By Sara Azam

I am ashamed to say that only recently I became aware of a crisis that has been happening for the last several years, where a government is single handedly denying a population of people basic human rights, status as citizens, and essentially, responsible for raping, murdering and setting ablaze entire villages in an effort which can only be described as ethnic cleansing or complete and utter genocide. I am of course referring to the Rohingya people of Myanmar.

The Myanmar government, military and Buddhists monks believe that this particular ethnic group has illegally occupied the Rakhine state and are trespassers and actually belong in the neighboring country of Bangladesh. However, the reality is that for most of the Rohingya, the Rakhine region is the one and only place they have ever lived and have called home. They were born there and their parents before them. So how can it be that all of a sudden they are foreigners in their own home?

This dispute has caused a cataclysmic upheaval and now the three parties previously mentioned, the government, military and Buddhists monks, are actively sanctioning the deliberate removal of the Rohingya people through any means necessary including murder. Because of this, the Rohingya are fleeing by hundreds of thousands, on foot, with whatever personal possessions they can carry, to safety in refugee camps. Otherwise, they are subjected to beatings, torture, witnessing the executions of their parents, children, husbands, brothers, fathers, and loved ones and gang rapes of their daughters, mothers sisters and wives, and having their homes and villages completely annihilated by watching the military set them on fire. There have even been reports of children and babies being thrown into those fires.

Yet, even with all of these reports, government officials claim these are lies. The government also highly censors the news and social media within the country so that the majority of Myanmar citizens believe the Rohingya are actually terrorists setting their own villages on fire and then running away. Anyone who dares mention even the word “Rohingya” in a social media post is immediately censored and then stalked and intimidated by government officials.

Now imagine the trauma. The trauma those who have fled and survived such egregious acts and witnessed such atrocities will experience. And the horror is not yet over. They must survive in the refugee camps. For 10-year-old Jena, she is now the sole provider for her family. This little girl’s father was executed and mother is too ill to care for the family so she must go to the forest, collect firewood and sell it in the market to help feed her family. In another case, a mother in the camp must find a way to help her 6-month-old son survive because he is so malnourished that he weighs as much as a newborn baby. And there are countless other cases of the harsh realities of persecution and refugee life, not just for adults, but for at least 360,000 children. That figure is simply staggering. We already know the effects trauma can have on adults and adolescents and how it can cause varying levels of, and sometimes severe mental illness and even lead to a life trajectory of engagement in crime. The question now is how will it affect these children? And better yet, what will we, as citizens of the world watching, do about it?

References:

Asrar, S. (2017, October 28). Rohingya crisis explained in maps. Al Jazeera. Retrieved from http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2017/09/rohingya-crisis-explained-maps-170910140906580.html

Bangladesh: Hundreds of Thousands of Rohingya Seek Refuge From Violence in Myanmar. (2017, November 21). Médecins Sans Frontières – Doctors Without Borders. Retrieved from http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/article/bangladesh-hundreds-thousands-rohingya-seek-refuge-violence-myanmar?source=ADD170U0U00&utm_source=AdWords&utm_medium=ppc&utm_campaign=Google&utm_content=nonbrand&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIqsuH25-G2AIV2AiBCh2itwowEAAYASAAEgJbRfD_BwE

Myanmar Rohingya: What you need to know about the crisis. (2017, October 19). BBC News Services. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41566561

The Rohingya crisis. (2017). Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/specials/asia/rohingya

Woodruff, B., Romo, C., Francis, E. (2017, December 6). For Rohingya and supporters, a fight for survival on the ground and on social media. ABC News. Retrieved from http://abcnews.go.com/International/rohingya-supporters-fight-survival-ground-social-media/story?id=51418912

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