Rohingya refugees struggle to find new homes
Devianti Faridz
August 8, 2013
While many Muslims celebrate Idul Fitri at home with their families, for some it is a struggle to figure out where home is. 38-year-old Muhammad Hanif, whose parents fled Myanmar in the 1980s, is one of thousands of asylum seekers who ended up in Indonesia.
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| Rohingya children play on a relief tent at a camp for Internally Displaced People on the outskirts of Sittwe, Myanmar. (AFP/Soe Than Win) |
INDONESIA: While many Muslims celebrate Idul Fitri at home with their families, for some it is a struggle to figure out where home is.
38-year-old Muhammad Hanif, whose parents fled Myanmar in the 1980s, is one of thousands of asylum seekers who ended up in Indonesia.
After living 30 years in Malaysia and undergoing many interviews at the UN refugee office there, he lost patience with the process and packed up his belongings and his family.
They travelled by fishing boat and illegally landed in North Sumatra.
Mr Hanif said his family then met a group of men, who deceived them into paying US$13,000 to take them to Australia.
He said: "The smugglers brought us to a building nearby the airport and locked us inside. We were not allowed to go out so we were stripped of our freedom and we all became weak inside."
A janitor helped them escape and brought them to the UN refugee office in Jakarta.
They then camped out at a mosque in central Jakarta for days before someone brought them to the Legal Aid Foundation.
The foundation not only let the family stay at their office, it is also helping to coordinate with the Immigrations department, the UNHCR office and the Australian embassy, in the hopes of resettling the family in Australia.
But the foundation has faced legal hurdles in helping the family's asylum plea.
Julius Ibrani, legal aid coordinator at Indonesia Legal Aid Foundation, said: "There should be a legal mechanism that puts forward humanitarian values. Furthermore, Indonesia faces consequences as an active member of the United Nations. This is what we are striving and has become a hurdle as it doesn't exist."
Since 2008, the UNHCR has handled cases of around 1,400 Rohingya. In the first six months this year alone, over 500 Rohingya have registered with the UNHCR in Jakarta. Overall a third of them have transited in Malaysia, while the rest came directly from Myanmar.
At the Fifth Bali Process Conference this year, Indonesia proposed and approved establishing a working group to address human trafficking and people smuggling problems.
But experts said much needs to be done to address the root cause of asylum seekers fleeing persecution.
Manuel Jordao, representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said: "Is there or not enough political will to give this additional step forward that will transform the Bali Process, not just as many call it another forum that is just a talk show, but as a forum that produces concrete regional cooperation agreements?"
Mr Jordao admitted it is hard to resettle the Rohingya as the 21 resettlement countries in the world show very little interest in accepting them.
