Living in limbo

The Rohingya are trapped in a country that doesn't want them

by Andrew Stanbridge

Living in limbo

The Rohingya are trapped in a country that doesn't want them

by Andrew Stanbridge

SITTWE, Myanmar—I first came to the Rohingya detainment camps outside the town of Sittwe in Myanmar in 2013, following the burning of Muslim Rohingya villages in northwestern parts of the country. 

Long-running but low-simmering mistrust between the majority Buddhists and minority Rohingya Muslims had erupted the year previously, after a band of Rohingya men were blamed for the rape and murder of a Buddhist woman. Buddhist nationalists set fire to houses and murdered close to 300 Rohingya Muslims, forcing tens of thousands to abandon their homes.

Now around 140,000 Rohingya Muslims live in miserable refugee camps. The Myanmar government will not allow them to leave, but has made sure that the majority of them will not become citizens, having stripped them of the right to vote in February. Many Rohingya Muslim families have lived in Myanmar for more than a century, but the government refers to them as migrants from Bangladesh, and will not grant them citizenship unless they can document a family history in Myanmar that goes back 60 years, a requirement they know the vast majority of them cannot meet.

Arguing that the Royhinga had to be protected, government security forces corralled them into camps such as the one near Sittwe.

From the beginning, the camps have been squalid nightmares: The Rohingya have to live with poor sanitation, a lack of food and adequate medical care, constantly under threat from the security forces who can be brutal to the inhabitants in the camps. 

On my second trip to the camps in 2014, police opened fire on the Rohingya who were protesting the death of one of their own — allegedly by the security forces. 

United Nations officials have sounded alarm over conditions at the camp. But aid agencies, restricted by the Myanmar government, have limited access to the people there. And aid workers I've spoken to tells me that they are only allowed to offer limited services to women and children.

Many Rohingya have put their lives in the hands of human smugglers in a desperate attempt to escape to neighboring Thailand or Malaysia. While the story of the Rohingya refugees have received some attention in the rest of the world, little notice has been given to life inside the camp — and the daily struggle of the Rohingya still inside Myanmar.

On my first visit to the camps two years ago, government officials told me that the buildings where each family only had 10 square feet to live in were a temporary solution.  

On my most recent trip, however, it was apparent that the government has no plans to upgrade the structures or find a more permanent and humane solution.

If anything, even as the Rohingya live in crammed and squalid surroundings, the security presence is being built up with further security barracks and fortified checkpoints. More troops have arrived in the area, wearing new uniforms and brandishing weaponry that gives the impression that Rohingya cannot leave and the camps are here to stay. 

Although many Rohingya have proof that their families have lived in Myanmar for generations, they aren't still considered full citizens, and the government has even banned the word Rohingya.

In nearby Sittwe, one Muslim neighborhood, home to hundreds of people, has become a ghetto. Security forces have cordoned it off, and residents have been ordered not to leave. As in the camp, the residents speak of an increasing sense of despair, having lived in the camps for years now with the roads and buildings crumbling around them.

Life in limbo is taking its toll.

  • Photographer and Writer

    Andrew Stanbridge

  • Photo Editor

    Elizabeth Pierson

  • Director of Photography

    Dustin Drankoski

  • Editor

    Louise Roug