Rohingya Refugee Camp, Kalindi Kunj, New Delhi

Human Rights Law Network

November 2012

On multiple dates in November 2012, health activists from Human Rights Law Network (HRLN) visited

a Rohingya refugee camp in Kalindi Kunj, New Delhi. The fact-finding team documented the living

conditions and challenges in the camp, where 300 women, children, and men fight to survive. This fact-

finding report provides background information on the Rohingya people and details the conditions in the

camp. After observing the conditions in the camp and interviewing dozens of residents, it is clear that an

immediate intervention is essential to protect the lives, health, and fundamental rights of the residents.

The Rohingya People

According to the United Nations, the Rohingya comprise one of the worlds most persecuted minority

groups. The Rohingya people are a Muslim minority from the Rakhine state of Myanmar. Since 1982,

the Government of Myanmar has officially classified the Rohingya as stateless Bengali Muslims. The

Myanmar Government failed to designate the Rohingya as an official ethic race, stripping the people of

their rights and barring them from claiming citizenship.1

The Rohingya people number about 800,000, a sizable minority of Myanmars total population of about

60 million. However, because they are not considered full citizens, the Rohingya people are

1 The Hindu, Rohingyas are not citizens: Myanmar minister, July 30, 2012,

http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/article3703383.ece.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/article3703383.ece

systematically and officially robbed of their basic civil, political, social, and cultural rights. As far back

as 2004, Amnesty International reported, [The Rohingya] are also subjected to various forms of extortion

and arbitrary taxation; land confiscation; forced eviction and house destruction; and financial restrictions

on marriage.2

Today, Rohingya people cannot marry without special permission from the state, they cannot own land,

they cannot travel, they cannot hold government positions, and they must sign a document pledging to

have fewer than two children. Many Rohingya children are officially prohibited from attending school, so

they have an exclusively religious education in the Madrassa. In 2009, a senior Burmese official called

the Rohingya ugly as ogres and said that they are alien to Burma. The Genocide Prevention Advisory

Network, an international network of experts on the causes, consequences, and prevention, of genocide

and other mass atrocities has issued an alert regarding the Rohingya in Myanmar.3

In 2012, decades of ethnic tension exploded into ethnic violence. The incident that sparked the violence

remains contested, but the majority population set upon the Rohingya minority and completely razed

entire villages. As of June, at least 650 people were dead, 1,200 people were missing, and 80,000 people

were displaced. Rape became the norm for most women. Men are routinely subjected to arbitrary arrest,

torture, and forced labour. Ethnic violence spiked again in October 2012.4 Madrassa schools have been

destroyed and the staff has been arrested and tortured. Today, radical Buddhist monks from the majority

population have blocked humanitarian assistance from reaching the struggling Rohingya people.5

The violence spurred a mass exodus of refugees, including many who fled Myanmar by train or by boat.

The Guardian reports, There are many horror stories of the Rohingya who, no longer able to face the

utter hopelessness of their lives, set forth on makeshift rafts into the sea. Too many such journeys have

2 Amnesty International, Myanmar: The Rohingya Minority: Fundamental Rights Denied, 18 May 2004.

http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/ASA16/005/2004 3 Genocide Prevention Advisory Network, Countries at Risk of Genocide, Politicide, or Mass Atrocities 2012,

May 2012. http://www.gpanet.org/content/countries-risk-genocide-politicide-or-mass-atrocities-2012. 4 The New York Times, Dozens Are Killed in Myanmar as Sectarian Violence Flares Again, October 26, 2012.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/27/world/asia/dozens-dead-in-myanmar-as-sectarian-violence-erupts-

again.html?pagewanted=all 5 The Independent, Burmas monks call for Muslim community to be shunned, 25 July 2012,

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/burmas-monks-call-for-muslim-community-to-be-shunned-

7973317.html.

been abruptly ended by Thai and Malaysian naval patrols that force these rafts into deeper waters and

then leave them to die.6 The Indian Navy routinely saves small boats of barely living Rohingya refugees

who have drifted into its waters.

Other refugees walked to Bangladesh. Over 29,000 Rohingya refugees currently live in camps in

Bangladesh. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the living conditions in

Bangladeshs camps do not meet minimum international standards. High rates of children and pregnant

or lactating women suffer from acute malnutrition.7 Because the Government of Bangladesh has refused

to register Rohingya refugees since 1992, an additional 200,000 Rohingya live in Bangladesh without

official refugee status. As a result, they have no access to food rations from the World Food Programme.

The refugees have no access to basic services like health care and education.

Other refugees have come from Bangladesh to India in search of a new life. Although their numbers

remain small, the Rohingya in India face substantial challenges as a result of language issues, isolation,

and their stateless/paperless status. Rohingyas in India protested at the UNHCR to receive recognition as

refugees and the UNHCR granted 1,800 Rohingya asylum seeker cards to protect them from arrest or

expulsion, but they are not officially recognized as refugees, a status that facilitates resettlement to a third

country and financial assistance from UNCHR. About 100,000 Rohingya refugees live in Northeast India,

but the UNHCR has no access to the contested area.

The Rohingya in India live in squalid camps without access to schools, medical facilities, or regular work.

India does not allow refugees or asylum seekers to work, so the Rohingya are forced to eke out a living in

the informal sector as day labourers or domestics. For many single women and widows, marriage to an

Indian man is the only salvation they can hope for. India is not a party to the 1951 Convention Relating to

the Status of Refugees or the 1967 Protocol. Because India has an ad hoc approach to each refugee

population, the UNHCR has to negotiate the status, benefits, and entitlements of each group. This

6 The Guardian, Little help for the persecuted Rohingya of Burma, December 1, 2011,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/dec/01/rohingya-burma?INTCMP=SRCH 7 UNHCR, 2012 UNHCR country operations profile Bangladesh, UNHCR Global Appeal 2012-2013,

http://www.unhcr.org/ga12/index.xml.

Rohingya people illustrate how Indias impromptu approach to refugees makes protecting vulnerable

people especially challenging.8

The future remains grim for the Rohingya people. The notion that the Rohingya are stateless foreigners is

so deeply ingrained in Myanmar, that Rohingya people have no guarantee for their short-term physical

safety or their long term access to fundamental rights.9

The Kalindi Kunj Camp

8 The Nation, Indias Myanmar refugees get visas after month of protests in Delhi, May 17, 2012,

http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/south-asia/indias-myanmar-refugees-get-visas-after-month-of-protests-in-

delhi. 9 Radio Free Asia, Violence Throws Spotlight on Rohingya, 12 June 2012. http://www.rfa.org/english/east-asia-

beat/rohingya-06122012225150.html

View of the camp from the access road

Over 300 Rohingya people, each with their own story of murder, torture, rape, arbitrary arrest, and

extortion currently live in a makeshift refugee camp in Kalindi Kunj, New Delhi. While some of the

refugees have been in India for about three years, other families arrived after the ethnic violence in 2012.

The camp sits in a recessed piece of land about six feet (about two meters) below the road. The members

of the fact-finding team who have conducted fieldwork in slums and villages throughout India were

shocked by the conditions in the camp. This fact-finding outlines the conditions the team observed and

the areas in need of immediate government attention.

The road cum washroom leading up to the camp

The Inhabitants

The families in the camp have first-hand experience of the absolute brutality human beings are capable of

murder, rape, and torture. The children have seen their schools destroyed, their families threatened, and

their parents murdered. When the fact-finding team arrived in the camp, several residents narrated their

experiences in Myanmar.

The teams translator and the leader of the camp is Jaffar Alam, son of Mohammed Haroon, age 22.

Before he came to India, Jaffars father was murdered by Myanmars military police. Although