daily obsever
Op-Ed
Dr Azeem Ibrahim
Published : Wednesday, 12 April, 2023
The
Rohingya refugee crisis is not over. Rohingyas fled Myanmar in 2017 and
afterwards, attempting to escape the genocidal advance of the country's
military. It burned their homes. It razed their villages. And it killed
whomever it could find.
More
than 700,000 people were forced from the country. It was an exodus not
seen in more than 50 years of refugee movement by the Rohingya out of
Myanmar. They had been persecuted openly since the 1970s, but never so
viciously as in the stage of the genocide from 2017 on.
The
Washington Post reports that Rohingya women, especially, are attempting
to pay smugglers to take them and their children away from the camps in
Cox's Bazar.
Using
UN statistics, the Post estimates that more than 3,500 Rohingya have
attempted to flee their confinement in 2022, which represents a fivefold
increase from the year before: Tellingly, this is the largest number of
Rohingya attempting to leave Bangladesh or any country since the mass
movement under threat of violence in 2017.
They
wish to move on because the refugee camps in Cox's Bazar are not just
inadequate: They are horrific. The adults cannot work - at least
legally, so they must resort to the illicit economy. The children are
malnourished and risk famine. Bangladeshi authorities are prone to turn
blind eyes to gang activity in the camp, and the illegal use of
trafficked Rohingya labor in India and Bangladesh itself.
This
is not a place the Rohingya mothers wish their children to grow up - a
camp out of place and out of time, where safe return home is a distant
and unlikely dream. And there is another thing. All the while, the
military junta that controls the government of Myanmar is determined to
get the Rohingya back under its control.
Ever
since the coup in 2021, the junta has attempted to govern Myanmar
through force. It has fought ever since a brutal civil war against the
supporters of the ousted civilian government, and various ethnic parties
and militias. In a war of all against all, the military has proven
itself savage and violent.
This
is the government that attempts to recover the Rohingya refugees; it is
made up of the very people, and the very military structures, which
committed genocide against the Rohingya in 2017. The Rohingya know what
they most fear - being repatriated to an unsafe country under the firm
control of the military that wishes not just to do them harm, but to
finish the job of exterminating them.
And
yet this is what is at risk of happening. The military authorities have
repeatedly attempted to negotiate repatriations with the Bangladesh
government. In the most recent version of this deal, the first list
submitted by the junta to Bangladeshi authorities includes more than
1,100 names.
Bangladeshi
authorities say that they are close to clearing everyone on this list
for repatriation. They make no mention of the fact that in doing so, the
Bangladeshi state is placing these people once more in the lions' den.
So this is why Rohingya mothers once again consider the dangerous
prospect of attempting to transport their children over unsafe waters in
unsound craft. They cannot stay where they are; they cannot go back in
peace.
The
international community may feel impotent when confronted with this
challenge. The junta appears to be going nowhere: Myanmar's civil war is
complex, and it is also largely hidden from global view. The world
cannot affect its outcome.
But
it can ensure justice for the Rohingya by other means. The legal
challenge mounted in the International Criminal Court by Gambia is
slowly moving on. It accuses the previous and current Myanmar
authorities of genocide against the Rohingya. It has profound
implications.
If
the Myanmar military were to be found guilty and liable, persecution of
the Rohingya would be made more difficult. International agencies and
the international community has the means and the incentive - the
obligation - to protect the Rohingya with more energy and certainty. But
that effort needs to be sustained. It cannot happen by itself.
If
ever a new reason to support justice for all in Myanmar has emerged in
the long years since the exodus in 2017, a new refugee crisis is it. The
world did its best in 2017 to avert a worse genocide and to solve a
pressing refugee crisis. Now is the time to do what it can to ensure the
same, and to pursue justice wherever it can be found.
Source: ARAB NEWS
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