Khalida Bi is worried over the recent turn of events, who says she has just recovered from a fainting spell. “Instead of sending us back to Burma (Myanmar), it would be better if the government kills us here. At least we will be assured of a proper Muslim burial,” says Khalida Bi, who escaped Myanmar five years ago along with her children and now lives in camp no. 12 at Hafeezbabanagar on the eastern fringes of the city. Last week, police officials’ visit to the camp has only exacerbated her worries. Police visits are routine in the camps where the refugees only have the cards, issued by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, as identity papers.
“I have not been able to contact my sister Gulbahar for the past four days. I don’t know if she is alive or dead. The last she told me was about the village getting cordoned off. After that, there has been no news. My other sister, Husain Zaman, is also out of reach,” says Khalida Bi, who has heard about the plan to deport Rohingya refugees from her neighbours.
Her son Noor Ikhlas shows a video of a lush paddy field and smoke rising in the background. “The shouts of people are in Rohingya and we know the land. We are getting dozens of videos like that from Bangladesh and Saudi,” says Ikhlas, who mans a small kirana shop to cater to the needs of the 32 families in the camp.
It is in camp no. 1 where 75 families live as one commune that the horror of the refugees’ plight becomes apparent.
“I am willing to go back if Modi badshah promises us safety for 10 years. We have land there, what we are doing here is nothing. I want to live among my own people in my own land and die there,” says Sultan Muhammad, who lives in camp no. 1. “When the British were ruling, we had citizenship. Then they took away that and gave us identity as Muslims. Then they took that away and changed it to Bengali. Now we don’t have a country of our own,” says Muhammad from Maungdaw, Fakirbazar in Myanmar.
A small room functions as a Masjid as well as a social space. Two micro-finance officials talk to a bunch of women trying to find out about their lives. “We pay a rent of ₹800, ₹200 for children’s fee and ₹15 per bottle of water,” Bilal Husain translates. “Before we moved here in 2012, we knew Hindi from watching movies. I know Akshay Kumar, Salman Khan and Shilpa Shetty even before we came here,” says Husain.
Anganwadi centre
In Hyderabad, the number of Rohingya refugees is estimated to be 3,800 and Save our Children, an NGO, has set up an Anganwadi centre for the children of the refugees. The facilities are primitive, walking without covering the nose is not an option, communal toilets are the norm; and when it rains, the whole area turns into a slushy mess.
“We are happy here. There, if a dog barks we get up and prepare to run to the forest for safety. Here we feel safe. But this is not our vatan (country). If there is a guarantee of safety, I would go along with the first batch,” says Husain, who works as a daily-wage labourer.
