‘Illegal Immigrants’ Without a Nation – Where Will Rohingyas Go?

What is the fate of Rohingya Muslims living in India?

There are about 40,000 Rohingya Muslims living in India right now.

(Photo: AP)

The year was 2012, and the place was Myanmar’s Rakhine, where communal violence was on the rise. The Rohingya Muslims had to leave everything behind in the the Buddhist majority state of Myanmar, and soon became refugees.

For the sake of their own safety, the Rohingya Muslims reached Bangladesh. A lot of people stayed, but many others decided to leave for India.

Abdul Karim, a Rohingya Muslim, narrates the incident,

Myanmar’s government does not consider us as residents. As an aftermath of the 2012 violence, we were forced to leave Myanmar. I was separated from my parents. I moved to Bangladesh, but they stayed in Myanmar.

There are about 40,000 Rohingya Muslims living in India right now. After coming to India, the UN high commissioner provided ID cards to 16,500 Rohingyas. But now, the fear of being sent back to Myanmar is hanging over them. The Indian Government has now claimed that the Rohingya Muslims are illegal immigrants and should be deported back to Myanmar.

Video Producer: Shadab Moizee

Video Editor: Mohd Irshad Alam, Vivek Gupta

(On World Human Rights Day, The Quint is republishing this story from its archives. It was originally published on 16 September 2017.)

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