The Stateless Rohingya Blog

Photo: G. Ramakrishna By Syed Mohammed Times of India March 3, 2014 HYDERABAD: When they arrived in the city a little over three years ago from Myanmar, the Rohingya refugees were hopeful of a new life and emancipation from military junta's persecution. While their new home did assuage their feelings of utter hopelessness, lack of steady employment remains a major cause for concern. The Rohingya influx began in the aftermath of the ethnic violence between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims, with the first batch arriving in the city in October 2011. From a mere 35 in October 2011, their number shot up to over 1,500 in just three years. They are now spread across five neighbourhoods - Balapur, Barkas, Shaheen Nagar, Kishan Bagh and Shastripuram - all in the Old City. But most of them are without work. For instance, Dudey Miya's daily trips to the local labourer point, popularly known as adda, in Barkas to find work are often unfruitful. Three days a wee...

Rohingya refugees arrive in Hyderabad, India, where well-off Muslims welcomed them during the month of Ramadan. Photo: SCMP By Bushra Baseerat Times of India:  April 15, 2013 HYDERABAD Looking at least 10 years older than his age, 27-year-old Mohammed Shaker can pass off as a north Indian settled in Hyderabad but for his broken Hindi. Shaker is actually a Rohingya Muslim who fled Myanmar for safety and sought refuge in Hyderabad four months ago to escape the sectarian violence and bloodshed that is rocking the Southeast Asian nation. Ask him how he landed in Hyderabad, and Shaker recalls his three-day long arduous journey on foot through a rough mountain terrain in the dead of the night to reach the Myanmar border from where he was made to board a boat run by smugglers to reach the Bangladesh border. Hours later, he reached the shore and was stowed in a truck to be finally dropped near the West Bengal border. And it took him 9 days to finally land in Hyderabad. ...

Beatings, extortion and the seizure of their homes in Burma forced these women and 120 families from their village to flee Burma in early 2009. Picture: Greg Constantine. Who are Myanmar's Rohingya people? Often dubbed as one the world's most persecuted ethnic groups, the Rohingya are Muslims of Myanmar. Roughly about 8 lakh Rohingya live in Myanmar. Ethnically, they are much closer to the Indo-Aryan people of India and Bangladesh than the Sino-Tibetans that constitute the majority of Myanmar's population. They live in Rakhine state in the country's western coast. There is a controversy over their history in Myanmar. The Rohingya claim to have lived in the country for centuries, but the ruling military junta considers them recent immigrants. Ethnic groups also consider them outsiders How did the 1982 citizenship law affect them? According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the 1982 citizenship law deprived the Rohingyas of Myanmar...

  A family that belongs to the ethnic Rohingya community from Myanmar gathered at a makeshift camp in New Delhi on May 14, 2012. Adnan Abidi/Reuters KOLKATA : Middle-aged  Azizur  Rehman had never heard of Jammu before. But his plight forced him to travel there for the survival of his offspring. Putting life at risk, Azizur headed for an unknown place, more than 3000 kilometres from his ancestral home in  Arakan . He could not reach his destination finally. Midway, Azizur was arrested and now behind the bars  for sneaking into India without valid documents. And he is not alone. In a fresh wave, hundreds of  Rohingyas have started marching towards India for survival.