In early September, a group of Rohingya Muslims crossed the Bangladesh border and proceeded with their new life challenges. Over the decades, they have been raped, tortured, and displaced from Myanmar in appalling conditions. The fierce conflict between Rohingya militants and security forces in Myanmar has resulted in devastating consequences: villages torched to the ground and hundreds of people killed for no reason. The Rohingya have no choice but move between different countries, however, it is difficult for these nations to accept them as legal citizens. In this case, they have been coerced to work illegally and have no right to claim lands, in accordance with CNN and HuffPost. Azeem Ibrahim, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Policy, even describes this Muslim ethnic minority group as “the most oppressed people in the world.” Meanwhile, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, condemns the military clampdown on such minority group and regards it as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing.”
The Rohingya belong to Myanmar’s many ethnic minorities. It is said that they are descendants of different groups of people that have lived in such a place for generations. However, the nation’s government does not agree, denies them citizenship, and views them as immigrants who are illegal and come from Bangladesh. However, Bangladesh does not consider this group to be Bangladeshi. What’s worse, other countries in South East Asia have also been unwelcoming. In 2015, the minority group were ping-ponged between Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, which caused them to be stranded at sea in this region. Fortunately, civilians in Indonesia responded differently and supported the Rohingya through regular protests, since this nation has a certain population of Muslims and the Rohingya issue resonated in their context. In fact, the lack of international response has been criticized by activists. Some of which see the issue as South East Asia’s version of the Srebrenica massacre, which involved the massacre of over 8,000 Bosnian Muslims under the protection of the United Nations and thus violated human rights heavily in July 1995, according to BBC and CNN.
Recently, it has been reported by the UN and Al Jazeera that, more than 400,000 of the Rohingya have fled from their home country to Bangladesh, because of the violence erupting in Buddhist-dominated Myanmar’s Rakhine state on August 25th. In this process, the Rohingya people continued with their long and exhausting journey for safety and security in Bangladeshi refugee camps. They are living under poor conditions in terms of physical and mental health after the terrible ordeal. This can be seen prominently in the statements by the UN Refugee Agency. As a result, the enormous numbers of people involved in this humanitarian crisis are overwhelming Bangladesh, which led to its leader turn to the U.S.A. for help and effective solutions. At the same time, protests across the globe arose which intended to revoke the Nobel Peace Prize granted to Myanmar’s de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, since she has not proposed specific policies to protect the Rohingya people from the intensive fight and slaughter, as The Washington Post puts it. The South African social rights activist Desmond Tutu also comments on this situation by saying, “if the political price of your ascension to the highest office in Myanmar is your silence, the price is surely too steep.” Nevertheless, according to the Guardian, the leader and her National League for Democracy party “have publicly and privately aligned themselves with the army that harangued and imprisoned them for half a century.”
At present, the UNHCR is working tirelessly to provide enough assistance and support for the new arrivals. The organization has assisted in registration and the provision of lifesaving aid such as food, water, shelter and healthcare. Other kinds of help like airlifts of vital aid have also started but need more funds and finance from across the world. In this case, everyone from politicians to ordinary people should give a hand to the peace and progress of the community of Rohingya Muslims. Moreover, Myanmar and Bangladesh need to pay more attention to effectively deal with such a serious crisis.
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