Between a rock and a hard place

“Myanmar Army and its Border Guard Police often fired gunshots in the air at nighttime. Their choppers also flew at daylight aiming their guns to our makeshift houses. The soldiers patrolled the border fences with weapons. They forced us to leave our country. Now we are in No Man’s Land. We live in fear every moment.” Mohammad Siddiqe, hailing from Deinglla village under Maungdaw Township of Rakhine in Myanmar, was speaking to Dhaka Tribune during a visit to the Bangladesh-Myanmar bordering Tambru area that is separated from Bangladesh by a thin canal – adjacent to Bandarban’s Naikhyangchhari border. He said: “Aid workers are not allowed to cross the canal to distribute aid at our makeshift shanties. We have to cross the canal to get medical treatment and aid, which is available once or twice in a week. This is how we have lived for the last four months.” “We are allowed to go to the nearby local market to shop everyday but we have to keep to a two-hour deadline. If Border Guards Bangladesh did not allow this, we would die from hunger.” Like Siddique, about 6,500 Rohingyas have taken shelter in the No Man’s Land since August 25 when the Myanmar Army launched a brutal crackdown against Rohingyas in Rakhine State. Rohingya people from the villages of Tambru, Medipara, Raimongkhali, Deybuinna, Laipuiya, Ponduiya, Khuyangcipong and Panirchora under Maungdaw Township have been living there for the last four months. When this correspondent visited the area, the BGB men did not allow him to cross the thin canal and go to the shanties due to security reasons as Myanmar army and BGP were patrolling the border areas. “When we see ammunition trucks our blood runs cold as this is the army that killed our men, raped our women, burnt our homes and looted our valuables and crops,” said Dil Mohammad, an educated Rohingya who completes his graduation from Yangon University. “Locals and BGB do their best to help us. Even our pregnant women give birth to children at locals’ houses,” he said, adding that Bangladesh Red Crescent Society is providing the Rohingyas with food and first aid. Local resident Abul Kalam, who opened his door to the refugees from the very first day of their arrival at Modhyampara along the Tambru border said that at least 100 Rohingya women gave birth with the local women’s help at his house. A Rohingya woman Shahida Banu, who was crossing the canal to purchase medicines for her children from the local market, said: “The Myanmar army men are still threatening us and telling us not to come back to our land. ” She said: “My two-year-old girl wakes up and cries every night hearing the sound of Myanmar army’s gunshots. Besides, their heavy vehicles not only break our sleep but also make us anxious.” “I lost all my family members except a child at Laiya village of Maungdaw. When I see the same army who killed my family members near my tent I can’t sleep anymore,” said traumatised Hamida. Rohingyas living there complain that the army is continuously planting landmines along the border and threaten any Rohingya they come across on the other side of the barbed-wire fence. Rohingya people sometimes enter Myanmar to collect dry wood and to see the condition of their arable land, not far from the border, and they fall victims to landmine explosions that leave them injured or dead. Sexagenarian Syed Salam of Maungdaw’s Khuyangcipong village said that he has been living at Tambru No Man’s Land since August 25 with 13 family members. “We cannot enter Bangladesh nor Myanmar. We have no country to live in now. Some of us sometimes enter Myanmar to collect dry wood and to see the condition of our arable land, not far from the border. We fall victims to landmine explosions that leave s injured or dead.” “My two grandsons – Musa and Ismail – were wounded on the dead of August by such an explosion while crossing the border into Myanmar to see our paddy field.” “We saw the Myanmar army planting the landmines along the border. So, when we enter Myanmar we try to avoid those places where the landmines are laid,” said Mohammad Malek of Deybuinna village in Maungdaw. Abul Kalam said: “The International Committee of the Red Cross is providing aid at  21-day intervals and Bangladesh government’s health authorities are providing medical treatment every week. But this is very little to meet the huge demand of the people living in makeshift shanties.” “About 1,289 families are living here. When we came here rains disrupted our normal lives and now cold is making us suffer much,” said a Rohingya woman Hamida Akhter. The local BGB Outpost In-charge Subedar Abdul Hakim said: “After crossing the Myanmar border, the Rohingya people - mostly women and children from 15 villages in Rakhine State’s Maungdaw - have built makeshift shelters by the Tambru canal near Tambru Bazar in Ghumdhum.” “The movement of Myanmar army and BGP near the border is so frequent that one can see them standing from the Bangladesh side.” The Rohingya community leaders are not willing to leave the place however. They stay in touch with people on the other side of the border for updates on their land and property. Officials of Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) provide them with medicine and relief materials regularly, added the BGB personnel. Kawsar, who is from Panirchara village, said, “We came not to stay here forever. We will return to our country if the Myanmar government gives us our Rohingya status.”