Rohingya detainees protest ‘abominable’ conditions in Indian camp

ASSAM: More than 100 Rohingya refugees who have for years been detained at a transit camp in the northeast Indian state of Assam have launched a hunger strike demanding that they be handed over to the United Nations refugee agency in New Delhi, and that the process of resettlement in a third country be started.

The 103 Muslim Rohingya refugees have been on hunger strike since Monday at the Matia Transit Camp, where immigrants, most of whom entered the country illegally, are held.

Local authorities said 30 Christian Chin refugees, also from Myanmar, are on hunger strike, too, in solidarity with the Rohingyas.

A midlevel police officer in Goalpara district, where the camp is located, told VOA Thursday that senior Home Affairs Ministry officials from the state headquarters were on their way to investigate the issue.

“The officials will interact with their counterparts at the camp, as well as the detainees who are on hunger strike, and aim to resolve the issues. The detainees, who are from Myanmar, are demanding to be released from the camp,” said the police officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

“All the officials are trying to resolve the issue as soon as possible.”

Sabber Kyaw Min, an India-based Rohingya rights activist who is monitoring the situation, said that the refugees in the detention center were living in poor hygienic conditions and received “inhumane treatment.”

“Fleeing genocide in Myanmar, our people took refuge in India. Our home country continues to be increasingly unsafe for us. But we are facing persecution here — our people are being imprisoned in India,” Min, head of the Rohingya Human Rights Initiative, told VOA.

“At least 40 of the Rohingya refugees at the Matia camp hold UNHCR cards,” he said, using the acronym for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

“Yet they are treated like criminals and have been detained. Many Rohingyas have been in detention for as long as 10 or 12 years. They have finished their terms long ago. Yet they are being detained.”

(VOA)