The Unwelcoming Committee

Source from Irrawaddy news magazine- Vol. 18, No. 9, September 2010 

 

Resentment of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh is giving rise to highly organized and increasingly vocal resistance to their presence

 

Sitting on a dusty balcony outside the local district office in Ukhia in southern Bangladesh, a group of smartly dressed men take turns speaking their mind. One man, taller than the average Bangladeshi, stands up. Throwing his fist in the air, he states the group’s objective.

Rohingya children in Bangladesh face a bleak future. (Photo: Yuzo/ The Irrawaddy)

“Those bloody naughty people, they destroy the environment, upset local law and order and sell drugs,” he says. “They must all go back to Burma.”

The rest of the group nod their heads and wave their hands to compete for the next opportunity to speak. Two things have brought this group of men together: grievances against Rohingya refugees who have settled in the area, and their powerful positions in the local community.

Together they have formed the Anti-Rohingya Resistance Committee, which has taken on the role of pressuring the government to repatriate Rohingya refugees to Burma. Despite their dedication to their cause, however, their goal remains highly ambitious and controversial.

Citing religious oppression in Burma, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees have fled to Bangladesh over the last three decades to seek asylum. Several times the Burmese government has made major pushes to flush the Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic minority, out of Burma’s Arakan State—the last one being in 1992.
Since then, the Bangladeshi government has allowed the United Nation’s refugee agency, the UNHCR, to register 28,000 Rohingya who fled before 1992 and provide them with shelter in two official camps. Despite growing domestic pressure to force them out of the country, a government official told The Irrawaddy, “The government remains committed to voluntary repatriation.”

A far larger problem is the status of a growing population of unregistered refugees who arrived after 1992. Settling in two camps—Kutupalong and Leda—which have evolved into slums of the official camps, these later arrivals are not permitted to receive humanitarian assistance. But as local communities intensify calls for their repatriation, the unrecognized refugees say it is becoming increasingly difficult for them to leave the camps to find food and work.

Crouched on the floor of her small mud hut, Aatika, a 27-year-old mother of four, described how she was recently beaten and robbed by locals as she was coming back to the camp after working outside for three days.
“They told me I should not be here, that we were taking all the local jobs,” she said as she tried to calm her crying child. “Then they beat me and took my money. It was terrible. We do not receive any rations, so I have to go outside to make money to feed my children.”
According to refugees in the unofficial camps, the attacks are becoming more frequent as resentment of their presence grows in Bangladesh. This has created a climate of fear among the refugees, who risk losing their earnings every time they return to the camp.

Before Aatika had finished speaking, a man began recalling his ordeal. Faced with severe food shortages in the camps, he traveled to work in a rubber plantation. After three weeks, he returned to the camp to give the money he had earned to his large family. Knowing that he might have problems going through local communities on the way back, he hid the money in his shirt collar.

But this did not help him when, as he approached the entrance to the camp, he was ambushed by five local Bangladeshi men armed with knives. They ordered him to hand over his money, ignoring his protestations that he didn’t have any. They searched him until they found it, and then beat him up for “wasting their time.”
His meager earnings taken from him, he had no money to feed his family or buy medicine for his sick second youngest child, who died soon afterward. Death among the weak has become a common occurrence in the unofficial camps, where a local leader said that at least six people die every day from malnutrition.

In February, the relief agency Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and other groups highlighted the effects of involuntary pushbacks by the Bangladeshi government, resulting in a dramatic reduction of cases of forcible repatriation. Now, however, refugees report that arrests and imprisonment are becoming more common—something many say they fear more than being forced back across the border.

“When we are sent back, we are tortured by the Burmese army, but at least we can come back here when they’re finished with us. But if we’re sent to prison, we could be there forever,” said one refugee.
Despite the conditions reported by the refugees, Hamil Chowdury, the secretary of the Anti-Rohingya Resistance Committee, expressed little sympathy. He said the Rohingya receive too much assistance, while locals receive nothing.

The unofficial Kutupalong camp is home to thousands of Rohingya refugees. (Photo: Yuzo/ The Irrawaddy)

Cox’s Bazar, the district where the refugee camps are located, is one of Bangladesh’s poorest areas. Resources are scarce in this extremely overpopulated region, and many locals struggle to find jobs themselves, said Chowdury, who described the refugees as nothing more than a burden.

“Our area is so poor already, we cannot look after more people, especially when they are involved in crime,” said Chowdury who has strong links with the ruling Awami League party.

According to Chris Lewa, the coordinator of the Arakan Project, a group that advocates for Rohingya rights, politics is fueling much of the current anti-refugee sentiment, as local politicians gear up for promised elections postponed since last year because of allegations that some candidates had registered Rohingyas as voters.
“The Rohingya issue is still used for propaganda purposes among candidates and for their electorate,” said Lewa, who added that most of the Rohingya have since been purged from voter lists.

Leaders of the Anti-Rohingya Resistance Committee, which recently submitted a petition to the government calling for the closure of all camps, said the group will take action if its demands are not met. They warned of demonstrations and hunger strikes, and threatened to block roads to prevent refugees leaving the camps.
“If they do take matters into their own hands, we are very concerned because increased restrictions would mean more and more deaths from starvation,” said one refugee leader.

Another issue that could add to the problems of undocumented refugees is a proposed plan to issue national ID cards to Bangladeshi citizens. Anti-Rohingya groups support the move, which they say would make it easier to determine “who should be sent back.”
Lewa said this is now one of the biggest problems facing the unofficial refugees, who often hide in local communities when conditions in the camps become unbearable.

“Undocumented people are easily singled out, targeted and taken advantage of by the police,” Lewa said. “My recommendation would be that the government register them, either as refugees or, at the very least, by giving them temporary stay or work permits.”
Meanwhile, the Anti-Rohingya Resistance Committee said that their efforts are gaining momentum and that local communities would soon rise up to get rid of the unwanted refugees.

It remains unclear, however, if this surge in anti-Rohingya feeling will pass after the elections, or if the UNHCR’s plan to provide US $33 million in aid for the local population will help to ease tensions. But in the meantime, the Rohingya refugees continue to face food shortages and endure the burden of being stateless and unwelcome in both Bangladesh or Burma.

Letter from America: Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh

Source from Asiantribune, 4 April 2010

By Dr. Habib Siddiqui

When a widely circulated newspaper like the New York Times picks up the matter of ill-treatment of the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, it is no small matter.

It is a matter of grievous concern and shame to tens of thousands of Bangladeshi-Americans who live in and around the Big Apple state.
In its February 20 publication the headline read, “Burmese Refugees Persecuted in Bangladesh.” It said, “Stateless refugees from Myanmar are suffering beatings and deportation in Bangladesh, according to aid workers and rights groups who say thousands are crowding into a squalid camp where they face starvation and disease.” It described the situation as a humanitarian crisis.

The NY Times report should come as no surprise to many of us who have been following the inhuman condition of the Rohingyas around the world for a number of years. In its Special Report, dated February 18, “Bangladesh: Violent Crackdown Fuels Humanitarian Crisis for Unrecognized Rohingya Refugees,” the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) criticized the Bangladesh government for violent crackdown against the stateless Rohingyas in Bangladesh.

It was a chastising report in which the MSF called for an immediate end to the violence, along with urgent measures by the Government of Bangladesh and the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to increase protection to Rohingya refugees seeking asylum in the country.
Last month the Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) issued an emergency report, “Stateless and Starving: Persecuted Rohingya Flee Burma and Starve in Bangladesh”. This report reveals a PHR emergency assessment of 18.3% acute malnutrition in children. This level of child malnutrition is “considered “critical” by the World Health Organization (WHO), which recommends in such crises that adequate food aid be delivered to the entire population to avoid high numbers of preventable deaths.”

The extreme food insecurity causing this critical level of malnutrition is the direct consequence of Bangladesh government authorities’ restricting movement and, therefore, income generation of the Rohingya, and actively obstructing the amount of international humanitarian aid to this population.

Last week, the American Muslim Taskforce (AMT), an umbrella organization that includes the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), amongst other Muslim organizations in the USA, hosted a press conference in the National Press Club, Washington D.C. to discuss human rights abuses in Bangladesh. In his inaugural statement, Mr. Wright Mahdi Bray of the AMT brought up the squalid living conditions of the Rohingya refugees inside Bangladesh. In the last few years we have raised the Rohingya issue a few times with Bangladesh government, but have failed to improve the deplorable condition.

Denied citizenship rights and subjected to repeated abuse and forced slave labor in their ancestral homes in the Arakan/Rakhine state of Burma by a xenophobic Buddhist government, where they cannot travel, marry or practice their religion freely, and betrayed and battered by their Magh Rakhine co-residents, many Rohingya Muslims have hardly any option left for them to survive with dignity other than seeking refuge outside. The neighboring Bangladesh to the north-west with her huge Muslim population and historical ties with Chittagong and Cox’s Bazar, dating back centuries earlier during the Arakanese rule of those districts (1538-1666), provides a natural setting for seeking shelter. Thus, when the Burmese genocidal campaigns – Naga Min (1978-79) and Pyi Thaya (1991-92) – forced eviction of some 300,000 and 268,000 Rohingya refugees, respectively, to seek shelter outside it was Bangladesh where they ended up.

With the assistance of the UNHCR, Bangladesh repatriated most of those refugees back to Arakan. Still, however, tens of thousands of Rohingyas never returned, especially from the second batch of major exodus in 1991-92. The on-going Nasaka operation and targeted violence by the Rakhine Maghs inside the Rakhine state have also forced many Rohingyas to leave their ancestral land and return again to Bangladesh. Many of those refugees have often used Bangladesh as a transit point to seek better shelters elsewhere. Many of the Rohingyas have ended up in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, and also in Pakistan.
As noted recently by Syed Neaz Ahmad in a New Age article, the late King Faisal’s kind gesture to offer the fleeing Rohingyas a permanent abode in Saudi Arabia is no longer respected by the new rulers who have restricted their employment and movement within the Kingdom.

According to him some three thousand Rohingya families are in Makkah and Jeddah prisons awaiting their deportation. It is good to hear that the Pakistan government has agreed to take these unwanted refugees. (Islamabad can also do a noble job, albeit a delayed one for the past four decades, in taking some 300,000 stranded Pakistanis – living a miserable life in camps in Bangladesh.)
There are some 13,600 Rohingyas registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Malaysia, an estimated 3,000 in Thailand, and unknown numbers in India.

Small number of Rohingya refugees also lives in Japan, Australia and the USA. The total number of Rohingya refugees living inside Bangladesh today is not known. The UNHCR stopped documenting the Rohingyas after 1991 as they shifted their focus to Africa and Eastern Europe. From my contacts within the Rohingya leadership, the estimate is around 400,000. Of these refugees, only 28,000 are recognized as prima facie refugees by the Government of Bangladesh and live in official camps under the supervision of the UNHCR. The official camp has everything: primary schools, a computer learning centre funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, health care centers, adult literacy centers, supplementary food centers for children and pregnant women.

Except a handful of wealthy Rohingyas who have been able to settle comfortably within the big cities, the rest of the refugees struggle to survive unrecognized and largely unassisted and unprotected, living in dire humanitarian condition with food insecurity, poor water and appalling sanitation. They live mostly in and around Cox’s Bazar and the Hilly districts of Chittagong.

Some of the unfortunate refugees have also ended up living in slums of big cities like Dhaka and Chittagong. As reported by the MSF and the Amnesty International, these Rohingya refugees are treated as unwanted folks and have faced repeated beatings and harassment, including forcible repatriation to Myanmar. Many refugees, who had been repatriated to their country in the past, had entered Bangladesh again as they did not find any development and change in the attitude of the Myanmar authorities.

Some Rohingya refugees live at a makeshift camp in Kutupalong, south of Cox’s Bazar. Last June and July the local authorities destroyed 259 homes in that makeshift camp to clear space around the perimeter of the official UNHCR camp at Kutupalong. There was a crackdown in October in Bandarban District, east of Cox’s Bazar, forcing many Rohigyas to take shelter in the makeshift camp in Kutupalong. In January 2010, another crackdown followed the refugees living in Cox’s Bazar District. To add to the brutality of the authorities, the Rohingyas also suffer at the hands of the local population, whose anti-Rohingya sentiment is fuelled by local leaders and the media.

This was not the first time that this kind of problem emerged for the fleeing Rohingyas. In 2002 during the police action “Operation Clean Heart” many Rohingyas were violently forced from their homes, which led to the establishment of the original Tal makeshift camp on a swamp-like patch of ground. This camp relocated, and in the spring of 2006 MSF started a medical program at the new site, where at the time around 5,700 unregistered Rohingya lived in awful, unsanitary conditions on a small strip of flood land in Teknaf in the Cox’s Bazar District. After two years of providing humanitarian assistance, and following strong advocacy by MSF, which ultimately gained the support of UNHCR and the international community, the Government of Bangladesh allocated new land in Leda Bazar for around 10,000 people in mid-2008. Less than one year later, nearly 13,000 people were living in Leda Bazar Camp, their fundamental living conditions having changed little. According to the MSF, these people continue to struggle to survive without recognition and opportunities to provide for themselves inside an increasingly hostile environment.

With a total population of over 28,400, the unregistered Rohingya at Kutupalong makeshift camp now outnumber the total registered refugee population supported by the UNHCR in Bangladesh. The Bangladesh government has repeatedly stopped registration of those unfortunate refugees living outside the official camps. Without official recognition these people are forced to live in overcrowded squalor, unprotected and largely unassisted. Prevented from supporting themselves, they also do not qualify for the UNHCR-supported food relief. And sadly, the UNHCR, which is mandated to protect refugees worldwide, makes little or no visible protest at the injustice of this situation.

According to the MSF, the UNHCR is guilty of not taking the return of the Rohingyas as a priority issue. The Office of the UNHCR must take greater steps to protect the unregistered Rohingya seeking asylum in Bangladesh. The UNHCR must not allow the terms of its agreement with the government to undermine its role as international protector of the Rohingyas who have lost the protection of their own state - Myanmar, and have no state to turn to. Any failure to protect the Rohingyas inside and outside Myanmar is simply not acceptable. We are told that as a poor country, Bangladesh faces a dilemma about the Rohingya refugees.
If she shows too much flexibility a huge influx may occur, while being harsh creates concern among international community. Nevertheless, Bangladesh government’s forced repatriation of the refugees against their wishes is simply inhuman and violates international humanitarian laws. It must be immediately stopped, failing which its international image may suffer terribly.

It must also stop all harassment against the Rohingyas. Temporary residency permits should be provided to the refugees so that they can earn their livelihood like any other Bangladeshi. There is nothing worse than a forced poverty which leads to crime and other serious problems.

Should the refugees choose to leave Bangladesh for a third country the government should not hinder that process either. It must also make all diplomatic efforts to find shelters for these stranded refugees in sparsely populated and prosperous countries of Europe and North America, and the Gulf states.

The Rohingya refugees remain trapped in a desperate situation with no future in Bangladesh. These unfortunate people are caught between a crocodile and a snake: neither the xenophobic SPDC regime wants them back in Myanmar, nor does the Bangladesh government want them to stay because they are largely perceived as a burden on already scant resources. Outside China, none of the neighboring countries of Burma has ratified the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, its 1967 Protocol, the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. This must change by ratifying those conventions.

As the Thai boat crisis of 2009 made clear, regional comprehensive solutions are needed to the situation of the stateless Rohingya. The international community must support the Government of Bangladesh and UNHCR to adopt measures to guarantee the unregistered Rohingya’s lasting dignity and well-being in Bangladesh.

[This article is co-authored with Dr. Nora Rowley, a medical doctor, who as part of MSF worked with the Rohingya people inside Arakan. She is currently affiliated with the US Campaign for Burma.]
- Asian Tribune

UN examines mistreatment of Muslims in Myanmar

Source from The National 23 Feb 2010

http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/asia-pacific/un-examines-mistreatment-of-muslims-in-myanmar

 

BANGKOK // A United Nations envoy has expressed deep concern about the persecution of Myanmar's Muslims by the authorities. "There is no doubt that there is severe discrimination of Muslims," the UN special rapporteur for human rights in Myanmar, Tomas Ojea Quintana, said after visiting the west of the country where Muslims are concentrated.

Tomas Quintana, UN special rapporteur for human

During his five-day mission, Mr Quintana, an Argentine former labour rights lawyer, visited Sittwe, capital of northern Rakhine state, and Buthidaung, one of the state's main towns and site of the most serious allegations of persecution and repression of the Muslims, often known as Rohingya. This is the first time a senior UN envoy has been allowed to visit this region although the UN and international aid organisations do have projects and people in the area.

"There have been many allegations levelled at the authorities, so it was important for me to be able to see the situation firsthand," he said. While he was there he also visited a prison, which was a real revelation, he said during an interview on the weekend. "The prison was full of women, some still nursing their young children," he said. Most had been charged with immigration offences and received sentences of up to five years. But human-rights groups believe they are victims of the government's ban on Muslims marrying.

"Men are often jailed for illegal marriages, but many, especially women, are arrested after travelling illegally [across the border] to Bangladesh to get married," said Chris Lewa, director of the Arakan Project, which monitors the situation of Rohingyas in the region. The UN envoy raised the issue of the alledged ban on marriage with the authorities, both locally and in the Myanmar capital, Naypidaw, and received the same answer. Muslims, like everyone, have the right to marry, but they have to have the correct birth certificates and citizenship papers.

This is the crux of the matter, according to human-rights groups and aid workers who know the area and monitor the situation there. "Myanmar's Muslim minority are subject to systematic persecution: they are effectively denied citizenship, they have their land confiscated, and many are regularly forced to work on government projects," said Benjamin Zawacki, Amnesty International's Myanmar researcher based in Bangkok.
"The regime creates conditions and circumstances that make it clear to the Rohingyas that they are not wanted or welcome in the country," he said. More than 300,000 Rohingyas are in camps or hiding in neighbouring Bangladesh to escape the persecution across the river in Rakhine, according to the UN. More than 700,000 Rohingyas still live in Myanmar. Mr Quintana singled out Rakhine for his visit after persistent stories of persecution that included forced labour, extortion, land confiscation, travel restrictions, banned marriages and unregistered children. On his last visit to Myanmar, in 2009, his request to visit the area was denied.
Because the authorities refuse most Rohingyas permission to marry, many live together after a traditional Muslim ceremony. The children born from these couples are denied registration and citizenship - making them non-persons. Mr Quintana took up the issue of citizenless children in his last report to the UN in November and pressed representatives of the regime on it again during this visit, but with little result.
"The issue of unregistered children is serious as their numbers keep growing," Ms Lewa said. "What is the future of these children? Without being registered, they won't be able to apply for a travel permit, marriage, and so on. They are all potential refugees." Mr Quintana's visit to Rakhine was a significant concession by the regime. "I received a lot of independent information from various sources before I went there, and I find them very credible."

The envoy said he did not have time to verify all the claims in the reports, but from what he saw he believed they were relatively accurate. "And I hope by visiting there I can help highlight the plight of Myanmar's Muslims," he said. Overall, the UN envoy was downbeat about his trip. "Political prisoners, of which there are more than 2,100, will not be released anytime soon," he said. "The government continues to deny that there are any prisoners of conscience in their jails."

Mr Quintana wanted to impress upon the authorities that the release of all political prisoners before this years planned elections was essential if the electoral process was to be convincing. "These are well-educated and capable people who could participate in the election and help make the whole process credible, I told the authorities," he said. Mr Quintana did not hold out much hope of change in Myanmar in the near future.

Myanmarese officials would not discuss the elections in detail even though it was evident that preparations for the polls were already in full swing. All that the men in charge of the elections would say was that the legal framework was being prepared and the electoral law would be finished in time. foreign.desk@thenational.ae

Nowhere to Turn

Source from Irrawaddy news magazine Vol.18 No.1, Jan 2010

A woman in leda refugee camp, one of the offcial camps in Cox’s Bazar. (Photo: ALEX ELLGEE)

Many homeless Rohingya prefer hunger in a hostile land to life in Burma

I’ve lost everything in my life and now I can only pray that I don’t get sent back to Burma,” said Haziqah, a 27-year-old Rohingya resident of the unofficial Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh.

Before joining the camp, Haziqah lived in the Bandarban Hill Tract, about 150 km [93 miles] to the north, where many Rohingya refugees from Burma have settled. She and her husband managed to survive on the meager wages he earned from odd jobs in the area and were starting to hope they could lead a normal existence.

Rohingya men gather round to listen to Haziqah tell her story. (Photo: ALEX ELLGEE)

But then, one morning seven days after giving birth to her first child, soldiers from the Bangladeshi border force, the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), stormed their village. Rounding up all the Rohingyas living there, they marched them toward the Bangladesh-Burma border.

During the march, she said, the soldiers beat her husband severely and pushed her along, ignoring the week-old baby in her arms. When they reached the top of a hill bordering Burma, the soldiers simply gave them a shove to send them back to the country from which they had fled.

In the chaos, she was separated from her husband; she later received reports that he had been captured by the Nasaka, the Burmese border force operating in Arakan State. She and some other women hired a boat to take them back to Bangladesh. By the time she arrived there her baby had died.

People in Kutupalong camp collect water from wells provided by Action Contre la Faim (Action Against Hunger). (Photo: ALEX ELLGEE)

Similar stories of BDR brutality are told by new arrivals at the makeshift Kutupalong camp. Like Haziqah, many of the women have been separated from their husbands and must struggle to find food and look after their children.

Since tensions peaked in August between Bangladesh and Burma’s ruling State Peace and Development Council over the Burmese regime’s construction of a border fence, arrests and forced repatriation of Rohingya refugees dramatically increased. More than 5,000 Rohingyas were sent back to Burma in October and November.

Since the start of the Muslim holiday of Eid ul Adha in Bangladesh at the end of November, a temporary halt appears to have been called to repatriations, according to nongovernmental organization (NGO) workers employed in the camps.

It’s believed that a visit by a Dutch diplomat and three European humanitarian ambassadors may also have put pressure on the Bangladeshi authorities to stop sending Rohingyas back to Burma.
However, despite fears that the repatriations will start again, families continue to flee to the unofficial camp, even though it receives no food aid, unlike the official camp next door. Three hundred families reportedly arrived at the Kutupalong camp in November.

The Bangladeshi government refuses to accept Rohingyas who arrived in the country after 1991 as refugees and instead labels them illegal migrants, leaving them to fend for themselves. If they find work in the surrounding area, they risk arrest.

Zawpe, a Rohingya leader in Kutupalong camp, said fear of arrest prevented many migrants leaving the camp in search of work.

“Because of the travel restrictions, conditions in the camp are very bad,” he said. “People are too afraid to go outside to find food. The food crisis is alarming.

“The government doesn’t let NGOs give us food, we are not allowed to work for food and the local communities don’t want us to, so we are starving. It’s 1 p.m. and most of the camp hasn’t eaten yet. If the situation continues like this, then people will die.”

Zawpe said migrants also risk being hunted down by Bangladeshis, who then hand them over to the authorities.

Living in a No-man's Land

Source from Irrawaddy news magazine Vol 18, No.1, Jan 2010

The Rohingya of northwestern Burma are fleeing to Bangladesh, where unofficial, makeshift refugee camps are rapidly expanding. The plight of the Rohingya in Burma and Bangladesh has grown worse during the past year.

Burmese authorities enforce a policy that promotes a form of ethnic cleansing, based on repressive regulations aimed at the Rohingya, who must apply for permission to move from one village to another, to repair local mosques, even to get married—rights that are routinely denied. They are excluded from jobs and other opportunities because of discrimination based on their Muslim religion. Thousands continue to flee to Bangladesh to find a better life, only to be isolated in crude, unofficial camps, such as the makeshift Kutupalong camp which has sprung up during the past year near Cox’s Bazar.

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Conditions are dire inside the camps. Refugees live with little humanitarian assistance. Rohingya seeking work are discriminated against by Bangladeshis, who often refuse to hire them or otherwise exploit them as a source of low-paid labor. In the unofficial camps, there are no medical services and drinking water is unsafe. Many Rohingya choose to flee the country by boat, risking a perilous sea voyage in a small boat at the mercy of pirates and smugglers.

To make matters worse, Burmese authorities have begun constructing a 200-kilometer [125-mile] fence along the border designed to prevent cross-border access. Meanwhile, the Rohingya say they are trapped in a no-man’s land and neither country offers them a way of life that provides freedom and opportunity.