Rohingya refugees to get housing & police protection; Centre's massive U-turn

Rohingya refugees to get housing & police protection; Centre's massive U-turn

Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri in a tweet came down hard at those trying to link India’s refugee policy to the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019.

FPJ Web DeskUpdated: Wednesday, August 17, 2022, 01:00 PM IST
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Rohingya refugees at a relief camp in Bangladesh | Andrew McConnell via UNHCR

Around 1,100 Rohingya staying in tents will soon be shifted into flats equipped with basic facilities and round-the-clock security in New Delhi, said officials on Tuesday.

The decision was taken after a high-level meeting over the accommodation of Rohingya in the national capital was held.

The meeting was chaired by the Chief Secretary of Delhi and was attended by senior officials of the Delhi government, Delhi Police and Ministry of Home Affairs.

“These refugees will soon be shifted to New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) flats in Bakkarwala village of Outer Delhi. There is a total of 250 flats belonging to the Economic Weaker Section (EWS) category where all 1,100 Rohingyas, currently residing in the Madanpur Khadar camp, will be accommodated,” said a senior official to news agency ANI.

In the meeting, Delhi Police were instructed to provide security to the premises where these flats are located and the Social Welfare department of the Delhi Government had been ordered to ensure basic facilities like a fan, three times meals, landline phone, television and recreational facilities in the new campus.

In addition, all Rohingya who will be shifted to these flats hold the unique ID of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and their details are on record.

Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri hails decision

Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Wednesday applauded the decision taken by the central government to shift Rohingya refugees staying in tents to flats equipped with basic facilities and round-the-clock security.

He also said that India has always welcomed those who have sought refuge in the country and termed the move as a landmark decision.

Puri in a tweet said, "India has always welcomed those who have sought refuge in the country. In a landmark decision all #Rohingya #Refugees will be shifted to EWS flats in Bakkarwala area of Delhi. They will be provided basic amenities, UNHCR IDs & round-the-clock @DelhiPolice protection."

Rohingya: The victims of genocide and ethnic cleansing

In 2015, tens of thousands of Rohingya people were forcibly displaced from their villages and IDP camps in Rakhine State, Myanmar, due to sectarian violence.

Some fled to neighbouring Bangladesh, but most travelled to Southeast Asian countries including Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand by rickety boats via the waters of the Strait of Malacca, Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea.

When hundreds of thousands of terrified Rohingya refugees began flooding onto the beaches and paddy fields of southern Bangladesh in August 2017, it was the children who caught many people’s attention.

As the refugees – almost 60 per cent of whom were children – poured across the border from Myanmar into Bangladesh, they brought with them accounts of the unspeakable violence and brutality that had forced them to flee.

By June 2022, Bangladesh was hosting around 929,000 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar in 33 camps in Cox’s Bazar District and Bhasan Char island, around half of them children. Those fleeing attacks and violence in the 2017 exodus joined around 300,000 people already in Bangladesh from previous waves of displacement, effectively forming the world’s largest refugee camp.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a new threat to these overcrowded conditions. Many refugees live in flimsy bamboo and tarpaulin shelters where the dangers of everyday life remain all too real.

Victims of sexual violence

Last month, Indian authorities opened an investigation into a scheme that they said was trafficking Rohingya girls on an industrial scale.

Six men have been arrested over what India’s National Investigation Agency said was a “well-designed larger conspiracy to exploit the illegal migrants and also to destabilize the population ratio and demographic scenario of the country.”

This network is claimed to span multiple cities from the border with Bangladesh to Jammu in the country’s far north.

The NIA alleged that this trafficking operation took girls directly from refugee camps in Bangladesh, where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have been trapped since 2017, when they were expelled from Myanmar by that country’s army in a campaign of genocide and forcible ethnic cleansing.

Ever since, the Rohingya have been confined and without economic opportunities, unable to return because of the state of war Myanmar has been in since then, while also denied the legal documents to allow them to return.

Indian authorities say that the Rohingyas were trafficked on faked passports and under false pretenses. They suffered what authorities called “various types of exploitation,” with underage girls sent to a client by Bapan Ahmed Choudhury — one of the ringleaders — eliciting a complaint, after which Choudhury is alleged to have sent other women to replace them.

These things are horrific, but they are not uncommon results of expulsion and genocide.

Refugees have few legal protections and little physical security. They are not watched closely for their own safety. In camps, they languish and, as reports indicate, Rohingya in India have been arrested while attempting to illegally travel to Bangladesh and vice versa.

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