This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on June 17, 2019 - June 23, 2019

KUTUPALONG REFUGEE CAMP, COX’S BAZAAR, BANGLADESH: It is hot and humid now in Bangladesh; more so in the coastal city of Cox’s Bazaar, which boasts the longest stretch of beach in the world. The Bangladeshis who live in this city and the one million-odd Rohingya refugees from Myanmar in the camps here are bracing themselves for the worst-case scenario of devastating cyclones and destructive floods, which Bangladesh is unfortunately prone to.

This is where the worst humanitarian crisis of this century is being played out, almost at our doorsteps, and yet, it seems a world removed from us.

Cox’s Bazaar houses the largest refugee camp in the world. More than a million ethnic Rohingyas have fled here from Myanmar where they had lived for generations, in the face of ethnic and religious persecution and killings by the army in an operation chillingly called Operation Pyi Thaya (Operation Clean up and Beautiful Nation).

More than half of the refugee population are children and many of them orphans, their parents having disappeared, probably killed.

Eyewitness accounts from the refugees themselves and foreign NGOs are terrifying and have been well-documented. There are also the disturbing accounts of the execution of Rohingya by the Myanmar army, written by the Pulitzer-prize winning Reuters journalists — Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo — who were jailed for almost two years in Myanmar for their reporting.

Yet, despite all these, one is unprepared for the full blast of the dreadfulness of the Rohingya’s plight until one comes  to Cox’s Bazaar.

Malaysia’s newly-appointed acting High Commissioner to Bangladesh Amir Farid Abu Hasan has read and was fully briefed by his officials.  Yet, when he walked into the camp for the first time in mid-May, accompanying a delegation led by Deputy Defence Minister Liew Chin Tong, Amir Farid almost broke down. He said that he saw his own daughter in the faces of the refugee children.

Neither Amir Farid nor the delegation was prepared for the sight of human suffering that we saw before us.  Just like my colleague Ho Kay Tat, the publisher of The Edge, the images of the three days we spent in Cox’s Bazaar, have troubled me since and won’t go away.

Ho’s The Edge, its owner Tong Kooi Ong and I, together with some of Malaysia’s top artists and under the patronage of Sultan Raja Nazrin Shah of Perak, collaborated to raise funds for the Rohingya in 2017. Fellow Malaysians helped us raise more than RM1.25 million, but despite having read up so much about their plight, we were still unprepared for the enormity of the issue.

In Kutupalong Camp, one of many within the confines of what used to be a heavily wooded forest, hacked down to build make-shift huts from bamboo, the one-room houses, if you can call them that, are barely five feet apart. There is no privacy at all.

The inhabitants of these homes cover the sides with plastic sheeting to deter prying eyes. Just within the front yard of their houses are long pits, as large as graves, where rubbish is disposed.

The children peer from behind the plastic sheets. I did not see one smiling child or adult in my three days in Cox’s Bazaar.

Their parents stand around helplessly, unable to find any work because of their refugee status, hoping some Messiah will come along and with a wave of the hand, return them to the country that will not accept them — Myanmar.

So much has been written about the Rohingya and their plight, yet, one never feels the full impact of this human tragedy until you see it for yourself. But all the stories, all the rhetoric from NGOs and humanitarians, have not been able to move the Myanmar regime and their leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, who, ironically, the world honoured with a Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.

Many countries and organisations, including Suu Kyii’s alma mater Oxford University, have withdrawn the awards they bestowed upon her for championing democracy and human rights under the decades-old military regime in Myanmar. Yet, now that she has been chosen to lead her country, Suu Kyi has not done anything to stop the culling of the Rohingya.

The Bangladesh government, which is also creaking at the seams with a large economically challenged population, has been generous and as helpful as it can be. But patience is running thin among its populace, especially those in Cox’s Bazaar.

Compassion fatigue has also hit donor countries with only 17% of funds needed to support the camps being raised last year. In 2017, funds collected were four times more at 70%.

The congestion in the camps and the desperation of its inhabitants has provided a rich pickings for human traffickers and drug dealers. Prostitution is also rife as women sell themselves for as little as a meal. And meals are cheap in Bangladesh. Gangs have emerged in the camps, preying on the weaker among them, and fights and killings are a regular occurrence.

The Rohingya have their backs against the wall — no education, no freedom, no decent and proper home, no future — it is a ticking time bomb, a perfect breeding ground for extremism, and when it implodes, the effects will be felt throughout the region.

In cognizance of the human tragedy at its doorstep, Malaysia set up a field hospital just on the fringes of the refugee camps in November 2017. The hospital is staffed by medical officers, including an O&G specialist, an orthopaedic surgeon, a general surgeon, a physician, an anaesthetist and a dedicated pool of medical officers, nurses, medical assistants, midwives and medical personnel from the Ministry of Defence. They are often assisted by Malaysian volunteers from the Malaysian Relief Association (MRA). The only other country that operates its own hospital for the refugees is the Turkish government.

But again, it was never meant to be a permanent solution. Originally, Malaysia was expected to set up the hospital and later hand it over to other international agencies or the Bangladesh government but this has not happened and Malaysia is now close to completing its second year of managing and running the hospital.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and several NGOs, including the Bangladesh authorities, manage smaller-scale hospitals and health clinics and provide medical facilities in the camps, but Malaysia and Turkey operate by far the largest and also have operating theatres to cater for emergencies and more serious ailments.

The Malaysian Field Hospital (MFH), is in itself, a tale of grit and dedication.

The close to 60-member multiracial team of Malaysians from the armed forces are now on their fourth rotation of six months each, and have, in the 19 months of operation, treated more than 71,000 Rohingya and local Bangladeshis and performed more than 1,800 surgeries in the two operating theatres. They average about 200 patients a day.

The 60-bed hospital has emergency services around the clock and provides pre and post-natal care, radiology, an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and ultrasound — almost like any private hospital. Yet, the staff are stretched to the limit.

Limited funds and resources prevent the MHF from having two sets of surgeons.

 “If we had two sets of surgeons, we could do more, save more lives…,” the hospital’s director Kolonel Dr Shamsul Bahri Muhammad says.

The MRA does send surgeons and doctors to assist the MFH but its funds are also limited and volunteers cannot get away from their day jobs in Malaysia for too long. MRA president Dr Mohd Daud Sulaiman, a cardiologist at a private hospital, has also been running a school for Rohingya in Cheras and, last year, the MRA started a school in Cox’s Bazaar, teaching basic stuff to about 200 Rohingya children. MRA depends on public donations and oftentimes, volunteers pay their own way to travel and help the refugees. This is a Malaysian story of sacrifice and devotion to humanity that has seldom been told.

In a series of meetings between Liew, Mindef’s Lt Gen Dr Amin Muslan with NGOs operating in Cox’s Bazaar — including the UNHCR, Unicef, Save the Children and the Danish Refugee Council — one thing emerged clearly — they all appreciated the role of the MFH in saving lives.

Save the Children’s team leader, David Skinner, is typical of the NGO representatives we met. Passionate, worked up about the injustices, resigned in the face of the hopelessness of the situation and realistic enough to say that in the not too distant future, many of the NGOs — themselves facing constraints — would move on if there was no solution forthcoming.

Seeing as how the Aung San Suu Kyi regime has dug in its heels, and seeing as how Asean and the rest of the world have reacted by treating Myanmar with kid gloves, a solution does not seem possible anytime soon.

But Skinner appealed to Malaysia to continue with the hospital, saying, “You have saved many lives.”

One of the representatives of one Europe-based NGO, who has worked on both sides of the border in Myanmar and Bangladesh, said she had been stunned and astounded by the intense bigotry and hatred for the Rohingya in Myanmar. She did not want to be named as she travelled regularly to Myanmar but said: “It’s as if the Rohingya are not even human to them.”

She said resentment was also building up against the Rohingya in Bangladesh. “People here are mired in poverty. They resent that so much attention is being showered on the Rohingya when they themselves find it difficult to put a meal on their table.”

It is a disheartening situation.

But Malaysian officials say they are determined to work with the international community to find a solution, although they admit that none seems visible on the horizon.

Meanwhile, the Rohingya numbers keep growing. There are about 40,000 babies born every year in the camps and they will grow up without access to proper healthcare, education or homes.

Malaysia is doing its part to help in a small way with the field hospital and Asean seems unable or reluctant to pressure its member country Myanmar. The enormity of the crisis needs an international solution led by superpowers like China, the US and the European Union but they are also mired in problems, such as the US-China trade war, among themselves.
 

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