Meeting the Rohingyas, the Stateless Minority of Myanmar
By Dr Ahmed S. Khan*
Chicago, IL
During the first week of May, I was invited to deliver the keynote speech at the 2018 Techtronics Technology Workshop & Fair at the University of Science and Technology Chittagong (UTSC) in Bangladesh.
The university was founded by the prominent physician and national professor, Dr Nur ul Islam. The UTSC is run under the aegis of the Janasheba Welfare Foundation, which is chaired by Dr Nur ul Islam’s son Ahmed Iftekhar ul Islam. At the conclusion of the Techtronics Workshop, Iftekhar ul Islam arranged a tour of the city of Cox’s Bazar and the neighboring Rohingya refugee camps. The city is located about 150 km (93 miles) from Chittagong and is famous for its natural sea beach, the longest (120 km, 75 miles) in the world.
We started our journey from Chittagong, a port city bustling with economic activity. Construction of infrastructure projects was visible all over the city. While crossing the bridge on the Kurnaphuli River, we saw numerous small and large vessels setting out for the Bay of Bengal on fishing trips. The Kurnaphuli bridge leads to a narrow highway that is abuzz with economic activity.
Iftekhar informed me that Bangladesh had recently moved a notch up from the Least Developed Countries (LDC) category into the Developing Countries group. Many roadside establishments vouched for this improvement: cell towers, lush green farms, fish hatcheries, salt production farms, banks, and eateries. We saw children walking on the roadside in their colorful green and white uniforms. Iftekhar said that growth of certain industry segments, such as garments, ship breaking, mobile banking, and foreign remittance, are responsible for much of the economic growth. NGOs like Grameen, started by Nobel Laureate Dr Muhammad Yunus, award microcredit to the women of rural Bangladesh, and this has transformed and empowered the lives of women and helped alleviate poverty, the impact of which is quite visible in rural areas. The mobile cell towers are also signs of progress in the countryside. Mobile banking has revolutionized money transfer in Bangladesh, with poor rural populations being the prime beneficiaries.
Although Cox’s Bazar is only 93 miles from Chittagong, it takes generally more than four hours to reach. The two-lane narrow highway was congested with traffic. Traffic wardens were making futile attempts to move the traffic into an organized and symmetric pattern. The road appeared to be a highway of time on which two centuries of technologies—SUVs, buses, trucks, autos, motorcycles, bicycles, and cycle rickshaws—tried to coexist in harmony. Bus and truck drivers were acting as the monsters of the road, dangerously passing smaller vehicles to dominate the narrow lanes and dictate the traffic patterns. Paan (beetle leaves), vegetable, and fruit vendors were busy selling their goods by the roadside. The lush green beauty of the countryside was mesmerizing.
We reached Cox’s Bazar around 6 pm, and checked into a hotel. The next morning after breakfast we set out towards the camps. We drove south on the Cox’s Bazar-Teknaf highway and after an hour, Iftekhar pointed to some small shacks on the hills in the Ukhia Bazar area and said these belonged to the Rohingyas who had come in an earlier influx. Driving south from Ukhia Bazar, we could glimpse the camps in the Balukhali Bazar area.
Near the Balukhali Bazar runs the river Naf, which also serves as the border between Bangladesh and Myanmar. As we drove towards the camps, Iftekhar recalled an earlier visit to the area a couple of weeks before, and the horror stories of the Rohingya migration. He can never forget the agony on the face of a small boy sitting on the Bangladeshi side of the river. The boy had been separated from his family when Myanmar forces attacked his village. In the frenzy to flee towards Bangladesh, the boy had lost his mother and siblings; he was gazing now across the river to the Myanmar side, hoping that his mother and siblings would cross the river soon.
Iftekhar informed me that according to international human rights groups, the Myanmar military has been involved in extrajudicial killings and gang rape; the military has used helicopters to unleash a scorched-earth campaign, burning Rohingya villages. The UN has described the action as a “ textbook example of ethnic cleansing .” According to the UN agency on Refugees (UNHCR), the Rohingya refugees have been fleeing violence in Myanmar at a staggering rate – and the numbers keep growing. More than 647,000 refugees have fled to Bangladesh since August 25, 2017, when the violence broke out in Myanmar’s Rakhine State. The majority of refugees arriving in Bangladesh are women and children, including newborn babies. Many others are orphaned boys and girls whose parents were killed in the violence, as well as elderly people requiring special aid and protection.
Many of the new arrivals have sought shelter in and around the existing refugee camps of Kutupalong and Nayapara, and in makeshift sites that existed before the influx of refugees. Some people have joined relatives there, while others are attracted by the help and services offered by many Bangladeshi NGOs, like Brac and Grameen, and international organizations from Muslim countries, European countries, the United States, and Australia. The Turkish relief effort is very visible in the camps.
Despite its limited resources, Bangladesh is trying to take care of these refugees, but the magnitude of the problem is beyond the capacity of its resources. The Rohingya influx into Bangladesh has been described as one of the largest and fastest-growing refugee crises in decades. With a population of over half a million people, the refugee settlement known as the Kutupalong-Balukhali Expansion Site has in just five months larger population than most small European and American cities. The settlement is exposed to rains, landslides, and outbreak of diseases.
Along the roadside, a colorful Buddhist temple was quite visible, symbolizing harmony of diversity in Bangladesh. Unlike the situation in Myanmar, where Buddhist monks are helping the military to persecute the Rohingyas, the Buddhist and Hindu minorities in Bangladesh are living in peace with Muslims.
As we approached the camps, we saw that on the muddy hillsides the refugee camps consisted of overcrowded makeshift huts. Bamboos and housing supplies were trucked in. People were standing in queues to receive food rations. A herd of small goats was trying to cross the road and nearly got run over by our vehicle. The driver applied the brakes to avoid an accident and remarked: “These newly arrived Myanmar goats are clueless about Bangladeshi traffic rules!”
In terms of the population density, the refugee camps resembled a mini Dhaka. Iftekhar informed me that the camps are built on land which used to be part of a thick forest. The emergence of temporary camps has led to deforestation.
We stopped and spoke to a number of children and adults who were standing by the roadside looking at our car with quizzical faces. We asked them about their concerns and issues. The children told us they all go to school but their instruction mainly consists of chanting as they do not have textbooks or writing supplies. The adults said they were getting plenty of rice and lentils, but were tired of eating the same thing every day; the children always ask for something different, like fish, but they do not have money to buy them fish.
When asked how they spend their time, they replied that most of the time they are just roaming around the camp. Back in Myanmar they were active in pursuing their business and work activities but in the camps they have become passive. They want to learn skills to work and earn money for their families, but such opportunities are not available to them in the camp, and once the sun goes down they cannot do anything since there is no electricity in most of the camps.
They also informed us that the camps have poor sanitation and health-care facilities. Due to the close proximity of tube wells and latrines, drinking water is getting contaminated. They further said that people trying to cross over into Bangladesh have often been killed by the Myanmar army. Many people have lost their loved ones and many children have been orphaned. The camps have many orphans who ought to be adopted. When asked what message they would like to convey to the world, they replied that they wanted to return to their homeland with full citizenship rights.
As a million Rohingyas wait and hope to return home, they face another threat from the approaching monsoon season. Their lives will be shattered again, as most of the shelters are made of bamboo and plastic sheets anchored in muddy ground, no match for the monsoon rains.
As we drove back the children and adults in the camps waved good-bye. After the five-hour drive to the Chittagong airport, I commenced my journey back to Chicago.
I hoped that the destiny of the Rohingya refugees will not resemble that of the millions of Afghans who fled to Pakistan in 1979 after the Soviet invasion. After four decades, these refugees are still waiting to be repatriated to their homes in Afghanistan. My hope is that the world would respond with compassion to the misery of the Rohingyas, so that they could return home as citizens of Myanmar.
( Dr Ahmed S. Khan ( dr.a.s.khan@ieee.org ) is a Fulbright Specialist Scholar (2017-2020). Professor Khan has 35 years of experience in Higher Education as professor of Electrical Engineering. He is the author of many books on various technical topics and Science, Technology & Society (STS); his most recent book is Nanotechnology: Ethical and Social Implications , CRC Press )
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