As we enter the second year of the refugee crisis in southeast Bangladesh, solutions are slow to come and needs remain unmet. The rapid growth of at-risk refugee populations around the world has put international humanitarian institutions to the test, and a critical evaluation of how governments, humanitarian organizations and international institutions have handled the plight of the Rohingya people can serve as a valuable case study for how they manage other long-term refugee crises globally. Former GPPR editor Shane McCarthy traveled to Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh to file this exclusive three-part series on the Rohingya. This is the second part; other parts are here.
Part two: crisis management
“I already have 160 million people in my country.” – Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh, September 2018
Response from the Government of Bangladesh
Responsibility for the fleeing Rohingya has fallen on the government of Bangladesh, which believes it has already spread its resources thin from pushing the country’s still-developing economy onto the world stage. One in four Bangladeshis lives in poverty, but the rate has been dropping for decades. With the Asian Development Bank projecting GDP growth of around 7% for the next year, Bangladesh’s leaders are wary of any situation that could hinder their nation’s economic development. While aid continues to pour in from aid groups, outside governments, and international institutions, the strain of hosting close to a million refugees is palpable.
In October 2016 an earlier wave of violence against the Rohingya in Rakhine state caused tens of thousands to flee into Bangladesh, and most of these “initial” victims have been formally recognized as refugees by the government of Bangladesh. However, the Rohingya who arrived after August 2017 are officially classified as “Forcibly Displaced Myanmar Nationals,” a designation that denies them many of the rights that refugees would enjoy. Bangladesh has not acceded to the 1951 Convention on Refugees or its 1967 Protocol. Officials have been slow to address the problem of formal status, partially out of a real concern over constrained resources. Bangladesh is a country with 160 million people in an area the size of the US state of Iowa but with underdeveloped infrastructure and social services. The government fears that the massive influx of people has the potential to disrupt the livelihoods of many Bangladeshi citizens.
In June 2018, UNHCR and the Bangladeshi government started a joint effort to verify the identities of the Rohingya refugees by using biometric data and issuing identification cards as a precursor step to eventual relocation or repatriation. The process was initially expected to take six months but has been effectively halted after a boycott among the refugees, who object that the cards label them as “Forcibly Displaced Myanmar Nationals” rather than Rohingya. There are also concerns among refugees that the collected data may be shared with the government of Myanmar, putting individuals further at risk.
The Rohingya are largely cut off from Bangladeshi society. Already confined to the camps, refugees are also denied access to the civil legal system, schools, and formal work. International pressure to address the lack of refugee status by the Bangladeshi government has stalled, although the recent allocation of World Bank grant-based aid to Bangladesh could accelerate the process. Fears also persist that if the Bangladeshi government works to integrate the Rohingya into society, Myanmar could further claim that the Rohingya first emigrated from Bangladesh and cannot claim the Rakhine State as their home. In the meantime, the displaced Rohingya are trapped between two options: face the harsh conditions of the camps in Cox’s Bazar or return to their homes in Myanmar with no citizenship or protection.
Bowing to international pressure, the Bangladeshi government has recognized the need to delay repatriation due to ongoing concerns for the safety and status of the Rohingya and has begun to invest in more forward-thinking solutions. A new civilian authority is overseeing the large aid effort, and the military is tasked with maintaining law and order in the camps. Although the task is massive, Bangladesh’s experience managing responses to numerous natural disasters in the past has helped to develop best practices in the fields of risk reduction, training, communications, and community preparedness.
Authorities are sensitive to criticism regarding their handling of the situation, in part because Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has wielded de facto one-party rule after the widespread opposition boycott of the last election in 2014. The next national election is in December 2018, and Khaleda Zia, the leader of the opposition BNP party, remains in jail on contested corruption charges. On the ground in Cox’s Bazar and in the refugee camps, tensions have been rising between the military, researchers, and journalists as more reports emerge critical of the humanitarian situation. I was warned not to mention that my article would include analysis on how the camps have been managed.
Security crackdown
Bangladesh has taken significant measures to increase security after an attack by professed members of the Islamic State (IS) on a coffee shop in Dhaka that killed 20 people in 2016. IS maintains a small network throughout the country, and intelligence agencies are very concerned that they may try to infiltrate the camps to spread extremist ideology. However, there is currently no evidence of terrorist recruitment or other activity in the camps, and for the most part security threats stem from traditional criminal enterprises.
The rise in trafficking and the influx of drugs has, in recent months, worsened security in Cox’s Bazar as rival criminal factions stake out claims on territory. Locals have started to resent the rising prices and job shortages that the arrivals of the Rohingya, aid workers, and foreign nationals have brought about. The newfound perception of danger from recent media attention to trafficking has spurred a recent scaling-up in activity by the military.
The government, keen to demonstrate that it is in control of the situation, maintains a visible security presence to, at minimum, give an appearance of safety. When I landed at the Cox’s Bazar Airport after taking a domestic flight from Dhaka, all foreigners were required to fill out a detailed arrival form which included passport number, hotel information, and type of visa (A former government official later informed me that because I had only been traveling within the country, the collection of information in this manner was unconstitutional). The road south from town to the camps has recently been dotted with dozens of security checkpoints to limit access. Security at the Ocean Paradise Hotel, a popular hub for foreign workers and home of the only bar in town, seemed overblown. In addition to metal detectors and bomb checks on all incoming vehicles, a notice posted in the elevator advised that guests should not venture out after 6 p.m., take local transportation, or eat outside the hotel.
“I was trying to find out a way to make it right for everyone living under those bamboo and plastic shelters. I am sure the nine other women who were elected feel the same way.” – Romida Begum, local Rohingya leader in the Nayapara Camp (via Times of India)
Response from aid organizations
With over 100 separate aid organizations and UN agencies working side by side, lines of authority and the supply chain of aid resources are always a point of contention. Leading the efforts are UNHCR and IOM, a branch of the UN focusing on migration.
The perception among some humanitarian workers on the ground is that the top-down approach to aid in Cox’s Bazar undermines the effort by creating a disconnect between local organizations, which have personal relationships with refugees, and large international ones that control the resources. As a result, resources can be slow to get to the Rohingya, not least because local and international agencies have differing priorities for how to best utilize them. The top-down structure to aid does not effectively utilize the knowledge and potential contributions of local Bangladeshi organizations.
Outsider access
Newfound local awareness about the extent of the trafficking problem has also brought about more restrictions on outside access to the camps. Major criminal activity is the biggest concern, but there is also frustration among aid organizations and camp leaders about journalists flocking to report on the crisis. Reporters usually interview whichever refugees their fixer has established connections with. Because the overwhelming focus of the reporting has centered on atrocities that people have faced, women are often compelled to recount their trauma repeatedly. I was told of one case in which a woman told the story of her rape and the murder of her family to at least 25 different reporters. Desperate for help and any action from the global community, many refugees are likely to say yes to any opportunity to talk to a foreigner, often to the detriment of their own mental wellbeing.
Until recently, laws requiring a journalist visa to enter the camps were not strictly enforced. But police checks for the proper documentation on the road going south have become commonplace (because I was on a tourist visa, this was one of the main hindrances to my ability to get in). There have been incidents of police detaining aid workers for missing paperwork and in one serious case, a French Muslim man reporting on the crisis was held for weeks over vague suspicions of terrorist ties. The camps themselves are massive, and even for established media organizations, approaching the task can be daunting. This has spawned a network of local “fixers” that usually advertise through Facebook and provide transport, translation, and other logistical support to get journalists to, from, and around the camps for about $150 per day.
Both the federal government and local leaders have started to implement changes to address some of these concerns. In addition to more limited access points and visa restrictions, there is also an effort underway to set up a journalistic ethics panel that will work with visiting media to promote best practices.
Camp management
During the initial months of the crisis in the summer and fall of 2017, an influx of health workers arrived in Cox’s Bazar to provide critical care for the physical and mental trauma the refugees experienced. As the initial health care situation has stabilized, aid groups are shifting focus to other issues such as long-term mental health, physical security, and gender-based violence. However, whether refugees get the quality long-term support that they need is in question. The government of Bangladesh has continually sought more funding to expand the reach and impact of their social support institutions, but the quality of psychological support and counseling in the camps needs improvement. Practitioners often lack medical licenses and other credentials, ultimately failing to meet many victims’ basic mental health needs. In this manner, effective psycho-social support has lost meaning.
As the crisis stretches into its second year, some refugees have become unsure about their ability to return to Myanmar and feel the need to make the best of their situation in Bangladesh. Outside groups can only access the camps for eight hours per day, meaning that for the majority of the time, the Rohingya largely govern themselves. The Rohingya mostly run their own community centers, schools, and other services, utilizing the infrastructure and resources provided by the international community. The local economy in the camps has started to boom as Rohingya take jobs with NGOs or set up their own enterprises. In August of 2018, the Shalbagan camp held one of the first elections for Mazis, or community leaders, to oversee camp management and serve as liaisons to the international organizations. Over half of the elected representatives were women.
The local communities in the camps represent one of the few areas where the Rohingya themselves have some authority, but their influence remains limited. Decisions on the distribution of aid and an eventual political solution to the crisis remain in the hands of larger outside entities such as UN agencies, big international NGOs and regional powers. Some aid workers also express concern that because the highly bureaucratic Bangladesh Rehabilitation Assistance Committee (BRAC), a Bangladeshi NGO, enjoys a near-monopoly on microloans and other government funding, the aid effort suffers from a lack of responsiveness. BRAC’s position as a quasi-governmental organization means that it is necessarily apolitical and has not taken a stance on issues related to refugee rights.
Governmental and non-governmental organizations are collecting data to map both the attacks against the Rohingya in Myanmar as well as the scale of the crisis, but progress has been slow and much of the information is not publicly available yet. Work is currently underway by aid workers to establish a humanitarian “hub” to collect and disseminate data on incidents as well as humanitarian data on the refugees among aid organizations who, for the most part, still utilize the data they have collected themselves.
Other efforts to collect data include incident mapping carried out by Physicians for Human Rights, which aims to inform NGO, government, and multilateral efforts for justice and accountability for the abuses against the Rohingya. This data will also inform decisions about any eventual resettlement or repatriation options for the victims. A U.S. State Department conflict mapping report, which evaluates incidents of violence in Myanmar for the purpose of informing prospective new sanctions, is not yet public. But aid workers have questioned its data collection methods, including its rushed approach.
Ultimately, the collection of this information is meant to inform policy decisions and spur action to stem this crisis. The next and final installment of this series will examine this topic in depth.
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Photo by Mohammad Tauheed via Flickr. All rights reserved by the World Bank.
Shane McCarthy (MPP '17) is a freelance writer and former senior online editor at the Georgetown Public Policy Review.