Who are the Rohingyas

Who are the Rohingyas
21-February 2018 2.00

The Life And Exodus Of Rohingyas

The killing and the diaspora of hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas is, today, known to be the world’s fastest growing refugee crisis. As we have heard and seen in news, there have been mass murders, rapes, villages have been gutted and people have been dragged out of their homes and the reasons for all of these monstrous acts is Religion. Lets understand the whole issue first.

Who are the Rohingyas?

Rohingyas, most of them belonging to Muslim community, are the people who used to live in Rakhine state of Myanmar. The whole community started to flee the country a few years ago following the communal tensions and killings in the Rohingya areas.

Why did the exodus happen?

The government of Myanmar, basically a Buddhist country, doesn’t recogonise Rohingyas as their citizens and rather claim that they are illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh. The Rohingya suppression took a violent turn on 2012 when the groups of both Buddhist and Muslim Community engaged in riots. Buddhists being a majority in Myanmar forced the exodus to begin and in the same year people started to move out of their area and settled in displacement camps or far flung areas. In 2014, even the government decided to take a step and excluded them from census of 2014. The government issued a statement that the Rohingyas are not their citizens and are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. The Rohingyas, who have their own culture and language, claim that they are the descendants of the businessmen of Myanmar and have been there for quite a long time. The exclusion of the Rohingya population led to rise of terrorist and rebel organisations who took up guns and violence for the Rohingya Rights. An attack on the Myanmar Army posts by the rebels gave rise to a state of anger in the army and then the army launched an all-out operation and went on a rampage, destroying what came on the way. There were cases of rape, burning, systematic murder and many heinous activities. This led to mass movement of Rohingyas fleeing to India, Bangladesh and other neighboring states.

What is the today’s scenario?

The Rohingyas, today, have been left stateless as their own country has disowned them. They forcibly had to seek refuge and are currently living in refugee camps in India and Bangladesh mostly. There are no chances that the Myanmar government is taking them back anytime soon. The United Nations have recognized the Rohingya Refugee Crisis as the fastest growing refugee crisis and a textbook example of ethnic cleansing. The crisis has received negative criticism from every part of the world.The communal discrimination against the Rohingya community has left them living in dishonorable conditions, with limited access to schools, services, food, healthcare and jobs. Around 900,000 people have already entered Bangladesh and over 1000 have been killed so far. Around 288 villages of Rohingyas have been partially or fully destroyed.

There have been innumerable cases of human right violations and the stories of Rohingya population have been dreadful. The whole crisis is yet to be called a genocide but its not a bit less than one.

 

JAI HIND....