Nur Begum, 70, and 13 of her relatives are
among the million Rohingya sheltering in the world’s largest refugee camp in
Bangladesh
By
Sally Williams
Zaheda is worrying about her daughters. At 20
and 18, respectively, Gulsar and Abeda should be married by now, but life is
not as it should be. It hasn’t been since they fled their homes with a dozen
other family members almost a year ago. “Marriage is what is expected of
women,” 40-year-old Zaheda says. “It is tied up with honour; not being married
brings shame.” A man she knew in Myanmar wants them to marry his sons, but she
can’t pay the dowry he’s hoping for.
Zaheda and her daughters are clustered
together on the floor of a shelter in the world’s largest refugee camp, in the
Cox’s Bazar district of south-eastern Bangladesh. Formerly two separate camps,
it now holds over 700,000 Rohingya people who have fled Myanmar, spread across
the hills in row upon row of tarpaulin and bamboo shelters. Four generations of
the Begum family live here: 70-year-old Nur; her 50-year-old son Anwar and his
wife Zaheda; their 10 children, aged from two to 25; and Nur’s great-grandson,
Sultan, aged two.
The Begums left their home in Rakhine state,
a low-lying coastal area in western Myanmar, just after 3am in late August
2017, after shouts from the village warned that government forces had arrived.
They had heard tales of what the army had done to the Rohingya in recent months
– killing unarmed civilians, mass rape, burning homes. Anwar, a farmer, wanted
to get his family out as soon as possible. “I wanted to pack, but my son
grabbed me and said, ‘Let’s just go – leave everything behind,’” Nur says. “I
put some clothes in a bag but there was shooting and I dropped the bag.”
Fourteen members of the family left together on foot.
Eighteen days later they arrived at the camp,
130 miles away, having crossed jungle, mountains and the Naf river on the
Myanmar-Bangladesh border. “Because the military were everywhere we were afraid
that if we went by road they would catch us, so we went over the mountains,”
Nur says. “We just followed all the other people. Sometimes my son carried me,
but when we came down the hills, he couldn’t help me because both of us would
have fallen. So I slid down on my backside.” She arrived on Anwar’s shoulders.
Almost a year on Nur lives with her son and
daughter-in-law and nine of their children in one shelter. Zaheda’s oldest
daughter, Rojia, and her son Sultan live elsewhere on the camp, as do Nur’s
four other children, who arrived separately.
The camp has evolved into a makeshift
metropolis. It has roads, bridges, hospitals, but no official schools or paid
jobs because the Bangladeshi government does not plan to integrate Rohingya
refugees with the local population. The camp offers shelter from the Myanmar
army – but also the risk of landslides and disease.
Run by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the
International Organisation for Migration and the government of Bangladesh, with
the support of more than 100 NGOs, the camp is about a two-hour drive from
Cox’s Bazar, a seaside town still popular with Bangladeshi tourists. Until a year
ago there was nothing much in the vicinity: some villages, schools and small
refugee camps for Rohingya who were here before the recent crisis, some
displaced for over 20 years. But then came the flow of refugees into Bangladesh
– thousands every day. The camps in Kutupalong and Balukhali doubled in size
and have now expanded into one “megacamp”. There are dozens of other camps in
the region, housing a further 300,000 refugees. While there has been talk of
repatriation, negotiations have stalled. There are now more Rohingya here than
in Myanmar; the population is the size of Birmingham – and their lives are in
limbo.
The Begums’ shelter is bare of furniture; I
sit with the family on a thin plastic mat. The room is hot, the camp noises are
loud. Twelve are crammed into three rooms, with no doors to separate them. The
flimsy roof is weighed down with bags of sand. When it rains, thick mud sucks
the shoes off their feet; when it is hot, their clothes are drenched with
sweat. But at least they feel part of a community – they know some of the other
families sleeping beside them in the camp from their village back home.
Today the shelter is even busier than normal;
it is the scene of intense marriage negotiations. Dil Mohammed, who used to
live near Zaheda’s village in Myanmar, has two sons, Yaseen, 20, and Mohashan,
19, and has travelled across the camp with his wife to discuss a match with
Gulsar and Abeda. “My sons are very good and handsome and…” Mohammed pauses for
dramatic effect. “They went to school. They are literate.”
Zaheda is open to the suggestion – she has
known the boys since they were very young. “They are good. Their manners are
good,” she says. But the Begums can’t afford the 40,000 taka (£370) dowry. They
had been quite well off in Myanmar. “We had 25 acres of land, 12 cows, six
goats and lots of chickens,” Zaheda says. Now they have nothing.
“Whatever they give we will accept,
willingly, happily,” Mohammed says. My interpreter is doubtful: she’s seen
conversations like this before. “That is what he says, but I don’t think he
will accept anything less than the full amount,” she says. Nothing is agreed
today. Zaheda cooks Mohammed and his wife treats – noodles and lentils – before
they head back to their shelter. “By God’s grace I will come back,” Mohammed
says.
Abeda sits quietly on the floor of the
makeshift kitchen. She has long chestnut hair, and appears unruffled despite
the heat. In Myanmar she studied Burmese and Arabic (at school until the age of
12, then at home) and liked to do embroidery. Gulsar is smiley and giggly as
she peels potatoes. Abeda explains how difficult it is for an unmarried
Rohingya woman to go outside without a burqa – “because men see us,
unprotected”. At home they had the freedom of high fences and their own land.
“We could grow vegetables and pick chillies.” Here, they stay hidden away. “I
don’t really do anything. I just sit here. I wake up. I do chores. I pray five
times a day and that’s it.” Of the many essentials NGOs have to supply – clean
water, a sanitation system, food – burqas are high on the list.
Outside, meanwhile, the expansion and
restructuring never seem to end. After the emergency phase came women-only
spaces, makeshift cafes, barber shops, ramshackle market stalls where you can
buy limes, potatoes, fish. Vegetables and herbs grow in every conceivable
space. But there is a big problem. Because of the enormous, all-at-once influx,
about 4,000 acres of forest near the Teknaf wildlife sanctuary and Himchari
national park had to be cut down to build the camp. Many shelters are stacked
on steep slopes of unstable earth.
In June, the UNHCR warned that the Rohingya
are “living on sandcastles”, with up to 200,000 refugees at risk from flooding
and landslides during the monsoon season, which runs from June to September.
When I visit in July one person has died in a
mudslide, and the monsoon rains have caused a new road built by the Bangladeshi
government to crumble and crack. Oxfam has begun decommissioning and replacing
nearly 500 toilets (including those built by other organisations) because they
are leaning over dangerously, or at risk of flooding or sliding into ravines.
About 15,000 refugees are being moved to a safer, flood-free area, while every
day vehicles get stuck in the mud. In the mornings the road into the camp is a
gridlock of NGO staff in their SUVs, overloaded sedans, tuk-tuks and water
trucks. Residents tell me about other, unexpected fatalities: part of the camp
sits on historic elephant migration corridors between Bangladesh and Myanmar,
and 10 people have been trampled to death.
Then there are the infectious diseases:
diphtheria (42 deaths in six months, according to the World Health
Organisation, and 6,800 suspected cases) and acute diarrhoea (3,336 cases in
July alone). I meet a young Rohingya woman who had decided to go barefoot
rather than lose her shoes to the mud. The mud carried bad bacteria; she has an
infected foot and is now limping.
The camp is poorly lit at night, and many NGO
workers fear that the chaos has opened up new opportunities for sexual
predators. Floriane Echegut, protection coordinator for Oxfam, works closely
with the women in the camp. “There are no doors on the shelters. It’s dark, so
people can go freely and cannot be recognised.” She says there have been reports
of harassment, rape, sexual assault, human trafficking. “Of course when we go
to the bathroom we are afraid,” Abeda says. The communal wash rooms are a short
walk away. Zaheda worries, too. She always accompanies her daughters,
especially at night.
The roots of the Rohingya crisis are
centuries old. Evidence of the ethnic group in Rakhine state stretch back to
the eighth century. The population was significantly boosted when the British
took over what was then known as Burma in the 19th century and brought
thousands of workers from elsewhere in the colonies to farm the land in
Rakhine, which had some of the most fertile rice paddies in Asia. The Rohingya
were always keen to be considered distinct from the other communities in a
country that is home to 135 ethnic groups. They dreamed of an independent,
Muslim state; many believed the British would give it to them in exchange for
political support. When they sided with the British during the second world
war, and fought against mostly Buddhist Burmese nationalists, the animosity
between the communities became entrenched.
When Burma became independent in 1948, the
country’s ethnic groups scrambled to find their places in the new nation. The
Rohingya held on to their government posts (a reward from the British), and
campaigned for the autonomous state they felt they had been promised. But the
Burmese authorities rejected their request. In 1962 a military coup ushered in
a new era of repressive nationalism and brutality. The Rohingya were seen as
having benefited from colonial rule, and were declared illegal immigrants.
Nur Begum was born just after independence,
but her family was far removed from the politics of Rangoon and the world
beyond. She grew up as the second of 10 children in a remote village in Rakhine
state. They had their own land to farm, their own cows to herd. They grew
potatoes, beans, lentils, chillies, watermelon. “We had a beautiful life,” she
says.
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Nur went to a madrasa set up by her
grandfather when she was eight, and married at 12. Amir Hussein was the only
son of a wealthy farmer who lived in a nearby village. Their wedding was an
ostentatious affair. Nur was decked out in gold bridal jewellery: a nose ring,
a nose pin, an ear cuff and stud earrings, a necklace with 22 gold beads, and
16 bangles – eight on each wrist. “I was very little and it was very heavy,”
she says, smiling at the memory. Anwar was born when she was 20; she went on to
have two more sons and two daughters.
In 1978, the government launched Operation
Nagamin, a campaign to identify illegal foreigners. “The military were doing
background checks on us,” Nur says. “They were asking us lots of questions.”
Human rights groups also cited unlawful killings, rape, arrests and the
destruction of homes. The Begums – Nur, Amir and the three children they had at
the time – fled to Bangladesh, where they stayed for nine months, before the
Burmese government agreed to the community’s repatriation.
In 1982 the government cemented its stance
with the Burma Citizenship Law: anyone whose ancestors settled in Burma after
1823 (around the beginning of the British occupation) could not be a citizen.
The repression intensified. Rohingya property was impounded. The military took
land from the Begums. “We had to sell most of the jewellery to feed the
children,” Nur says. Rohingya could no longer attend the best schools, or move
freely – within Rakhine state, to other parts of the country, even abroad.
Men were forced into hard labour; Nur’s
husband had to carry rice sacks to the military barracks. “Every time they came
to get him he would run away. When they could not get him, they would take our
biggest cow. If we wanted it back, we’d have to pay.” In 1991 Operation Pyi
Thaya (Clean and Beautiful Nation) triggered another wave of persecution. Nur’s
husband died two years later – weakened, she believes, by the hard labour.
Myanmar’s military junta officially disbanded
in 2011, but the civilian-led government that replaced it continued to demonise
the Rohingya, fuelled by the anti-Muslim prejudices of the country’s dominant
ethnic group, the Bamars; nearly 90% of the country is Buddhist. The government
(still dominated by the armed forces) and the majority of the Burmese people
saw the Rohingya as a foreign group with a separatist agenda, driven by
Islamism and funded from overseas. “They thought we were terrorists,” Nur says.
The Begums were forbidden to leave their village without paying a fee. “There
was a curfew between 6pm and 6am. If we were caught outside during those hours,
we would be beaten,” says Zaheda. “We were not allowed to turn the lights on in
the evening. We ate every meal in the dark.” Military vehicles became a local
fixture and foreboding filled the air. Men started to go missing; Nur’s oldest
granddaughter, Rojia, 25, last saw her husband when he went for a walk after
lunch last August. “He went out to get some fresh air and they [the military]
picked him up. I think he is dead,” Rojia says.
On 25 August 2017, Rohingya militants
attacked army and police posts, killing 12 members of the security forces. The
subsequent crackdown was brutal. Médecins Sans Frontières estimated that at
least 6,700 Rohingya were killed in one month alone. Satellite images showed
that more than 200 Rohingya villages were incinerated. In 2017, the UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights called it a “textbook example of ethnic
cleansing”. This week, the UN released a report describing the situation as “a
catastrophe looming for decades”, the result of “severe systemic and
institutionalised oppression from birth to death”. It called for the
international criminal court to investigate the Myanmar army for genocide and
crimes against humanity.
When the army came, the Begums had buried the
last pieces of Nur’s bridal jewellery on their farm. “If the military got to
know anyone had any gold they would take it away,” Nur says. They didn’t have
time to dig it up before they fled. “We heard the army came with bulldozers.”
In every shelter, there are stories of
personal horror. Abdu, 27, a farmer, tells me about being shot while hiding in
the hills after the military torched his house. “The army started shooting
randomly,” he says. A bullet went through his pectoral muscle, into his upper
arm – and then “into my neighbour”. He doesn’t know if the wound was fatal. “We
had to leave him.”
Another man, Sikandar, 27, cries as he tells
me what happened to his family last year. He got up to go to the mosque and saw
the army waiting in the bushes; the military had taken to arriving on foot
rather than by truck, “so people don’t know they are coming”. He ran back into
the house and woke his wife and two children. He grabbed his 16-month-old son;
his wife was behind with their daughter. They firebombed the house and then
shot at Sikandar. “The baby was in my arms. I dropped him. When I looked up, I
saw they were throwing the baby into the fire.” He sobs. “I remember it every
night when I try to sleep.”
The trauma in the camp is incalculable. And
as time has gone on, many women have faced an additional problem: their
husbands abandoning them. Nur’s youngest daughter, Rashida, 25, lives in the
southern part of the camp with her four children, the oldest seven, the
youngest just six months. Soon after they arrived 10 months ago, her husband,
Jamir, a former shopkeeper, said he needed to leave the camp to look for a job.
(Although the Bangladeshi government does not permit refugees to work, many do
in the black economy.) Jamir disappeared. Rashida eventually learned that he’d
gone to live with a woman he’d met on a previous trip to Bangladesh. He had
married her, and they had a 10-year-old daughter. “When he calls me, he yells
at me. He doesn’t want to be with me,” she says.
She has stopped thinking he will return. She
no longer has the energy to fight. “I have to do all the work because I don’t
have a choice,” she says. “When I get the rations I cannot carry them all here,
so I have to sell some of the food and then hire someone to carry it for me.”
One in six families on the camp are headed by single mothers whose husbands are
missing or dead, according to Oxfam.
The refugee crisis, meanwhile, shows no sign
of ending. In a speech on 21 August, Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s de facto
leader, defended her government’s handling of the Rohingya. “We, who are living
through the transition in Myanmar, view it differently than those who observe
it from the outside and who will remain untouched by its outcome,” she said.
She did not name the Rohingya, but said: “The danger of terrorist activities,
which was the initial cause of events leading to the humanitarian crisis in
Rakhine, remains real and present today.” She offered “deep sympathy and
concern for all displaced persons, especially the women and children”. But she
would not be drawn into setting a timetable for the crisis to be resolved.
Potential resettlement sites have been mapped out in Myanmar since January, but
human rights groups are concerned about the safety of returning Rohingya.
The Rohingya are stuck in no man’s land.
Illegal foreigners in Bangladesh; illegal foreigners in Myanmar. But somehow
daily life goes on. “What is the use of worrying about the future?” Rashida
asks. “I have to take care of myself and my children.”
• Names have been
changed. Sally Williams travelled with Oxfam. For more on its work supporting
Rohingya refugees, go to oxfam.org.uk/rohingya
