Rohingya refugees: ‘India put us on the boat like captives

Nourul Amin spoke the last time with his brother on May 9. The invitation was short, but the news was destroyed.

He learned that his brother, Kyricul, and four other relatives of 40 refugees in the Rohingya, which were allegedly deported by the Indian government to Myanmar, a state who fled its fear years ago.

Myanmar is in the midst of a brutal civil war between the Military Council – which seized power in the 2021 coup – and the ethnic militias and the resistance forces.

The risk of Mr. Amin will see his family again small.

“I couldn’t address the torment faced by my parents and others who were transferred,” Mr. Amin, 24, told BBC in Delhi.

Three months after they were removed from the capital of India, the BBC managed to contact the refugees in Myanmar. Most of them reside with the Bhao army, a resistance group fighting the army in the southwest of the country.

“We do not feel safe in Myanmar. This place is a full war area,” Nour from Soybeans said in a video call made from the BHA member’s phone. Talk to a wooden shelter with six other refugees around him.

BPC collected testimonies of refugees and accounts from relatives in Delhi and spoke to experts investigating allegations to collect what happened to them.

We have learned that they were transferred from Delhi to an island in the Bay of Bengal, put on a sea container and finally forced the Andaman Sea with life jackets. Then they made their way to the beach and now face an uncertain future in Myanmar, from which the Rohingya community often fled In large numbers in recent years to escape persecution.

“They tied our hands, covered our faces and brought us like the prisoners [on to the boat]. Then they threw us at sea. ”John, one of the men in the group, told his brother on the phone shortly after reaching the ground.

“How can anyone throw humans at sea?” Mr. Amin asked. “There is live humanity in the world, but I have not seen any humanity in the Indian government.”

Thomas Andrews, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar, says there is “important evidence” that prove these allegations, which he submitted to the president of India’s mission in Geneva, but he has not yet received a response, “says Thomas Andrews, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar.

The BBC also contacted the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs several times, but it did not hear again at the time of publication.

Often, activists reported that the state of the Rohingya in India is unstable. India does not recognize the Rohingya as refugees, but rather illegal immigrants under the country’s foreign law.

India includes a large group of Rohingya refugees, although Bangladesh, with more than a million people, has the largest number. Most of them escaped from Myanmar after a fatal army campaign in 2017. Although it lived there for generations, Swinghia has not been recognized in Myanmar as citizens.

There are 23,800 refugees in the Rohingya in India registered with the UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency. But Human Rights Watch estimates that the actual number is more than 40,000.

On May 6, 40 Rohingya refugees, who have refugee cards from UNHCR and lived in various parts of Delhi, were transferred to local police stations under the guise of collection of vital data. This is an annual process imposed on the Indian government, where the Rohingya refugees and fingerprints are photographed. After several hours, they were transferred to the city’s detention center in the city, they told the BBC.

Mr. Amin says that his brother called him after that and told him that he was transferred to Myanmar, and asked him to obtain a lawyer and alert the commission.

On May 7, the refugees said they were transferred to Hindun airport, east of Delhi, where they boarded the planes to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, an Indian area in the Bay of Bengal.

“After leaving the plane, we saw that two buses came to receive us,” Mr. Nour said in the video call. He added that he could see the phrase “bhartiya nausena” written on the side of the buses, the Indian term indicates the Indian navy.

“Once we arrived at the bus, they tied our hands with some plastic materials and covered our face with a black gauze cloth,” he said.

Although people on buses did not make themselves, they were wearing military clothes and they were speaking Indian.

After a short bus trip, the group took a marine ship in the Bay of Bengal, which Mr. Nour said they only realized Later Once their hands are not restricted and their faces were revealed.

They describe the ship as a large warship with two floors, at least 150 meters (490 feet).

“a lot [the people on the ship] “They were wearing shirts, black colors, and black army shoes,” said Mohamed Sajid, who was on an invitation with Mr. Nour.

Mr. Nour says that the group was on the marine ship for 14 hours. They were given regularly, and traditional Indian fare of rice, lentils, and paranger (cheese).

Some men say they were subjected to violence and humiliation on the ship.

“We have dealt very badly,” said Mr. Nour. “Some have been beaten very badly. They slapped several times.”

In the video call, Foyaz ULLAH showed the scars on his right wrist, repeatedly described on his back and face, and he wanted the bamboo penis.

“They asked me why I was illegally in India, why are you here?”

The Rohingya is often a Muslim community, but among the 40 people who returned by force in May, 15 are Christians.

Mr. Nour said: “Why did you not become Hindu?” They even made us withdraw our pants to see whether we are circumcised or not.

Another refugee, Iman Hussein, said the military individuals He accused him of participating in Paralgam massacreReferring to the April 22 attack, when 26 civilians, most of whom were Hindu tourists, were killed by the militants in Kashmir Indian managers.

The Indian government has repeatedly accused Pakistani citizens of carrying out the attacks, a demand that Islamabad denied. There was no suggestion that the Rohingya had any link to shoot.

The next day, on May 8, at about 19:00 local time (12:30 GMT), refugees were asked to climb a ladder on the side of the sea ship. Below, they described the vision of four smaller rescue boats, black and made of rubber.

Refugees were made to ride two boats, 20 on each of them and are accompanied by many people who transport them. The other two boats, who led the road, had more than ten individuals on it. For more than seven hours, they traveled with their hands.

Nour said: “One of the boats with the military personnel arrived at the seashore and tied a long rope with a tree. Then this rope was brought to the boats,” Nour said.

He said that they got the survival jackets, and their hands were not linked – and they were told to jump into the water. “We adopted the rope and swimmed more than 100 meters to reach the beach,” he said, adding that they were told that they had arrived in Indonesia.

Then the people who took them left them there.

The BBC put these allegations to the Indian government and the Indian Navy, and did not receive a response.

In the early hours of May 9, the group was found by the local fishermen who told them they were in Myanmar. They left the refugees using their phones to call their relatives in India.

For more than three months, BHA was helping the refugees who were separated by providing food and shelter, in the Tantari area of ​​Myanmar. But their families in India are terrified of their fate in Myanmar.

The United Nations says the life of Rohingya refugees “was severely dangerous when the Indian authorities were forced [them] In the Andaman Sea. “

“I was personally looking for this very annoying issue,” said Mr. Andrews. He admitted that the amount of information he could share is limited, but “also spoke with eyewitnesses and was able to confirm these reports and prove that they are in reality.”

On May 17, Mr. Amin and other family members of the refugees who were removed a petition urged the Supreme Court in India to return them to Delhi, and immediately stood a similar deportation and providing compensation to all forty individuals.

“I opened the country to the deportation of the Rohingya,” says Colin Gonelsvis, a senior lawyer in the Supreme Court who is arguing on behalf of the two affluises.

“You could drop a person at sea with a survival jacket in the war area of ​​something that people automatically chose disbelief,” said Mr. Gunsalvis.

In response to the petition, one of the Supreme Court judge called the judges seat on the allegations of “fictional ideas”. He also said that the prosecution did not provide sufficient evidence to prove their claims.

Since then, the court has agreed to hear arguments on September 29 to decide whether the Rohingya could be dealt with as refugees or if they were illegal immigrants and thus being deported.

Given that tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees live in India, it is not clear why a lot of effort has been devoted to the deportation of these forty people.

“No one in India can understand the reason for doing this, regardless of this poison against Muslims,” ​​said Mr. Gunsalvis.

Refugee treatment is sent throughout the Rohingya community in India. Last year, its members claim that there is an increase in deportations by the Indian authorities. There are no official numbers to confirm this.

Some have gone to hide. Others, like Mr. Amin, no longer sleep at home. He sent his wife and three children elsewhere.

Amin said: “In my heart there is nothing but this fear that the Indian government will take us too and throw us at sea at any time. Now we are afraid to get out of our homes.”

“These are people in India, not because they want to be,” said Mr. Andrews of the United Nations.

“They are due to the horrific violence that occurs in Myanmar. They were craftsmen running for their lives.”

Additional reports by Charlotte Scar in Delhi