The extermination of Myanmar’s Rohingya – an online study
Many believe that the Rohingya have been a part of Myanmar well before the British colonists arrived and have been an integral part of the country ever since. They have been mostly concentrated in the Rakhine region of the country and have been subjected to horrific atrocities from time to time. There have been countless instances of genocide-like situations for the community before but nothing as brutal as what started in 2012 and has been going on ever since albeit with varying degrees of intensity. The events have plagued a stratum of people who have in many ways got used to living in conditions that are sub-human and have accepted the same as their destiny.
The world is aware of what has been going on in Myanmar for way too long now, but nothing has been done so far to save the countless lives that are being lost on a daily basis. As many as 800,000 people have been displaced from the Rakhine region into Bangladesh, Malaysia, Thailand, and India. Their living conditions in those countries are not better than what it would have been had they been at the mercy of Lucifer himself. The ones who were unlucky enough to stay back have faced a greater ordeal. They have been restricted to a concentration camp-like holding areas and have been denied basic human rights like the right to movement, medical treatment, etc. They are not allowed to work or earn and are forced to live off the scraps that the government gives them. There are no medical facilities in these camps and the one doctor who treats patients is not even a doctor. Children are dying of malnutrition and of diseases like dysentery and diarrhea that are easily treatable.
Ambar Chatterjee