Opinion: Bangladesh is supposed to be a host to the Rohingya refugees, not their jailer
Rohingya refugee children crowd a food distribution center in Balukhali refugee camp near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, in 2018. (Manish Swarup/AP)
Opinion by Shafiur Rahman
July 7, 2021|Updated today at 5:16 p.m. EDT
Shafiur Rahman is a documentary film maker working on Rohingya issues.
When Bangladesh started relocating Rohingya refugees from Myanmar to its remote island of Bhasan Char in December, I met Saiful, a 10-year-old boy with an amputated leg. Saiful’s mother hoped he would one day become a doctor and offered an upbeat quote from him: “Now I can walk freely and even play.” It seemed to be that the Rohingya were headed for freedom and betterment in their new life on the island.
Just five months later, Saiful is dead. The authorities have not issued a death certificate for him. The cause of his death is unknown to his mother, save that his eyes turned yellow and his body became bloated.
Bangladesh, which faced the fastest growing refugee crisis seen in this century, has lauded itself for taking in the refugees and containing covid-19 among their population. But in finding solutions without the consent of refugees, the government has put their lives and livelihoods at a massive risk on both on the island and the mainland.
In 2017, the Myanmar military’s campaign forced 740,000 Rohingyas to flee, mainly to neighboring Bangladesh. Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was widely lauded for allowing the refugees to cross the border. She was pictured consoling the refugees and famously reassured the world, “We have the ability to feed 160 million people of Bangladesh and we have enough food security to feed the 700,000 refugees.” Her party members gave her the title “mother of humanity.”
At the same time, Bangladeshi lawmakers complained that the refugees posed a painful economic and security challenge to Bangladesh. For more than 40 years, the country had been grappling with successive waves of Rohingya refugees fleeing Myanmar. In 1978 and in the 1990s, there were repeated cases of violence against the refugees as well as food restrictions that resulted in starvation and death. Diplomatic efforts to send the Rohingyas back home were hindered by a Myanmar government insincere in its readiness to repatriate the refugees.
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