Eleven-year-old Nur Mohammad is the son of Hamid Hossain and Salma Khatun. He said to this scribe with a heavy heart, "I would rather beg than never go back to my birthplace." His registration card number: 12620180203104709, issued by Department of Immigration and Passports, Bangladesh, displays his address in Myanmar as: Village: Daliya para, Police station and district: Maungdaw under the Rakhine State of Myanmar.
The adolescent said, "Since the state turned into a war-zone with no corners left to pass a single night safely, we were forced to come to this country. Every nook and cranny of the Rakhine state is being dominated by the Buddhist cohorts of the military with sharp weapons and other logistics."
He described his woeful tale saying, "My sexagenarian father was killed in front of us while our mud-built house was set on fire by the armed people. My mother, with teary eyes, left our ancestral place along with her children for Bangladesh."
I met the teenager at the Ledha of Teknaf upazila under Cox's Bazar district as he waited with his friends to carry the luggage of tourists to Saint Martin's Island.
When asked about his education, Sayed Hossain (12), a close associate of Nur, registration card number - 12420170926144522 retorted back asking what I meant by education. 'We need only money and nothing else to survive,' he said. Sayed is the son of Rashid Ullah and Rahena Begum who came from a village named Hasulita under Maungdaw of the Akyab district in Myanmar.
Sayed's 45-year-old father and his elder brother were both shot dead by the Myanmar army.
As they are facing financial hardships, the Rohingya refugees from Myanmar push their school-going youngsters to begging and odd jobs.
Many children, who are begging, can turn into miscreants and commit crimes while living on this land. It needs to be mentioned that although the refugee camps have been set up as per directives of the government in Kutupalang hills under Ukhia upazila of Coxs' Bazar district, the Rohingyas are found in other areas of the district in search of work. Many are trying to shift to new cities and towns posing as Bangladeshis.
According to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), over half of the world's refugees are children and the majority of Rohingya refugees are children.
Seeking a solution to the on-going situation is the prime concern of all conscious people here and beyond. Can't we expect the governments of Myanmar and Bangladesh to stand by the Rohingya refugees and protect the adolescents from inhuman conditions they are going through? The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other international agencies do have a role to play here. Powerful countries of the world need to come together with an aim to carry on friendly negotiations with Myanmar's military-backed government until a solution is reached.
Md Mazadul Hoque is executive officer of Social Islami
Bank Ltd, Bangladesh. [email protected]
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