Surviving the camps

Nearly a million Rohingya were expelled from Myanmar last year, forced to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh. The Rohingya tribe, a Muslim ethnic group, has settled for centuries in the Burmese-Bengali Border area, yet in the past 70 years they have been repeatedly targeted by Myanmar’s army. After the pogroms of 1978 and 1991, when half a million Rohingya were expelled, the persecution reached a new low point in August 2017, when about 800,000 Rohingya were forced to flee the country. Nearly a million people have settled in camps in Bangladesh in the last year and a half, in appalling conditions, with no permanent structures; rampant crime, and no running water or electricity.

Members of staff from Jesuit Missions Germany recently visited a camp and witnessed a human tragedy on what they perceived to be an unprecedented scale. Francis Dores, SJ, one of 13 Jesuits in Bangladesh, led the visiting group, along with Father Stan Fernandes, SJ, Director of Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) South Asia, and local staff of Caritas.

The government of the emerging, but still poor and extremely densely populated land, spends minimal money on the Rohingya. Apart from settling a quota of 100,000 refugees on an uninhabited, swampy island 30 miles off the coast, “which the military is equipping with huts,” reports Stan Fernandes, infrastructure in the existing camps is exclusively set up by non-governmental aid organizations. On one of the hills a little white flag with the logo of the local Caritas. Next to it three bamboo huts, covered with planning of the UN refugee agency UNHCR. “The government does not allow fixed houses”, explains Francis. The Bengali authorities want the Rohingya to go back as soon as possible. Therefore, two of the huts may not officially be called “school”: Twenty children, one boys’ and one girls’ group between 12 and 16 years, sit here with their Bengali teachers on plastic carpets in two “Child Friendly Spaces “(CFS).  Though not officially ‘schools,’ The CFS are places not only to discuss, play and draw, but also to learn Burmese and English, but not Bengal. “This regulation has been set up by the Bengal government to make the Rohingya to return to Myanmar as soon as possible”, explains Francis.

Cooperation amongst the aid organisations is critical to the well-being of the refugees in the camp. Working together, JRS and Caritas have been able to supply vital items like gas cartridges; a reforestation project; a Mental Health Psycho-Social Support (MHPSS) project for women, and the CFS which helped to put an end to child labour that saw children collecting firewood all day. There are currently six Child Friendly Spaces, where over 1,800 children assemble in different groups twice a week for two hours; five more are in the works.  In order to prepare the 40 Bengali Caritas employees for their tasks, Stan Fernandes and Caritas leader Francis Atul Sarker have established an exemplary partnership, in which Godfrey Ogena, Project Director of JRS East Africa, conducts their training sessions in the coastal town of Cox’s Bazar.

To make the camps safer, JRS and Caritas have also established a lighthouse project, in which 300 solar lanterns have been installed at the edges of the road, and in front of wells and toilets. Participants in one of the women’s projects say it has become more “peaceful” and “safer.” According to tradition, women would never leave their houses alone but now they feel much safer to do so.

In the CFS group with the youngest children, comprised of 4 to 6 year olds, the hope for a better future is most noticeable. While in the first months in the camps, the children painted images of weapons, death and violence, their images have changed a lot over time to represent flowers, colorful patterns and houses. That they are able to imagine hope, points to the direct impact that the work JRS and Caritas together are making on this marginalised population.

Photos: Christian Ender