Warning: The magic method Vc_Manager::__wakeup() must have public visibility in /customers/d/b/2/rohingyapost.com/httpd.www/wp-content/plugins/js_composer/include/classes/core/class-vc-manager.php on line 203 Deprecated: Required parameter $width follows optional parameter $attach_id in /customers/d/b/2/rohingyapost.com/httpd.www/wp-content/plugins/js_composer/include/helpers/helpers.php on line 366 Deprecated: Required parameter $height follows optional parameter $attach_id in /customers/d/b/2/rohingyapost.com/httpd.www/wp-content/plugins/js_composer/include/helpers/helpers.php on line 366 {"id":15528,"date":"2016-06-18T00:58:08","date_gmt":"2016-06-17T23:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thestateless.com\/?p=15528"},"modified":"2016-06-18T00:58:08","modified_gmt":"2016-06-17T23:58:08","slug":"mafia-run-camps-adding-to-the-misery-of-myanmars-rohingya-refugees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rohingyapost.com\/mafia-run-camps-adding-to-the-misery-of-myanmars-rohingya-refugees\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Mafia-run’ camps adding to the misery of Myanmar’s Rohingya refugees"},"content":{"rendered":"

By freelance contributor Kayleigh Long in Myanmar, ABC News<\/a><\/p>\n

For the 5,000 residents of Baw Du Pha 2 refugee camp on the outskirts of Sittwe \u2014 the capital of Myanmar’s Rakhine State \u2014 going to the toilet means defecating openly in a field.<\/p>\n

That open space separates the Rohingya people’s ramshackle shelters from the vast expanse of the Bay of Bengal.<\/p>\n

Women wait until nightfall and go in groups for safety.<\/p>\n

On the morning after last month’s Cyclone Roanu hit, a 60\u2013year\u2013old woman we have called Amina Begum to protect her from reprisals told the ABC the camp’s toilets had been destroyed by “the cyclone”.<\/p>\n

She was, however, referring to Komen \u2014 the tropical cyclone that battered the Rakhine coast in July 2015.<\/p>\n

A year\u2013long stalemate between the Rohingya representatives on the Camp Management Committee (CMC) and independent non-government organisations (INGOs) over corruption has stalled the construction of new toilets.<\/p>\n

‘Beneficiaries of corruption’<\/h2>\n
$\"PHOTO:$
PHOTO: These toilets in Baw Du Pha 2 refugee camp have been out of commission for almost a year. (Supplied: Kayleigh Long)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Humanitarian workers say refugees being exploited is a problem in camps across the state.<\/p>\n
“On a daily basis, the biggest issue I face in implementing projects is the CMCs. Many of them don’t want to improve life in the camps,” a refugee worker said on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n
“They’re essentially mafias appointed by the former government, with no accountability to the (current) Government nor their refugee populations.”<\/p>\n
The sentiment was echoed by a Rohingya leader, who said the CMCs were self serving and undemocratic.<\/p>\n
“Some of them have become rich … as beneficiaries of corruption,” he said.<\/p>\n
In another camp, a father explained that his family’s already\u2013meagre food ration was being skimmed and hygiene kits intercepted for black market selling by their CMC.<\/p>\n
His two-year-old son, his belly swollen with the bloat of malnutrition, was not receiving nutrient bars.<\/p>\n
Tragic consequences<\/h2>\n
$\"PHOTO:$
PHOTO: Supplies for new longhouses for the 2224 IDPs in Baw Du Pha 2 who lost their shelters in the May 3 fire. This construction project is managed independently by the CMCs, and is currently underway. (Supplied: Kayleigh Long)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
INGO workers in Rakhine report physical threats made against staff, and access to some camps has been extremely difficult.<\/p>\n
In one instance, an attempt to install a new CMC resulted in an all\u2013in brawl and the burning of an INGO facility.<\/p>\n
CMCs have strongarmed their way into lucrative construction projects, carrying out work with inferior materials and skimming profits.<\/p>\n
“They try to extort (INGOs) for a percentage, if not the entire contract … in this context, that can mean a lot of money,” an NGO worker said.<\/p>\n
Using inferior quality materials on CMC-contracted projects has meant a shorter lifespan for facilities \u2014 with tragic consequences.<\/p>\n
In late 2014, a seven-year-old boy and his six-year-old sister were playing in the Dar Paing refugee camp.<\/p>\n
They reportedly jumped on the concrete cover of a toilet waste facility.<\/p>\n
It crumbled and the pair drowned in a pit of human excrement.<\/p>\n
Camps home to over 100,000 people<\/h2>\n
$\"PHOTO:$
PHOTO: A family outside their temporary shelter at the Baw Du Pha 2 refugee camp in Myanmar (By Kayleigh Long)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
The Government of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, which won last November’s election, has now formed a special committee to tackle the dysfunction of the camps in Rakhine State.<\/p>\n
Since taking office, the country’s first democratically elected Government in decades has launched a 100\u2013day action plan on all fronts.<\/p>\n
For her administration, the handling of Rakhine presents an enormous challenge.<\/p>\n
The Rakhine Buddhist nationalist party, Arakan National, holds enormous sway in the state and the perception that the INGO community provides disproportionate support to the Rohingya Muslim population is widespread.<\/p>\n
Also fuelling tensions are the decades of neglect by successive military juntas, which have left the resource-rich state impoverished.<\/p>\n
Around 120,000 Rohingya have lived in the squalid refugee camps since state-wide, deadly Buddhist-Muslim clashes in 2012.<\/p>\n
The one million Rohingya in the region are widely considered by Rakhine nationalists and the broader Myanmar population to be “illegal Bengalis” from neighbouring Bangladesh.<\/p>\n
Ms Suu Kyi has repeatedly been accused of having little interest in the plight of the Rohingya.<\/p>\n
Rohingya subject to severe restrictions<\/h2>\n
$\"PHOTO:$
PHOTO: A cow grazes near one of the destroyed refugee shelters in Myanmar’s Rakhine state (By Kayleigh Long)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
In recent years, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have been stripped of official documentation, rendering them stateless.<\/p>\n
They were disenfranchised prior to the 2015 election, face severe movement restrictions and must obtain official permission to marry.<\/p>\n
They are also subjected to a two-child limit to quell fears about their numbers.<\/p>\n
UNICEF has pointed to the fact that of the rural communities in Rakhine \u2014 both Buddhist and Muslim \u2014 71 per cent do not have toilets.<\/p>\n
But Human Rights Watch’s senior researcher on Myanmar, David Scott Mathieson, said given the restrictive nature of the camps, this was immaterial.<\/p>\n
“The conditions of the camps around Sittwe continue to be a serious humanitarian and human rights concern and the deplorable conditions are further exacerbated by restrictions on movement and access to services,” Mr Mathieson said.<\/p>\n
For Ms Begum, who was among the 2,224 people whose shelters burnt down in a fire in early May leaving them in makeshift canvass accommodation, the impact of CMC corruption is felt every day.<\/p>\n
“We have already lost everything, twice,” she told me.<\/p>\n
“But our biggest problem is the lack of latrines. We have no dignity.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By freelance contributor Kayleigh Long in Myanmar, ABC News For the 5,000 residents of Baw Du Pha 2 refugee camp on the outskirts of Sittwe \u2014 the capital of Myanmar’s Rakhine State \u2014 going to the toilet means defecating openly in a field. That open space separates the Rohingya people’s ramshackle shelters from the vast […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15529,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_oct_exclude_from_cache":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[203,236],"tags":[262,325,225,326,263,298,227,245,313,215,299],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rohingyapost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15528"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rohingyapost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rohingyapost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rohingyapost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rohingyapost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rohingyapost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rohingyapost.com\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rohingyapost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rohingyapost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rohingyapost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}