened two health centers at the Kutupalang and Balukhali camps. They have arranged for solar energy. Everyday hundreds of refugees come to their camp. They enter their names, photos, and primary health information into their computers and give the patients a machine readable cards, as well as forms and medicine.

They keep in touch from the United States. They raise funds and public awareness. They were shocked when they arrived in person. Between 600 and 700 thousand Rohingyas arrived in a matter of two months starting 25 August. Half of them are children. Where will they stay, what will they eat, where will they find water?

I set off with them on 31 October, first to the Kutupalang camp. There are rows of shanties on either side of the muddy roads, on the hills, the slopes, in the valleys, and in the plains. These are recently built makeshift bamboo homes covered with plastic sheets on top. They were given the materials from Bangladesh and they built the homes themselves, despite hardly any able-bodied persons in the families.

During the Liberation war of 1971, we struggled and left our homes with the hope that once the country was independent, we could return. But there is no hope for these Rohingyas to return home under the current leadership in Myanmar. In 1982, the Myanmar government stripped them of their citizenship. Since then they are not allowed to move freely in their own homeland. They aren’t counted in the census. They don’t have any healthcare or education, or any kind of rights. The Myanmar government denies citizenship to the people who came to Myanmar after the British had colonised Myanmar almost 200 years ago in 1822. The government does not accept the fact of history that these people have lived in the Arakan region of Myanmar for hundreds, and even thousands of years.

We look around the makeshift homes in the Kutupalang camp. Many of the sanitary latrines that had been installed are already full. The drains are overflowing with sewerage waste. Men, women and children are crammed in spaces of hardly 10 ft by 10ft. There is no shortage of food. People from all over Bangladesh have rushed over with aid. The deputy commissioner has said that the people of Bangladesh have been the most helpful. The food commission of the United Nations has started working on feeding the people until February. Government administrations, the military, international organisations, NGOs and RRRC are all working together to help them. The food is all collected in one place and then distributed across camps. Each family gets 25 kilograms of rice every 15 days, along with lentils, salt and oil.

The line is huge. People are lining up under the bamboo sheds, cards in hand. The army is guarding the area. Workers are handing out food to the refugees. A youth says that there is no shortage of food, but scarcity of fuel to cook it.

The health centers are crowded with women, children and elderly people. A mother is standing in the queue with a 14-day-old child. Dr. Jane thinks for a while that the baby is dead. She looks anxious. Dr. Ruhul examines the baby and assures her that he is still alive. But he needs to be hospitalised. How far is the nearest hospital? How can this patient be transported there? Who will take him there?

We must congratulate Bangladesh for its great humanitarian work. This recent influx of Rohingyas has brought 600,000 to 700,000 people to the coastal regions of Bangladesh within the last two months. They have been living in the makeshift camps. No one has died of hunger because of the generosity of the government of Bangladesh and its people. Everybody has been taken care of. Everybody received cholera vaccines in October.

A young man has arrived at the health center. He had been shot in the head. The doctors say it is rare to find a family without an afflicted member. Every woman has been tortured, or has seen someone tortured.

“How many people are there in your family?”

“There were seven of us. Five of us are here.”

“What about the other two?”

“My two sons were killed in front of me.”

The ones who speak here are often victims of such scenarios. I saw a sign of a women and children trauma center.

People have been stunned silent, traumatised. There is no emotion in their eyes. Just nothingness and nothingness. They used to have homes, land, a country, memories - they have given up everything to save their lives and dignity. They don’t know what the future holds.

There are 10-12 people under a polythene covered roof. They don't have a kitchen or bathroom. Yet when they are asked if they were better before or are better now, they reply that they are doing much better now. They say this because they know here they will not be shot, set fire on, or raped.

Parts of hills have been excavated to build camps. There are almost a million people on 2,500 acres of land.

A lot of foreigners are arriving. Almost 600 employees of the UN are working in the region, I heard from one of the UN employees. There are big vehicles labeled UN moving around. It is hard to find rooms in the hotels. One UN employee informed us that they are working to determine the effects of the Rohingya presence on the locals. Forest land and hills are being ruined, employment opportunities are increasing in some places, decreasing in others. Locals can see that one vehicle is arriving after the other with aid and assistance for the newly arrived people. How do they feel about this?

NGOs are working - big NGOs like BRAC, as well as smaller ones.

Another UN team is working to determine the extent of repression on the Rohingyas by Myanmar. They said that they are working on similar issues in Myanmar as well, not just Bangladesh. And they are investigating on the crimes against humanity occurring beyond the Rakhine region.

I walk along the camp in the muddy streets. I chat with children. There is one named Mostafa and another named Hasan. There is a girl Anwara, and another, Khadeja. None of them have ever been to school. The girls wear cheap earrings. The boys play with cheap plastic toys. Bangladeshis have opened small restaurants and shops here. Rohingyas have also opened up shops to earn money. They sell cheap candy and toys.

A child stands, sucking on a brightly colored lollipop. Some children are just standing quietly. Their faces are so innocent. Won't they go to school? Do they not have a future?

Some boys who had studied up till high school come up to Dr. Ruhul. ¨Sir, please open a school, we will teach there.¨

Bangladesh wants to send them back home as soon as possible. We can understand it from an outside perspective. But Myanmar hadn't done this inhuman act for them to be sent back. This is a part of a long time plan. They want to completely destroy the Rohingyas. They want a Rohingya-free Myanmar. Bangladesh isn't calling them refugees. They are calling them Forcibly Displaced Myanmar Nationals.

Bangladesh is heavily burdened under its dense population coupled with a paucity of finances. It cannot bear the weight of this newly arrived huge number of people. This has been harmful to the local environment and may create tension among locals. It will create opportunities for local and international crime cycles. But we cannot heartlessly send these helpless people back.

So what is the solution? There is only one - to demand justice for ethnic cleansing in Myanmar. To raise huge worldwide awareness so that Myanmar is forced to take back their rightful citizens with the appropriate respect, rights and security.

Even a good photograph can irk the world. A video clip often gets the attention of millions of people.

And we can also think about a million-man march. In whatever way we can, we have to raise the most effective force in this world, that that is consciousness. This sense of consciousness appears to be silent at this moment.

We return to Dhaka. The pain in the eyes of the Rohingya children haunts us.

* Anisul Hoque is associate editor of Prothom Alo. The piece originally published in Prothom Alo print edition is translated by Padya Paramita