This content was published on January 18, 2023 – 10:27 am January 18, 2023 – 10:27 am
Dhaka, 18 January (EFE).- Bangladeshi Rohingya refugees this Wednesday demanded their repatriation to Burma (Myanmar) with full rights as the only viable solution, in response to the UNHCR report published the previous day, which preceded it At least 348 members of this minority died in 2022 while crossing the sea in search of a better future.
The vast majority of these trips started in Bangladesh, home to around 925,000 Rohingya refugees who have fled since the Burmese army began operations in 2017 and live in overcrowded refugee camps with few rights.
“It’s been five years since you’ve been here. Things are getting tighter by the day. They have no financial independence and aid is being cut. There is no access to formal education. They think they have no future. Your life is stagnant. That is why many of them are taking this risk,” Rohingya activist Rezia Sultana told EFE.
“They think they will die here or there. Until they are repatriated to Myanmar, they will continue to think life is better elsewhere,” he added.
In addition to the deaths of 348 Rohingyas on these perilous journeys of thousands of kilometers, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported a drastic increase in the number of people making these journeys, from around 700 refugees in 2021 to more than 3,500 last year.
“A PRISON”
Hatamonesa and her five-year-old daughter, Umme Salima, were two of the Rohingya refugees who made one of those long sea voyages last year aboard one of the many overcrowded and weak boats.
“They made the journey knowing the risks because there was no life for the Rohingya here. For us it is an open-air prison. We must return to Myanmar with full rights or settle in a third country for a better life.” He told EFE his brother Ruzuwan Khan.
The two began the journey last November, she recalled, after spending more than five years in a refugee camp, where Hatamonesa arrived after being abandoned by her husband in Myanmar in 2016.
After giving a smuggler 100,000 taka (approx.
“The traffickers didn’t tell us anything at first. You tried to resolve the matter yourself. But when things got out of hand, they informed us on December 4 to draw the attention of the international community,” he said.
It took Hatamonesa and her daughter a month to disembark on the Indonesian coast with prior permission from the authorities, accompanied by more than a hundred Rohingya refugees like them.
But there were already many fewer on board after 26 people drowned when they jumped into the sea hoping one of the passing ships would rescue them, Khan said.
The human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) has reiterated that the best way to stop these types of desperate trips is to begin their safe repatriation to Burma as soon as possible.
However, two previous attempts to allow Rohingya refugees to return to Myanmar have failed as members of this ethnic minority have refused to return without guarantees of citizenship and security
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