Life in the Rohingya's Myanmar: A Q & A with photojournalist Greg Constantine

REPORT from Refugees International

Q: When RI visited Rohingya internally displaced people (IDPs) in 2012 and 2013, they were under a great amount of stress, with inadequate food, medical care, or shelter. Some had no shelter whatsoever. In December 2012, UN Under Secretary General Valerie Amos said that the camps as some of the worst she had ever seen. You visited the Rohingya people in November 2012 and February 2013. Can you describe the conditions you observed?

A: I've traveled to the IDP camps outside of Sittwe twice since the violence last year, in November 2012 and in February 2013. On both trips, I would say the camp conditions were dismal. The camps are isolated from the town of Sittwe, where many of the IDPs had lived and earned their incomes, and nearly all of the camps have been built in rice fields that will surely flood when the rainy season arrives. Rohingya are not permitted to come and go freely so they are literally segregated from the Rakhine community and contained to very specific areas. Structures built by the government last summer are now falling apart and many of the people I met with are unregistered, which means they are not able to receive the meager food rations that others get. Most of the unregistered IDPs are now living in primitive huts made of straw and hay that in no way protect them from the elements.

In terms of the IDP camps where structures have been built, they feel more like barracks in some kind of makeshift prison camp. Access to medical care is sparse and, at least in my own observations, humanitarian assistance in the camps doesn't even come close to meeting needs. Everyone knows the rainy season is just around the corner, but at least when I was there in February and early March, it felt like few proactive measures were being taken to prepare for what could (and probably will) be a significant humanitarian crisis.

To me, one of the most disturbing parts of all of this is that there’s a very strong sense of permanency in the IDP camps. Nothing feels temporary. There are absolutely no signs that anything is really being done to facilitate the return of these tens of thousands of people to their homes anytime soon. Across the border in Bangladesh, some 26,000 Rohingya refugees in two officially recognized camps have been living for 20 years in this kind of limbo. Their outlook for the future is very dim. Now, having spent time in the IDP camps in Rakhine, I got a sense that the outlook for the Rohingya IDPs could easily (and unfortunately) be quite similar if the Burmese government and the international community don't take action soon.

Q: Is Myanmar’s government rebuilding the homes of the Rohingya who were displaced during inter-communal violence in June and October 2012?

A: In Sittwe, there is no sign that the government is rebuilding the homes of the Rohingya. With the exception of one quarter in Sittwe, all of the Muslim quarters have been flattened. There is literally nothing left. Whatever was not razed in the initial outbreaks of violence has since been destroyed or looted. In November, and even as recently as this February, you visit the empty Muslim quarters of town and it’s common to see people from the Rakhine community (mostly older women and children) digging through what is left of the rubble, trying to find anything that can be recycled or sold as scrap.

Aside from the shells and facades of a few mosques here or there in the city, there is absolutely no Muslim presence in Sittwe today. It is like it has been totally erased. And for a city where Buddhists and Muslims have lived and co-existed side by side for generations, this erasure of the Muslim community is disturbing.

Q: Were you able to talk to Rohingya about their experiences during the violence? What did they say?

A: I had several conversations with Rohingya and people from the Kaman Muslim community who are now displaced. Many are still traumatized by the violence and many – especially the Kaman, who unlike the Rohingya are actually recognized as citizens of Burma – are still shell-shocked that this has actually happened and that they now have to live in such an undignified way. All the people I talked with spoke of violence being conducted not only by mobs of Rakhine Buddhists but also monks and various arms of the government (the police, the military, etc). It doesn't take much searching to find someone who saw someone die or knows someone who did.

Q: Were you able to speak to Rohingya about what they want to happen next?

A: Many of the Rohingya I've talked to want to just return to their homes. They want things to return to the way they were before the violence, yet many have no idea that there is nothing left of their homes, businesses, etc. Many want to receive recognition as citizens of Burma and feel that this will solve all of their problems, while others are much more skeptical of what the future holds for them.

Q: Thousands of Rohingya are making the decision to leave Myanmar on boats, making their way out of the Bay of Bengal to Thailand and beyond. Many of the boats, of course, are totally unsuited to this task. Were the Rohingya you met aware of how treacherous this journey is? Were you able to talk to them about why they were leaving Myanmar?

A: I met several Rohingya just hours before they were to get on a boat that would take them (hopefully) to Malaysia. All were aware of the risk involved, and all were leaving because life as an IDP had become so intolerable that leaving was the only option. Several had lost all of their property. All had lost someone in the violence last year. As IDPs, the men had no way to earn a living and all of them were scared of what would happen once the rainy season hit. Eight months had passed since they became displaced and all of them felt like their future in Burma was pretty grim.

In the past few months, the Burmese security force NaSaKa, which is notorious in the townships of North Rakhine for being the main perpetrators of human rights abuses against the Rohingya, have also started operating in Sittwe and Pauktaw. Many Rohingya I spoke with during my trip in February talked about how they were now having problems with NaSaKa. NaSaKa pretty much has free reign in North Rakhine and it appears that very little has and is being done by the central government to hold NaSaKa in check. That said, it is very troubling to see that NaSaKa is being permitted to operate in the IDP camps in Sittwe.

Even though all of the Rohingya I talked with felt like they had no choice but to leave, none of them really wanted to leave. Burma is their home.

Greg Constantine is a photojournalist who has documented the plight of Myanmar's Rohingya population. You can view Mr Constantine's photo essay "Exiled to Nowhere" here.