Since February, Rohingya Muslims have been stuck at sea while fleeing persecution in Myanmar due to COVID-19.
Rohingya Muslims refugee boats. United to End Genocide. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Since the mid-1820s Myanmar has looked down on the Rohingya Muslims, who were once laborers under the area’s British colonization. Following independence in 1948, the Buddhist-majority government began to deny citizenship to Rohingya who had come to live in the country. They could hold identification cards yet this severely diminished job prospects and even places where they could live. Eventually, they would settle within the Rakhine state.
It led to crackdowns in the 1970s to get the Rohingya out of Myanmar. It began with rapes, murders and arsons by government security forces. As a result, the Rohingya began fleeing into Bangladesh, Thailand and Malaysia.
Refugee camp in Bangladesh. UN Women Asia & The Pacific. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
The most notable and deadliest crackdown occurred in August 2017 when Myanmar began to conduct an ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya. It began when Rohingya militants attacked 30 Myanmar police posts. The Rohingya as a whole were labeled as terrorists and the ethnic cleansing began. According to Doctors Without Borders, approximately 6,700 Rohingya were killed, along with the rape and abuse of many more Rohingya women and girls. Since 2017, Myanmar’s government has refused to take responsibility for the ethnic cleansing, including de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi who was once seen as a human rights advocate. They have even gone to the extent of highlighting the Rakhine state as a stable tourist location.
In 2018, the U.N. accused Myanmar’s military of conducting genocide and rapes. With failure to acknowledge the claims, the court ordered Myanmar to take measures to protect the Rohingya from being persecuted. Yet, the conflict is still ongoing which has led to more people fleeing.
In February 2020, Rohingya were boarding boats in Southeast Asia to head out of Myanmar. This has been a trend for years with most voyages occurring from November to April when the seas are calm. Around 730,000 Rohingya make the trip every year out of Rakhine state since 2017, hoping to reach Malaysia, Thailand or Indonesia. Bangladeshi refugee camps have become less popular due to overcrowding, with nearly a million refugees living there. However, due to COVID-19, many Rohingya have been stranded offshore due to borders closing to try to contain the virus. The location of many of these boats is not even known since they were not able to dock right away.
Traffickers have begun to demand money from the families of those on board in order to get them off. Essentially, these traffickers have turned these boats into their own camps where those on board are held hostage until payment. The cost for one person is 12,000 ringgit ( $2,800). Those on the boats have been rationing food and water since April with many people still dying. Unfortunately, many are unsure if there is a guarantee to get their families off the boats.
There is also the harsh reality that those who end up off the boats could be sent back to Myanmar. Currently, Malaysia is currently considering sending Rohingya back to sea due to COVID-19 concerns after 269 ended up on its shores. It has asked Bangladesh to take back refugees who have traveled, but Bangladesh has refused. The boats were damaged on the journey but once repaired, could be forced to go back out to sea with their boats resupplied.
Human Rights Watch, however, has called on Malaysia and Thailand to allow the Rohingya refugees on land. HRW has acknowledged that the one most responsible is Myanmar, but it is the duty of neighboring countries to take in and protect refugees who are seeking asylum.
Eva Ashbaugh
is a Political Science and Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies double major at the University of Pittsburgh. As a political science major concentrating on International Relations, she is passionate about human rights, foreign policy, and fighting for equality. She hopes to one day travel and help educate people to make the world a better place.