The set of pictures below are by Rajib Islam, one of the duckrabbit’s greatest friends, an amazingly talented man, a true gent and one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. If you ever need a good man in Bangladesh, or anywhere, he is it. How’s that for an intro Rajib? (DW)
About 27,000 rohingyas living in this camp, remains unregistered by the Bangladeshi government since 1992.
The parents send their daughter to someone's house as a servant.
People are dying without any identity in the camp.
They live very inhuman life. There is no sanitary toilet.
....still the sun smile to the camp.
When I first visited the camp in Kutupalong, I saw that the area where they are living in a slum is so dirty that no human being can live in such a place.
Parents even cannot give their child one meal a day. Besides every year the number is increasing for the high birth rate.
Still there is some smile
Abu Sayed is lying in the bed for three months as he got a serious car accident and has no money for his treatment.
Rosana went outside the camp to collect wood for cooking. She was beaten so badly by the BDR that she can't walk now.
Modina khatun is waiting for her husband because her husband went to work and he is missing for 5 days. She doesn't know if he is alive or died.
Most of the children living there, are suffering from malnutrition.
Some background:
When I first visited the camp in Kutupalong, I saw that the area where they are living, making a small slum, is so dirty that no human being can live in that place. In a 8′ X 6′ house more than five people are sleeping and there is no sanitary toilet there. Hundreds of people are waiting to go to their work. But they can’t because the Police and BDR (Border military) are arresting the unregistered people. And they are pushing them back to the Myanmar side. Butte Myanmar military (NASAKA) shoot if they find any people crossing the border. These people have nowhere to go. They have no food, no land and no identity.
Waiting to be registered:
They have to flee from their own country. They have no food, no work, no land and…… no Help. Because they are ethnic minority, they are Muslim, they are unregistered Rohigyas. Specially unregistered Rohingyas, are in a dual trap, in Myanmar Nasaka (Myanmar Military) will not allow them in their own homeland and in Bangladesh they have no identity.
Now two to three lac Rohingyas are living in Bangladesh who have fled from Myanmar due to persecution. About 32 thousand of them are registered. They are supported by the Bangladesh government’s Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner [RRRC] and the United Nations High Commissioners for Refugees [UNHCR]. But the other two and half lac unregistered Rohingyas do not know where to go for help, for food, for work to survive.
Thousands of unregistered Rohingya refugees have flocked to the Kutupalong makeshift camp in Tekhnaf, hoping for recognition and assistance. Instead of help, local authorities have told them to leave the place, unregistered cannot live beside the official camp. Nor can they legally live in a place adjacent to forestry department land. So where to go?
In a very dirty place, too hard for a human being to live, thousands of unregistered Rohingyas are living in a slum in Kutupalong, I saw. In a 8×6 feet house more than five people are sleeping. Parents even cannot give their child one meal in a day. Besides every year the number is increasing for the high birth rate. There is no family planning, as there is no education. Children only go to Madrasa for religious education. There is no sanitary toilet here. No source of water. Recently they somehow manage only one tube well. No medical help. They die without any kind of treatment. Even if people die they don’t know where to burry it. Hundreds of people are waiting to go outside the camp for a work. Some of them go for work like as a day labor in wholesale fish market, in a fish trawler or rickshaw puller. But it is very risky, the police and border military BDR are arresting unregistered Rohingyas. And they are pushing unregistered people back to Myanmar. But the Myanmar military Nasaka will shoot if they find any people crossing the border. So, no where to go.
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Amazing photographs!
the light int he second one is just incredible
The pictures are beautiful and a credit to human resilience. Why are these people not getting registered? because of their ethnicity?
it’s really sad. maybe it’s because the Bangladesh authorities don’t want to take responsibility for them…sees them as refugees.
there’s a similar (yet also very different) situation with another group of people over there as well, the Biharis, or stranded Pakistanis. They’ve been there since partition in 1948 but have no legal status or right to anything http://www.countercurrents.org/ghazali191209.htm
a terrible predicament for both the Biharis and the Rohingyas
Great work. Human being dignified even in such desperate conditions.
this issue is covered by the BBC today http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8521280.stm
A great set of photos. Insightful and touching. I will indeed spread the word.
Thanks Rob, Rajib had funded this work himself. Its so difficult to be a local photographer and get support for this kind of work, but I believe that what he is doing is really special.
Oh, and if you are interested in the repression of Burma’s ethnic groups then check out this Amnesty report that was published last week.
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/report/myanmar-urged-end-repression-ethnic-minorities-elections-20100216
[...] posted this on March 23rd, 2010 I need to quickly add that the name of Rajib Islam is missing. Without Rajib we would never have made this journey. We will get that changed as soon [...]