Nila Kispotta (centre) poses for a photo with family members. Kispotta comes from a family of daily wage earners. Like many young, rural girls, pursuing a tertiary education would have been impossible without the financial support she receives from her school, the Moimuna Nursing Institute. Credit: Farid Ahmed/IPS

By Farid Ahmed
THAKURGAON, Bangladesh , Oct 14 2020 (IPS)

Nila Kispotta, a 19-year-old rural girl from the Oraon ethnic community, has become a figure of exceptional achievement to the small, poverty-stricken village in Thakurgaon in northwest Bangladesh that she grew up in. Born into a family of daily wage earners, Kispotta dreamt of a different life. So when she enrolled in tertiary education to pursue a diploma in Nursing Science and Midwifery — she achieved something her family and community hadn’t even dreamed was possible.

“Girl children are mostly bearing the brunt of poverty in our society, but I continued my fight against all odds. Only a little help can change the life of many girls,” Kispotta told IPS.

It would have been impossible for Kispotta to pursue a tertiary education without financial support.

But after matriculating from a Christian missionary school, she went to a local college for two years before enrolling in the Moimuna Nursing Institute in Thakurgaon, 460 kilometres away from capital Dhaka. It is a non-profit approved by the Bangladesh Council of Nursing and Midwifery, and offers a three-year diploma in nursing for Taka 110,000 or $1,500, which includes tuition fees, accommodation, uniforms and books.

According to the institute’s chair of the board of directors, Dr. Saifullah Syed, it was designed to ensure that rural girls are given an opportunity to receive an education, despite their financial backgrounds.

“We offer needs-based scholarship and we are creating a scholarship fund so that poor girls can receive support,” Syed told IPS, adding that scholarships were funded by voluntary contributions and that the fund was managed by a board of trustees. He added that individual donors could even directly support specific students.

“It is the lowest cost institute in the country, and the fees cover only the running cost of the courses and it has become difficult to run the courses as many poor students are enrolled here because of the scholarship facilities,” Syed told IPS.

Kispotta, who is in her first year, is grateful for the waiver of fees.

“Now it’s easy for me to continue the diploma in nursing at a private institute as the tuition fees have been waived,” she said. Kispotta added that upon completion of the diploma, she plans to pursue a bachelor’s degree in nursing.

“She is our pride,” the elderly Gabriel Kispotta, a distant relative of Kispotta who lives in Thakurgaon, told IPS. “None of us have even passed high school,” he said, adding that around 15 Oraon families lived in the area.

Thakurgaon and its adjoining districts has a population of just over 1.2 million — of which one million live in rural areas — and a literacy rate of just under 42 percent.  

The institute, housed on its own campus, opened early this year with a first group of 20 underprivileged, students, mostly rural girls.

It houses modern labs, a library, a hostel and a large, lush green sports field overlooking the institute where students and faculty participate in athletics, football, handball and cricket. There is also a hospital onsite — the Moimuna Mata Shishu Hospital — that provides free healthcare services and free medicine to poverty-stricken villagers.

“It’s a specialised hospital for women and children, but we run like a general hospital as all kinds of patients come here as they get services almost free of cost,” Director of the Moimuna Mata Shishu Hospital, Dr. M.A. Momin, told IPS.

Momin, a retired civil surgeon from a government hospital who also teaches at the institute, said both the hospital and institute were staffed by capable medical staff who were able to effectively train the student nurses.

The institute’s curriculum offers a variety of courses that include; English, computer literacy, basic nursing, anatomy and physiology. The aim is to train students to a higher standard that would allow them to access further training in facilities in urban areas. 

“There is a huge shortage of qualified nurses in the country and we’re trying our best to produce quality nurses making opportunities for poor eligible students, especially for rural girls,” said the institute’s principal Lucy Biswas.

Students attend anatomy class at the Moimuna Nursing Institute. The first group of students comprises 20 underprivileged, rural students, mostly rural girls. Credit: Farid Ahmed/IPS

Most of Kispotta’s peers have a similar financial background.

Joya Rani, who enrolled at the institute from neighbouring Panchagar district, told IPS that she badly needed financial support as she had no way of funding her education.

“Getting a chance to study here without any cost is a watershed in my life… I’ve struggled all through my life and I don’t want to lose the fight,” she told IPS. “Certainly I’ll try to become a good nurse and find a job at a big hospital in the capital,” Rani said.

Another student, Sweety Akter, said before enrolling in the Moimuna Nursing Institute she had been able to earn a small amount of money working as a private tutor. The funds went to support her family. “Now it has stopped and sometimes it becomes difficult for me to manage the money for food at the hostel,” Akter told IPS.

Only a handful of students receive full financial support because of funding constraints, management says.

Biswas, who formerly headed a number of government nursing institutes before taking on the post at Moimuna Nursing Institute, told IPS: “Had there been no financial support, many of the students would have dropped out as they come from very poor families.”

Biswas said that even though tuition fees and hostel expenses were cheaper here than any other private nursing institutes in the country, it was still difficult for many of the rural girls to pay their education expenses as their families were locked in poverty and the struggle for daily survival.

“The students are so poor that they [could not afford] smart phones and internet charges at home for online classes during the coronavirus pandemic [lockdown],” Biswas explained. The country went into a nationwide lockdown at the end of March, partially easing some of these restrictions two months later, but continuing with a restriction on travel until early August.

“So they returned to the hostels to pursue their studies [while] maintaining social distancing.”

Excerpt:

Manju Begum, 85, stands in front of her flooded house in Medeni Mandal in Munshiganj District, central Bangladesh. She says she has not received any assistance from local officials since her home was flooded more than a week ago. With nearly 5.5 million people people across Bangladesh affected by severe flooding, humanitarian experts are concerned that millions of people, already badly impacted by COVID-19, will be pushed further into poverty. Credit: Farid Ahmed/IPS

By Farid Ahmed
DHAKA, Aug 5 2020 (IPS)

With nearly 5.5 million people people across Bangladesh affected by severe flooding — the worst in two decades — humanitarian experts are concerned that millions of people, already badly impacted by COVID-19, will be pushed further into poverty.

With a third of the country under water, the National Disaster Response Coordination Centre in Bangladesh has reported that some 5.5 million people or nearly a million families were affected by the flooding as of Tuesday, Aug. 4.

The Health Emergency Control Room has recorded at least 145 deaths, mostly from drowning or snakebites, in 33 of the 64 districts affected by flooding.

In the past three days alone, two more districts were freshly inundated by heavy rains, affecting nearly half a million more people.

• The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) said in a Aug. 4 report that heavy monsoon rains in upstream regions continued to cause flooding in Bangladesh’s districts in the north, north-east and south-east, affecting some 5.4 million people.
• June to August is typically the monsoon season here, but since the start of June heavy rains have resulted in many of the country’s rivers reaching levels classified as “dangerous”.
• UN OCHA said the flooding had damaged houses, dykes, embankments, safe water sources and hygiene facilities and also adversely affected livelihoods, especially in the agricultural sector. It had also disrupted access to basic services such as health care and education.

Arif Hossain on his boat on a flooded street in Lohajang in District, central Bangladesh. The former tailor now earns a living from ferrying people on his boat. People across Bangladesh have been marooned, their homes damaged and crops destroyed by the floods. Credit: Farid Ahmed/IPS

“I have lost everything in the river Jamuna – my home, my croplands… it went under water so swiftly that I couldn’t save my belongings either,” Abdur Rahman from Sirajganj region, north-central Bangladesh said.

A number of low-lying areas in Sirajganj were affected by flooding when the Jamuna river levels rose in July, leaving hundreds homeless. The Jamuna and Padma rivers are two of the country’s main rivers. The Padma, the main distributary of the Ganges, also burst it banks last month. In several districts, school buildings, roads and other structures were destroyed.

It is not just Bangladesh that is affected. Flooding has wreaked havoc across a large part of South Asia. In Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Bhutan several million people have been affected and scores killed. Assam, Bihar and part of West Bengal were the worst-affected states in India.

“People in Bangladesh, India and Nepal are sandwiched in a triple disaster of flooding, coronavirus and an associated socioeconomic crisis of loss of livelihoods and jobs,” Jagan Chapagain, the secretary general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), said.

“Millions of people across Bangladesh, India and Nepal have been marooned, their homes damaged and crops destroyed by floods that are the worst in recent years,” Chaplain added.

He said the flooding of farm lands and destruction of crops could push millions of people, already badly impacted by COVID-19, further into poverty.

In Bangladesh, the worst affected are those who have become paupers overnight as they lost their homes, belongings and croplands.

In some districts, entire villages are under water, forcing people to leave their homes in search of safety while many were seen crouching on rooftops waiting for rescue. In the flooded northern districts in Bangladesh, it was a common sight of villagers marooned on the roofs of their houses along with their livestock or poultry while many others sought shelter on embankments or roads.

Arif Hossain from Munshiganj District, central Bangladesh, was a tailor by profession before the coronavirus pandemic. Now he spends his days ferrying people in the submerged locality on his small boat.

In central Bangladesh, major rivers continue to overflow, causing heavy flooding to ravage low-lying parts of the capital, Dhaka. In adjoining districts and northern parts of the country much of the population, who have already been affected by the coronavirus lockdowns, are in dire straits. Poorly-prepared relief operations have aggravated the plight of victims, triggering public anger and widespread criticism of the government.

“I haven’t received any kind of aid,” Hossain told IPS.

“Many people in the areas left the villages… those who have no place to go, like me, are staying here in homes that are already [flooded],” Hossain told IPS adding, “We’re staying in a room submerged in knee-deep water… my two children are always scared of snakes.”

• The flooding is the second natural disaster that the country has had to deal with in as many months. In May, Cyclone Amphan made landfall in the midst of the country’s coronavirus lockdown. More than 2.4 million people and over half a million livestock had to be evactued from the in the coastal districts of Khulna, Satkheera, Jessore, Rajbadi and Sirajganj.

Manju Begum, 85, who lives alone in Medeni Mandal in Munshiganj District, central Bangladesh, 55 kilometres from capital, decried the non-action of local public representatives. She told IPS that nobody from her local government had offered her assistance after her home had been flooded.

“Floodwater entered my bedroom eight days ago… I got a little amount of food only from my neighbours,” she said.

However, last week Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina asked all government officials to remain prepared to extend support to those affected by the floods. She assured the country that extensive assistance would be given to the flood victims.

Bangladesh state minister for disaster management and relief Md. Enamur Rahman said they had formed six committees to monitor the activities of government relief assistance programmes.

The government has distributed cash, rice and other materials to those affected by the flooding and allocations would be increased if needed, Rahman said at a press conference in Dhaka last week.

Mostak Hussain, humanitarian director for Save the Children in Bangladesh, said nearly two million children here were affected by the longest-lasting floods in over 20 years.

“This has been a devastating monsoon so far and we’re only half way through the season,” he said.

The flooding has also left a large number of women affected as their livelihoods such as livestock, poultry farming, vegetable cultivation or tailoring have come to a halt. Initially, they faced setbacks to income generation as the coronavirus pandemic resulted in the country being shutdown.

“I took a loan from an NGO and started a poultry farm a couple of years ago, but I was forced to sell the chickens at a cheaper price as water inundated my house… now I’m not sure how would I repay the loan or maintain the family expenditure as I don’t have any work,” Shahana Begum, a widow, told IPS.

A damning reporting by the United Nations on the Myanmar’s army crimes against the Rohingya may come too late for these Rohingya children, many of whom remain traumatised as witnesses of the genocide. Credit: Farid Ahmed/IPS

By Farid Ahmed
DHAKA, Aug 27 2018 (IPS)

At 12, Mohammed* is an orphan. He watched his parents being killed by Myanmar government soldiers a year ago. And he is one of an estimated half a million Rohingya children who have survived and been witness to what the United Nations has called genocide.

According to accounts in a U.N. fact-finding report released today, the children were likely witnesses to their homes and villages being burnt down, to mass killings, and to the rape of their mothers. As girls, they would have likely been raped themselves.

It has been a year since the atrocities in Myanmar’s Rakhine state led to the exodus of some 700,000 Rohingya—some 60 percent of whom where children, according to the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF)—into neighbouring Bangladesh and to the coastal Cox’s Bazar district were the refugee camps have been set up.

And life remains difficult for the children in these camps.

While some who live in the squalid camps find it hard to envision themselves returning to a normal life; others, like Mohammed, dream of justice.

“I want justice… I want the soldiers to face trial,” he tells IPS, saying he wants justice from the soldiers who “ruined his life”.

“They killed our people, grabbed our land and torched our houses. They killed both my mother and father. I am now living with my sister,” he says.

A year ago, on Aug. 25, Myanmar government forces responded to a Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) attack on a military base. But, according to the report by the U.N. Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, “the nature, scale and organisation of the operations suggests a level of preplanning and design on the part of the Tatmadaw [Myanmar’s military] leadership.”

The report outlines how  “the operations were designed to instil immediate terror, with people woken by intense rapid weapons fire, explosions, or the shouts and screams of villagers. Structures were set ablaze and Tatmadaw soldiers fired their guns indiscriminately into houses and fields, and at villagers.”

It also notes that “rape and other forms of sexual violence were perpetrated on a massive scale” and that “sometimes up to 40 women and girls were raped or gang raped together. One survivor stated, “I was lucky, I was only raped by three men.””

The report calls for a full investigation into genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, calling for Myanmar’s top generals to be investigated for genocide in Rakhine state.

Senior-general Min Aung Hlaing is listed in the report as an alleged direct perpetrator of crimes, while the head of state, Aung San Suu Kyi, was heavily criticised in the report for not using her position “nor her moral authority, to stem or prevent the unfolding events, or seek alternative avenues to meet a responsibility to protect the civilian population.”

While rights agencies have responded to the report calling on international bodies and the U.N. to hold to account those responsible for the crimes, local groups have been calling for long-term solutions to aid the surviving Rohingya children.

A Rohingya girl proudly holds up her drawing at a UNICEF school at Balukhali camp, Bangladesh. Credit: Farid Ahmed/IPS

Since their arrival in Bangladesh many Rohingya children have not received a proper education, while the healthcare facilities have been strained by the large numbers of people seeking assistance.

While scores of global and local NGOs, aid groups, U.N. agencies and the Bangladesh government are working to support the refugees, aid workers are concerned as many of the children remain traumatised by their experiences.

While they are receiving trauma counselling, it is still not enough.

“Whenever there is a darkness at night, I’m scared and feel somebody is coming to kill us… sometimes I see it in my dream when I’m asleep… sometimes I see our room is filled with blood,” 11-year-old Ayesha Ali*, who was studying at a madrassa at Kutupalong camp in Cox’s Bazar, tells IPS.

UNICEF in an alert last week warned that denial of basic rights could result in the Rohingya children becoming a “lost generation”.

“With no end in sight to their bleak exile, despair and hopelessness are growing among the refugees, alongside a fatalism about what the future has in store,” the alert states.

It is estimated that 700,000 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar are housed in Cox’s Bazar district in Bangladesh. Credit: Mojibur Rahaman Rana/IPS

A number of children in the camps have lost either one or both parents. Last November, Bangladesh’s department of social services listed 39,841 Rohingya children as having lost either their mother or father, or lost contact with them during the exodus. A total of 8,391 children lost both of their parents.

“Most of the children saw the horrors of brutality and if they are not properly dealt with, they might have developed a mind of retaliation. Sometimes the small children talk like this: ‘We’ll kill the army…because they killed our people.’ They are growing up with a sort of hatred for the Myanmar army,” aid worker Abdul Mannan tells IPS.

And while there are 136 specialised, child-friendly zones for children and hundreds of learning centre across Cox Bazar, UNICEF notes it is only now “developing a strategy to ensure consistency and quality in the curriculum.”

BRAC, a development organisation based in Bangladesh, points out current learning centres and other facilities for children are not enough for the proper schooling and future development of the children.

“What we’re giving to the children is not enough to stand them in good stead,” Mohammed Abdus Salam, head of humanitarian crisis management programme of BRAC, tells IPS.

Newly arrived Rohingya refugees enter Teknaf from Shah Parir Dwip after being ferried from Myanmar across the Naf River. Credit: Farid Ahmed/ IPS

Salam says that the children and women in the camps also remain vulnerable. “Especially the boys and girls who have lost their parents or guardians are the most vulnerable as there was no long-term programme for them,” he says, adding that many were still traumatised and suffered from nightmares. Cox Bazar is a hub of drugs and human traffickers, and children without guardians remain at risk.

Both the Bangladesh government and international aid officials say that they are trying hard to cope with the situation in Cox Bazar which is the largest and most densely-populated refugee settlement in the world.

But Salam says that it is urgent to formulate long-term plans for both education and healthcare if the repatriation process was procrastinated. “Otherwise, many of the children will be lost as they are not properly protected,” he says.

*Names changed to protect the identity of the children.

Additional reporting by Nalisha Adams in Johannesburg.

Newly arrived Rohingya people wait at an army camp in Sabrang in Teknaf on Nov. 29, 2017 before being shifted to a camp in Cox's Bazar. Credit: Farid Ahmed/IPS

By Farid Ahmed
COX'S BAZAR, Bangladesh, Dec 16 2017 (IPS)

Ferdous Begum was cleaning her child after he had defecated in the open, using leaves she collected from a nearby tree at Bangladesh’s Teknaf Nature Park. The settlement is packed with Rohingya refugees who fled military persecution in Myanmar since August.

“Access to water is terrible here,” Begum said. “We’ve only a couple of hand-dug shallow wells and we don’t get enough water from the wells for so many people living in the camp.”“Initially we received patients with bullet, burn and stab injuries. Now we’re getting more patients with waterborne and cold-related diseases and the number is increasing.” --Dr. Dipongkor Binod Sharma

Other camps near Teknaf are also facing acute shortages of water, especially access to drinking and clean water, while aid workers face difficulties with hygiene management for the refugees crammed in squalid camps stretching from Teknaf to Ukhia in Cox’s Bazar.

The latest UN report shows an estimated 655,000 Rohingya have crossed into Bangladesh after fleeing violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, increasing the total Rohingya population in Cox’s Bazar to 867,000 since Aug. 25.

The report said new arrivals were living in spontaneous settlements with increasing demand for humanitarian assistance, including shelter, food, clean water, and sanitation.

Ferdous Begum said her son was unwell last night, with a stomach upset. “Misfortune follows us anywhere we go,” Begum said.

Aid workers said refugees, especially pregnant women, lactating mothers and children were exposed to the risk of health hazards because of water shortages that led to poor hygiene management.

Diphtheria is rapidly spreading among Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned last week.

In one month, as of Dec. 12, a total of 804 suspected diphtheria cases, including 15 deaths, were reported among the displaced Rohingya population in Cox’s Bazar.

The first suspected case was reported on Nov. 10 by a clinic of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Cox’s Bazar, according to the WHO.

A number of aid workers working in the field said hygiene was very important to prevent disease outbreaks in these overcrowded camps.

Many of the latrines made initially were already overflowing and faecal sludge was seen in the open in almost every camp. And many of the tubewells or hand-pumps are broken, shortening the supply of safe water.

Dr. Dipongkor Binod Sharma of Dhaka Community Hospital Trust, who has been working with Rohingya refugees since the latest influx began in August, said, “Initially we received maximum patients with bullet, burn and stab injuries. Now we’re getting more patients with waterborne and cold-related diseases and the number is increasing.”

Dr. Sharma said a large number of his patients were women and children suffering from acute malnutrition and anaemia, as most of the pregnant and lactating women were very young – many still in their teens.

“Hygiene is very crucial for them, but it seems they are not aware,” he said.

A Rohingya girl proudly holds up her drawing at a UNICEF school at Balukhali camp, Bangladesh. Credit: Farid Ahmed/IPS

A Rohingya refugee named Gul Nahar rushed to a BRAC aid centre with her six-month-old boy, Mohammad Haras, seeking help. “He’s been suffering from high fever along with diarrhoea for the last 10 days,” Nahar said.

Nahar said the seven members of her family were living together in a single shanty room.

WaterAid Bangladesh country director Dr. Md Khairul Islam told IPS he was aware of water shortages in the camps in Teknaf. “The situation might be exacerbated when local farmers start irrigation for their crops in the area soon,” he added.

Executive director of the government’s Institute of Water Modelling, Professor M Monowar Hossain, told IPS there were plans to initiate a survey to ascertain the level of ground water there.

“It’s a part of the national survey… It’s not particularly for the Rohingya issue. [But] Until we do the survey, we can’t say there is any scarcity of water,” said Prof Hossain, a former dean of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET).

Local people fear the presence of over half a million Rohingyas will put additional pressure on water sources and that would worsen the situation in the coming months.

They warned about a severe water crisis in the later part of winter, when the groundwater level naturally goes down.

Rohingyas in the Jadimora area said that they were trying to collect water from tubewells in local communities, but on many occasions they’d been barred.

In the absence of safe water, Rohingyas in makeshift camps in Damdamia Nature Park, Jadimora, Alikhali, and Unchiprang areas of Teknaf are collecting water from ponds, waterfalls and other untreated sources.

“Nobody is supplying drinking water for us. We collect water from a nearby pond,” said a Rohingya community leader in the Damdamia area, Rashid Ullah.

Many Rohingyas built makeshift shelters in forest preserves, felling trees and setting up shanties on hilly slopes. Other have taken refuge at overcrowded registered and unregistered camps.

The haphazard sprouting of camps makes it hard to supply safe drinking water to Rohingyas, aid workers said.

Department of Public Health Engineering officials said for the Rohingyas who took shelter in wild forests and hills, safe drinking water facilities like tube wells are nonexistent.

“We can’t say we have reached all Rohingyas with safe drinking water and other facilities as they are living scattered,” Refugee Relief and Repatriation commissioner Mohammad Abul Kalam of Cox’s Bazar told IPS.

“Particularly in Teknaf, we wanted to relocate those Rohingyas facing shortage of water to other camps, but they were not interested,” Kalam said.

Aid workers say the Rohingya influx has slowed down, but several hundred refugees still arrive every day, adding pressure on both the government and humanitarian relief groups.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has constructed more than 3,800 latrines and 159 wells in six host community locations – Whykong, Palonkhali, Jaliapalong, Kutupalong, Rajapalong and Baharchora.

“Access to clean water and safe sanitation services is a problem for the communities hosting refugees in Cox’s Bazar,” said Alessandro Petrone, WASH Programme Manager for IOM’s Rohingya Response, in a statement earlier this month.

“A global and up to date WASH assessment providing a proper gaps analysis and an activities plan is urgently needed. IOM is developing a rated assessment tool and will deploy teams to the field in the coming days to support this work,” said Petrone.

The Inter-Sector Coordination Group (ISCG), of which IOM is a part, reported this week that the humanitarian situation for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh remained dire.

The inter-agency Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) for 2017-18 identified the areas of WASH, health, nutrition and food security and shelter for immediate scale-up to save lives in both settlements and host communities, it said.

As per the HRP, the Rohingya population in Cox’s Bazar is highly vulnerable, many having experienced severe trauma, and are now living in extremely difficult conditions.

The limited WASH facilities in the refugee established settlements, put in place by WASH sector partners, including UNICEF, prior to the current influx, are over-stretched, with an average of 100 people per latrine, the report said.

New arrivals also have limited access to bathing facilities, especially women, and urgently require WASH supplies including soap and buckets.

Given the current population density and poor sanitation and hygiene conditions, any outbreak of cholera or Acute Watery Diarrhoea (AWD), which are endemic in Bangladesh, could kill thousands of people residing in temporary settlements, the report warned.

he series of reports from the border areas of Myanmar and Bangladesh is supported by UNESCO’s International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC)

Excerpt:

Rubina (far left) along with her friend at the Islamic School at Kutupalong camp, home to Rohingya refugees from Myanmar. Credit: Farid Ahmed/IPS

By Farid Ahmed
COX'S BAZAR, Bangladesh, Dec 14 2017 (IPS)

Twelve-year-old Rubina still struggles with the horrors she witnessed in her homeland in Myanmar before fleeing to neighbouring Bangladesh three months ago.

Despite reaching the relative safety of a refugee camp at Kutupalong in Bangladesh’s southeast town of Cox’s Bazar – now home to nearly a million ethnic Rohingya people, mostly women and children, who fled military persecution in Myanmar – Rubina suffers from post-traumatic stress caused by the harrowing experiences back in her country.

Conservative estimates by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) state at least 6,700 of Rohingya deaths have been caused by violence, including at least 730 children under the age of five
“Barely a night passes without nightmares,” she told IPS at an Islamic school in the camp where she comes every day to learn the Quran.

“I’m fine as long as I’m with my friends, but sometimes I feel alone even amidst a crowd… I can’t forget anything that I have seen.”

Rubina was orphaned in the latest spate of violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine state. She fled to Bangladesh along with her grandparents and three siblings after her parents were hacked to death by local Buddhist people in the presence of the army.

Rubina is among thousands of others who endured similar ordeals.

Different NGOs and aid groups are now working in more than a dozen camps stretching from Teknaf to Ukhia in Cox’s Bazar. A 45-kilometre drive reveals settlement after settlement, with thousands of bamboo and tarpaulin shanties lining both sides of the hilly road.

Nur Mohammad, 12, witnessed soldiers killing his father. “My father, a fisherman, tried to escape by running away, but the military chased him and shot him to death,” said Mohammad, who was staying at his maternal grandparents’ house in Shahporir Dwip. Mohammad’s father was a Myanmar national and his mother was Bangladeshi.

“As soldiers chased my father, my mother and I ran for cover through a jungle… we ran and walked for several days until we reached Bangladesh,” he said. “Sometimes I wake up at night and I feel like soldiers are knocking on the door… In that moment, I forget I’m in Bangladesh.”

Twelve-year-old Rohingya boy Nur Mohammad holds up Myanmar currency in Shah Porir Dwip. Credit: Farid Ahmed/IPS

The latest figures by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) indicate that 647,000 Rohingyas have arrived in Bangladesh since the latest spate of violence in Rakhine that began in August. The Bangladesh government estimated 300,000 to 400,000 Rohingyas were already here before the current influx.

A Rohingya community leader, Dil Mohammad, now lives in a camp in the no-man’s-land between Bangladesh and Myanmar at Tambru of Naikhongchhari in Bangladesh’s Bandarban district. He told IPS that women and children were the worst victims of violence.

Dil Mohammad, who has a degree in psychology from Yangon University (1994), worries about the future of those children, and especially young women, who will carry emotional scars from their experiences.

Though the Myanmar military denies it, many rights groups and UN officials have confirmed deliberate and planned atrocities, including murders, gang rapes and arsons against the Rohingyas.

“In most cases, children saw the brutality and the wrath of military against the Rohingyas, but many women were also showing the signs of brutality as they were raped and abused by the military and others,” said a Rohingya man, Mohammad Faisal, at a settlement at Teknaf Nature Park and Wildlife Sanctuary.

Faisal’s teenage wife Hajera, who was expecting her second baby, said they were lucky to have escaped with other family members, and everybody was safe and alive.

“I saw a soldier killing a baby – just throwing it onto the ground. I can’t forget the scene. I have a one-year-old baby girl,” Hajera said. “It could be my daughter… I tried to erase it from my mind, but I can’t. When I close my eyes I see the military man killing the baby and hear the baby crying.”

In most cases, women were unable to share their experiences with others, she said. “They can’t tell people how they have been abused, so they will bear their trauma [in silence],” Hajera said.

A Rohingya couple, Mohammad Faisal and his wife Hajera, pose for a photo with their child at their camp at Teknaf Nature’s Park, Bangladesh. Credit: Farid Ahmed/IPS

An aid worker at a centre of Save the Children, who asked not to be named, told IPS about the children she worked with. “They come here and spend the whole day making new friends and playing with them, but they need time to recover fully,” she said.

Professor Tasmeem Siddiqui of Dhaka University, the founder and chair of Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit in Dhaka, said, “Those who are coordinating there must build up leadership from the community, especially women’s leadership.”

“Trauma management is a big challenge after any genocide. People can’t easily forget what they have seen. It should be handled very carefully with the people who have expertise in those fields,” she told IPS, adding, “I don’t think there is a very systematic co-ordination among the groups working in the Rohingya settlements.”

As women and children were the primary victims, women and children from their community should be engaged, along with the experts, so that the victims can speak up without inhibition, she said.

For women, trauma and sexual assaults are not the only issues to be addressed. In this vast stretch of unprotected settlements, they face other risks, from hygiene, and sanitation to trafficking.

Rohingya people interviewed for this story didn’t fear the type of attacks they faced in Myanmar, but said there were still opportunists who would try to exploit the helplessness of the Rohingya women and children who were struggling to survive.

“Besides systematic aid work by groups with expertise, community participation is essential for the protection of women and children,” Professor Siddiqui stressed.

Bangladesh and Myanmar recently signed a deal regarding repatriation of Rohingya. Many see the step as a ray of hope, but others who have suffered from decades of poverty, underdevelopment and sectarian violence at home were more cynical.

Even 10-year-old Mohammad Arafat expressed doubts. “They killed my father in front of me. My mother and I escaped,” he said. “If we go back there, they will kill us.”

The series of reports from the border areas of Myanmar and Bangladesh is supported by UNESCO’s International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC)

Excerpt:

Rohingya people alight from a boat as they arrive at Shahparir Dip in Teknaf, Bangladesh. Credit: IPS

By Farid Ahmed
COX'S BAZAR, Bangladesh, Sep 18 2017 (IPS)

Forsaken and driven out by their home country Myanmar, tens of thousands of Rohingyas are struggling to survive in Bangladesh’s border districts amid scarcities of food, clean water and medical care, mostly for children and elderly people.

In a desperate flight to escape brutal military persecution, men, women and children in the thousands have walked for miles, travelled on rickety fishing boats or waded through the Naf — the river that divides Bangladesh and Myanmar.“It was a nightmare…the crackle of bullets and burning flames still haunt me.” -- Rebeka Begum

“I saw my houses being burned down and left behind all our belongings… my father was killed in front of us,” 12-year-old Nurul Islam told IPS as he reached Teknaf border in Bangladesh on Sep. 13. “In a bid to escape along with my mother and a younger brother, we walked almost a week to reach Bangladesh following a trail of people streaming out of Rakhine villages for cover.”

Islam is one of over 400,000 Rohingyas who have made the defiant and arduous journey to neighbouring Bangladesh in the past three weeks. Many of them were shot dead, drowned in the river or blown up in landmines placed in their path of escape.

Yet every hour, the number of new arrivals is rising. There seems no end to the steady flow of Rohingyas carrying sacks of belongings – whatever they could save from burning – or children on their shoulders or laps, or carrying weaker elderly people on their back or bamboo yokes. As they arrived, they were devastated, but happy to find themselves still alive – at least for the time being.

Rohingya children wait after arriving to Shahparir Dip in Teknaf, Bangladesh. Credit: IPS

But aid groups, both local and international, warn that this already overpopulated, impoverished South Asian nation is now overwhelmed by the sudden influx of refugees.

They said lack of food and medical aid are leading to a humanitarian catastrophe as starving or half-fed people arrive already suffering from malnutrition, and an inadequate safe water supply and poor sanitation facilities could cause breakouts of waterborne diseases.

“We’ve already detected many cases of skin or diarrhoeal diseases,” Ibrahim Molla, a physician from Dhaka Community Hospital now aiding refugees in Cox’s Bazar, told IPS.

The UN refugee agency UNHCR and International Organization for Migration (IOM) held a joint press conference in Dhaka on Thursday where officials estimated the number of fleeing Rohingyas might reach one million as their influx continued.

The latest round of Rohingya crisis unfolded as Myanmar’s army conducted a brutal crackdown on “Rohingya militants” who attacked a security outpost killing solders in the last week of August. Though not independently verified, according to eyewitness accounts of fleeing Rohingyas, the Myanmar army torched village after village, the homes of ethnic Rohingya Muslims, in reprisal, killing hundreds.

Myanmar authorities denied the allegations, but satellite images released by a number of international rights groups corroborated the claim made by the Rohingya refugees.

In addition to arson, the Myanmar soldiers were also accused of raping Rohingya women.

Local people in Teknaf also said they saw huge fires and black smoke billowing across the Naf River from the Myanmar side several times.

The UN refugee chief called the situation a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing” in Rakhine state in Myanmar.

It was not the first time the Rohingyas, mostly Muslims, have been targeted and faced discrimination in their hometowns of Buddhist-majority Myanmar, where they lived for centuries. In the past few decades, they have been stripped of citizenship, denied basic rights and made stateless, leading the UN to describe them as “the most persecuted people on earth”.

As the Rohingyas crossed finally the border after their death-defying trudge to Bangladesh’s southeast districts of Cox’s Bazar and Bandarban, many had no safe shelter, food or drinking water in a country of 160 million people, though Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina promised to accommodate all on humanitarian grounds.

Though many countries started sending aid and others made promises, many Rohingya refugees were still starving or passing days half-fed. Those who were strong enough to jostle fared the best as local volunteers distributed limited amounts of food and water.

In many places when trucks carrying aid were spotted, starving people blocked them and desperately tried to grab food. The distribution process turned risky as the inexperienced volunteers threw food to the crowd of refugees from the trucks.

As they scuffled for food and water, many people were injured in stampedes or caned by the people given responsibility to discipline the refugees crowding for aid.

Thousands of Rohingyas, mostly women and children, took refuge on the sides of roads or other empty spaces under open sky. Some of those who were lucky could manage a sheet of polythene to save them from heavy monsoon rains that flooded a third of Bangladesh in August.

The Bangladesh government has already demarcated an area in Cox’s Bazar to build new refugee camps and started mandatory registration of Rohingyas before giving them official status as refugees.

Rebeka Begum, who had just alighted from a boat, was searching fruitlessly for food for her child. “We’re now paupers as we’ve left behind everything in Myanmar to save ourselves from the wrath of military,” she said, horror still sounding in her voice.

A Rohingya woman Rebeka Begum with her child poses for a photo at Shahparir Dip, Teknaf, Bangladesh. Credit: IPS

“It was a nightmare…the crackle of bullets and burning flames still haunt me,” Rebeka Begum said.

Amena Begum was collecting filthy water from a canal for her children to drink as she found no other options. “I urgently need water for my children… what can I do now?” she asked.

Local people said that since there were not enough toilets for so many people, thousands of refugees were defecating on the roadsides or on the banks of canals, from which they were also collecting water for drinking and other purposes.

UNICEF said over 200,000 Rohingya children were at risk and hundreds of unaccompanied Rohingya children, separated from both parents and relatives in the ongoing violence in Rakhine, were in Cox’s Bazar and looking for family members. Many of these children are traumatised by terrifying memories of murders and arson in homes and their experience on path while fleeing.

Save the Children in Bangladesh said in a statement on Sept 17 that a shortage of food, shelter, water and basic hygiene support might cause another catastrophe.

“Apart from diarrhoea and skin diseases, different types of communicable diseases might spread fast here,” warned Dr. Ibrahim Molla, adding that the shortage of space the refugees had for living and poor hygiene support was to blame.

Molla said the group was running a medical camp in Teknaf, and had obtained government permission to open a makeshift hospital for the refugees.

All local hospitals in Cox’s Bazar and the port city of Chittagong were teeming with Rohingya patients – many with bullet wounds and some with injuries from landmines.

Mohammad Alam was looking for medical support for his feverish son as he arrived on a boat crossing the Naf. He was advised by local people to walk a few kilometres more to find a hospital.

Alam, a farmer by profession, started off again in search of the hospital and a refugee camp.

“I’m lucky, as I’ve survived along with all my family members,” Amam said. But his pale and weary face denoted a grim and uncertain future, like his fellow Rohingyas who had no idea when or if they would ever be able to return home despite the global pressure on Myanmar to bring an end to Rohingyas’ persecution.

Women with goats come out of their submerged house, in Shibaloy, Manikganj district, Bangladesh. Credit: Farid Ahmed/IPS

By Farid Ahmed
DHAKA, Aug 20 2017 (IPS)

Aid agencies warn of a serious unfolding humanitarian crisis as floodwaters continue to inundate new areas of three South Asian countries, forcing millions of people to flee their homes for shelters.

The death toll from drowning, snakebite, house collapse and landslide triggered by monsoon rains and floods rose to over 600 people, officials said on Aug. 19.In Bangladesh, farmers are bearing the brunt of the ongoing flooding as the country’s agriculture department estimated rice and other crops cultivated in half a million hectares of land in 34 districts were washed away.

More than 16 million have been affected by monsoon floods in Nepal, Bangladesh and India, with many of them either displaced or marooned without food or electricity.

In many areas, although the floodwater has started receding, rivers are still swelling.

A large number of displaced have taken refuge in squalid makeshift camps and are staying in extremely unhygienic conditions, according to aid agencies.

Road and rail communications in the affected areas have been also severely disrupted. Thousands of educational institutions have been forced to close, while submerged hospitals are unable to assist flood victims even as water-borne diseases are spreading.

“This is fast becoming one of the most serious humanitarian crises this region has seen in many years and urgent action is needed to meet the growing needs of millions of people affected by these devastating floods,” said Martin Faller, Deputy Regional Director for Asia Pacific, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).

“Millions of people across Nepal, Bangladesh and India face severe food shortages and disease caused by polluted flood waters,” Faller said in a statement.

The aid agency Oxfam said there was urgent need for supplies like drinking water, food, shelter, blankets, hygiene kits and solar lights.

Bangladesh authorities said more than a third of the country was submerged, and water levels in major rivers were still rising, inundating new areas every day.

The premises of a school inundated by floodwater in Shibaloy, Manikganj district, Bangladesh. Credit: Farid Ahmed/IPS

In Bangladesh, flooding by major rivers has surpassed the levels set in 1988, the deadliest floods the country had seen to date.

According to the disaster management department control room of the Bangladesh government, at least 98 people died in August.

The Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief estimated that more than half a million people in Bangladesh were affected by flooding.

In Bangladesh, farmers are bearing the brunt of the ongoing flooding as the country’s agriculture department estimated rice and other crops cultivated in half a million hectares of land in 34 districts were washed away.

Abdul Hamid, a farmer in Rangpur district, said he had cultivated rice in 10 bighas of land, but it was completely ruined by floods. “I don’t know how to recover the loss,” he said, adding that his house was also destroyed.

In India, over 11 million people have been affected by floods in four states across the north of the country. India’s meteorological department is forecasting more heavy rain for the region in the coming days.

The flood situation in parts of India’s northern West Bengal remained grim until August 18, with many rivers still flowing well above the extreme danger level despite improvement in the overall situation in the region, Rajib Banerjee, West Bengal’s minister for irrigation and waterways, told IPS on Aug. 19.

“The situation in Malda still looks grim and remains as a matter of concern as the water of the River Mahananda continues to rise,” he said.

The situation in villages in the Indian state of Assam is very serious, as embankments of rivers in many areas have been breached, forcing hundreds of families to flee their houses. Poor people, mostly farmers, were the chief victims and many took refuge on roadsides and embankments.

Children on a boat come to their two-storey tin-roofed house half of which is submerged in flood water, in Shibaloy, Manikganj district, Bangladesh. Credit: Farid Ahmed/IPS

Thousands of people in northern Uttar Pradesh in India, where the authorities sought military help, were also badly affected and many of them still remained marooned.

Bihar, the worst-hit district in India, also estimated over 150 dead and half a million displaced in the past couple of weeks.

“In Nepal, government recorded 134 dead and 30 missing in flood-affected areas,” a senior journalist and director of news and current affairs of Nepal’s ABC News TV, Dr. Suresh Achaya, told IPS.

Some 14 districts out of 75, mostly located along the border with India, were badly affected, Acharya said.

In Nepal, many areas remain cut off after the most recent destructive floods and landslides on Aug. 11 and 12. Villagers and communities are stranded without food, water and electricity though the government said it had been providing the victims with foods and other support.

In the flood-hit areas, thousands of people had taken shelter in schools, temples and sides of roads and embankments.

The Nepalese ministry of agricultural development estimated that floodwaters had washed away rice and other crops worth Rs. 8.11 billion (77 million dollars) and feared the crop damage could cast a long shadow on the economy.

The Nepalese government, at a meeting with chief secretary Rajendra Kishore in the chair on Aug. 18, decided to accept foreign support and aid to meet the need.

Scientists attribute the deadly floods in South Asia to a changing climate, which they believe increased the magnitude of the current flooding many-fold.

“The untimely floods being experienced in Nepal, India and Bangladesh can definitely be attributed to climate change-induced changes in the South Asian monsoon system,” Dr Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD), told IPS.

The countries in the region have already been taking the brunt of changing climate that caused extreme weather patterns increasing the daily rainfall amount, droughts, untimely flooding and frequent tropical storms.

At least 141 people (at the time of writing), including children and four army personnel, were killed in separate series of landslides triggered by heavy rains in Rangamati, Bandarban, and Chittagong on June 13, 2017. The losses have been monumental, and officials fear that the death toll may rise even further in the worst landslide since 2007, when a landslide resulted in the death of around 130 people and affected 1.5 million people in the region.

Photo: Star

In 2015, heavy floods and landslides during the last week of June inundated the districts of Chittagong, Bandarban and Cox’s Bazar. A second series of heavy rain from July 22–27 caused new floods, landslides and further displacements. The side-effects, so to speak, of Cyclone Komen, were again heavy rainfall, causing additional landslides and flooding which extended to all the coastal regions.

It is disheartening that despite the occurrence of such disasters in the past, we have learnt little from our experiences. Thus, thanks to mismanagement and lack of preparedness, landslides of such magnitude continue to strike our hills.

The Chittagong region is especially vulnerable due to various aspects, ranging from physical, social, political and environmental factors. It goes without saying that comprehensive, well-coordinated steps by the government are needed for sustainable landslide hazard management.

How, one might ask, can we prevent a natural disaster of such scale? Actually, there are several ways. First of all, by controlling the grabbing of state-owned land, such occurrences can definitely be limited. Moreover, understanding the rainfall pattern and its exact relationship with landslide in the region could also help us be prepared. Detailed land use planning of the vulnerable areas, a landslide database, landslide mapping and geophysical analysis of the region are essential to minimise landslides and their impacts in the region.

For locals living in the hills, it is imperative that they are taught how to secure themselves against landslides. They could also be taught how to control landslides through proper drainage, protection, soil conservation, and watershed management.

Early warning systems need to be strengthened, with active participation of community leaders. Proper communication amidst the Bangladesh Meteorological Department, community based organisations, the civil defence wing and local government authorities is needed to receive regular data relevant to the area as soon as the monsoon season sets. Volunteers or representatives of the vulnerable communities could also be involved to assist in the alertness and preparedness process. Moreover, existing cross departmental coordination and cooperation on landslide management should be reviewed and strengthened with necessary resources.

In order to ensure sustainable landslide management, contingency planning at different levels for emergency response should be developed and updated at least once a year. The focus of these plans should be on landslide prone areas and their vulnerability status, and the availability of resources and capacity, apart from other requisite elements that feature in such a plan.

Capacity building courses on landslide hazard management is needed after a proper gap analysis. Moreover, the constant planning process should include volunteers, managers, workers, government officials, local government representatives, relevant military authorities and media of the vulnerable districts. Half of the participants in the process should be women, as they should also be trained on how to protect their homes, families and communities against such natural disasters.

Landslide mitigation refers to lessening the aftereffects of landslides by taking various projects at vulnerable slopes. Appropriate feasibility studies, along with assessments of risk, uncertainty, possible consequences, constructability, environmental impacts and cost benefit analysis by independent authorities are needed for any mitigation measure. A public hearing and consultation is important in this regard.

Many of those living in the vulnerable areas might not even be aware of the legal provisions that are already in place to tackle such natural disasters. And so, laws such as the Disaster Management Act, and Standing Orders on Disaster (SOD) of the Government of Bangladesh should be understood and exercised by all concerned with appropriate resources, planning, and monitoring and accountability mechanism.

Landslides are the consequence of the political and administrative incapability to manage urban expansion. Consequently, the risks facing the urban poor remain unaddressed or partially addressed by relevant agencies. Measures to reduce landslide risks need to be integrated into area planning. In this regard, actors, including government and local government authorities, the private sector, NGOs and individuals, have particular roles to ensure compliance with land use and relevant policies and procedures, so that landslide risks are addressed when infrastructure is constructed on hillsides. Moreover, the poverty-stricken who live in landslide prone areas cannot even afford an alternative area to live in which could be safer for them. Therefore, addressing poverty of the hill people should be considered as a priority for reducing landslide-related risk and vulnerability.

Politically and socially empowered people of the society in conjunction with corrupt government officials are involved with hill graving and cutting in Bangladesh, violating the existing rules and regulations. Legal instruments should be in place and the enforcement of existing rules should be executed to manage risk-free hills.

In addition, integrating landslide risk reduction in existing development works and future initiatives of different government departments and others working in the area should be made a priority. The concerned authorities should develop a database to carry out detailed study and planning. Government organisations and NGOs also need to redesign their development programmes with the active participation of the most vulnerable communities to ensure that they maximise hazard mitigation potential and incorporate traditional community coping practices. To guarantee the best implementation of all this, adequate resources from the central government and development partners should be ensured by authorities and policymakers.

Countries like China, Philippines, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Japan and the US have managed to control the frequency of landslide occurrence. We should learn from their experiences and seek cooperation from them to enhance our capacity in managing landslide risks. If we are to truly avoid landslide of such magnitude, we need to learn how to be prepared from the beginning instead of waiting for disaster to strike before taking any concrete step.

The writer is a disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation expert, and a development lawyer.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

A worker arranges bricks for burning at a traditional brick factory in Munshiganj, Bangladesh. Such factories are responsible for a large amount of carbon emissions. Credit: Farid Ahmed/IPS

By Farid Ahmed
DHAKA, Dec 19 2016 (IPS)

Bangladesh is weighing a World Bank proposal to introduce a carbon tax, the first of its kind in the South Asian nation, amid fears of a backlash from consumers.

In its proposal, the World Bank suggested that the government introduce the carbon tax initially only on petroleum products. Bank officials advised the government to keep the market price of fuel unchanged by slashing its own profits."The cost of a carbon tax should not be passed on to the consumers." --Dr. Saleemul Huq

Fuel costs are generally much higher in Bangladesh compared to the international market, which has allowed the government to make a huge profit in past years.

“We need to weigh the proposal to assess its pros and cons,” Bangladesh’s state minister for Finance and Planning M.A. Mannan told IPS in Dhaka.

Previous efforts to tax polluting industries by Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith have failed to gain traction, and several senior government officials who asked not to be named believe the government will not act quickly on any new tax.

Still, many climate change activists and scientists were largely happy with the proposal and said those responsible for carbon emissions must pay the price. They believe imposing such a tax would trigger new investments in clean technology, but stress that the market price of fuel should be kept stable for consumers.

“Bangladesh has no obligation to impose a carbon tax but nevertheless it should do so to both raise revenue for investments in cleaner energy and also to impose some cost on polluting energy,” said Dr Saleemul Huq, Director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development.

“At present, the cost the consumers bear is much higher than necessary when the global price of imported petroleum is considered. Hence the cost of a carbon tax should not be passed on to the consumers,” Dr. Huq told IPS.

He said that the tax collected thus would accrue to the government, which could then allocate it to investments in cleaner energy.

The chief of a leading consumers’ rights group disagreed. “I don’t think it’s justified to impose a carbon tax right at this moment,” Ghulam Rahman, president of the Consumers Association of Bangladesh, told IPS.

Rahman, who earlier headed Bangladesh’s Anti-Corruption Commission, said it would not only affect consumers but also hamper the country’s production and development.

Bangladesh should not rush to impose a carbon tax when many of the world’s largest polluters have failed to do so, he said.

In a move to address the impacts of climate change, Bangladesh amended its constitution in 2011 to include provisions for the protection of the environment and safeguarding natural resources for current and future generations. Moreover, as part of its Nationally Determined Contribution during the COP21 meeting in Paris, Bangladesh committed to reducing climate-harming emissions by 5 percent.

Rashed Al Mahmud Titumir, a professor of economics at the University of Dhaka, said the government should take effective measures to curb carbon emissions, but instead of introducing a carbon tax immediately, it should encourage green and clean technologies by offering tax breaks and other benefits.

Apart from their adverse impacts on the environment, unchecked carbon dioxide emissions take a huge toll on public health, said Titumir, who also heads the policy research group Unnayan Onneshan.

With assistance from the World Bank, Bangladesh, one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change due to its low-lying geography, was the first to set up its own Climate Change Trust Fund to help mitigate and adapt to climate change, and this time Bangladesh could take the lead again.

Zahid Hussain, lead economist at the World Bank’s Dhaka office, said, “Petroleum products are the best option for Bangladesh to introduce a carbon tax since the government was making a huge profit by selling petroleum products.”

Initially, Bangladesh could focus on fuel only since it might be difficult to collect carbon taxes from other sources, he said.

Hussain argued that while oil prices do fluctuate, the government could assist the most vulnerable segments of the population.

Apart from tapping a significant source of revenue, Hussain said a carbon tax could even help Bangladesh and its exporters carve a niche the increasingly environmentally-conscious developed markets across the world.

A World Bank document did not rule out the challenges of introducing carbon tax and said policy-makers could justifiably be concerned about the impacts of carbon taxes on the poorer segments of the population and on some economic sectors.

“A carbon tax can have significant benefits for Bangladesh, but it’s not without challenges,” it said.

Policemen guard a Buddhist monastery in Dhaka following sectarian violence in Cox's Bazar. Credit: Farid Ahmed/IPS

By Farid Ahmed
DHAKA, Oct 10 2012 (IPS)

Anxiety has yet to die down over a week after crowds of Muslims torched more than a dozen temples and scores of houses in southeast Bangladesh, leaving thousands of Buddhists with the unshakeable premonition that more violence was forthcoming.

The government has repeatedly tried to assure the religious minority that they have the support and protection of the state, while the chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, Mizanur Rahman, apologised for the atrocities – but it seems nothing can assuage the fear of fresh violence.

“We’re shocked by this unexpected violence… yet we appeal to all to maintain peace as Buddhism preaches peace and non-violence,” Dr. Pranab Kumar Baruya, a former visiting professor of Dhaka University, told IPS during an interview at the Dharma Rajika Buddhist Monastery in Dhaka.

“We want communal harmony. We number only one million (in Bangladesh) and we need the support of the government and the majority of the people in a country where we’ve also been born and where Buddhism has been practiced for more than a thousand years,” he added.

Amid mounting pressure on the government to launch a judicial inquiry into the attacks, the country’s top business leaders have expressed anxieties that a recurrence of such incidents might have a negative impact on the country’s image, investment and international trade.

The Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry asked the government on Thursday to take immediate measures to ensure “such unexpected incidents do not take place (again).”

“A sense of fear still persists among the Buddhist people and it’s the responsibility of the government to allay the fear by providing proper security and bringing the culprits to justice,” Ranjit Kumar Barua, a retired joint-secretary to the government of Bangladesh, told IPS.

Ancient relics destroyed

The riot began on Sept. 29, when large crowds of Muslims attacked Buddhist shrines and torched homes in southeast Bangladesh, home to the highest concentration of Buddhists in the country.

Protesters chanted anti-Buddhist slogans and rioted throughout the night in the town of Ramu in the tourist district of Cox’s Bazar. Violence spilled into the adjoining areas and continued the following day.

The local administration had to call in the army, paramilitary troops from Border Guards Bangladesh and police forces to maintain law and order.

According to Baruya, ancient Buddhist relics, along with rare palm-leaf manuscripts of folk and religious tales (locally known as Puthis) were burned and several hundred rare statues of Lord Buddha were either damaged or looted by the mobs.

“Almost all the temples and monasteries, adorned intricately with wood carvings, were burned and damaged. They were several hundred years old; some of them were built in the late 17^th or early 18^th centuries,” he said.

Pragyananda Bhikkhu, resident director of the Ramu Central Sima Bihar in Cox’s Bazar, told IPS, “The damage done is irreparable and no one on earth will be able to compensate for this loss. The wounds might heal but they will continue to bleed deep in our hearts.”

“The temples belonged to the Buddhists, but they were also priceless treasures of our country (as a whole), they were part of our heritage,” Nehal Ahmed, a college professor in Dhaka, told IPS.

Police and witnesses told IPS that a photograph of a partially burned Quran, allegedly posted on Facebook by a Buddhist youth, sparked the riot.

An initial report said that the boy was tagged in the photo but did not post it himself. The Facebook user’s account has since been deleted.

“This can’t be accepted in this relatively peaceful South Asian nation,” Ahmed said, referring to the recent deadly violence that swept across several countries in response to a low-budget American film, ‘Innocence of Muslim’, desecrating Prophet Mohammad.

“We’ve seen many deaths during protests in Pakistan over the anti-Islam film, but it was relatively peaceful in Bangladesh,” he said.

Political stalemate

Top political leaders, hailing from the ruling Awami League and the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), have pointed accusing fingers at each other in a blame game that has further deepened the anxiety of Buddhists who comprise less than one percent of the total population in Muslim-majority Bangladesh.

Bangladesh Home Minister, Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir, who visited the scene of the violence immediately after the riot, blamed the BNP for the attacks.

The minister said the violence was planned, citing evidence of gunpowder and petrol found in the burnt monasteries and houses.

Both the prime minister and the home minister also hinted that Rohingya Muslims, refugees of persection and sectarian violence in neighbouring Myanmar (formerly Burma) who fled to Cox’s Bazar two decades ago, might be responsible for instigating the attacks.

Meanwhile, Khaleda Zia, leader of the BNP and a former prime minister of Bangladesh, said on Saturday that the government itself was behind the attacks.

This week the Bangladesh Supreme Court ordered the government to ensure complete security to Buddhists and other minority groups.

Buddhist monks, primarily in Myanmar, Thailand, and Sri Lanka, staged demonstrations in front of the Bangladesh missions in their respective countries, venting their anger and demanding an impartial probe into the attacks.

International rights groups and non-governmental organisations including Amnesty International also asked the government to bring the culprits to book immediately.

Many Buddhists feel that whatever the investigation unearths, horrific memories of one of the worst attacks on the Buddhist faith will remain alive.

(END)

By Farid Ahmed
DHAKA, Jan 2 2009 (IPS)

With a stunning landslide victory under her belt, prime minister-elect Sheikh Hasina Wajed has a second opportunity to put the ghosts of the past to rest and release Bangladesh from a cycle of crises that has plagued this country since its violent birth in 1971.

Political analysts say people look forward to the New Year with the hope that the country’s successfully concluded elections will mark a peaceful transition to democracy, after two years of rule by a military-backed interim government.

Hasina’s Awami League claimed a two-thirds majority in the 300-member parliament, handing a resounding defeat to the last elected prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia, whose Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has been reduced to a mere 29 seats with her party’s allies winning another two seats.

It was a clear mandate with voters showing disillusionment with the Zia’s BNP-led coalition which stands accused of massive corruption, abuse of power and sheltering militants.

The BNP had also forged an opportunistic alliance with the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, an Islamist party which had collaborated in the 1971 genocide carried out by the Pakistan army to prevent the secession of what was then known as East Pakistan.

Hasina has pledged a “charter for change,” though this is hard for the daughter of the country’s founder-president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who was assassinated in a military putsch in August 1975. Hasina’s close family members, including her mother and three brothers, were killed and she, and a sister, survived only because they were in Germany at that time.

“Hasina Wajed has shown us a vision with her charter for change and the people opted for that change… and now it’s her turn to deliver,” a school teacher Shafinaz Islam told IPS.

“Now is the time to see if they really change,” Bangladesh Political Science Association chairman Prof. Ataur Rahman of Dhaka University told IPS. ‘’In fact, it’s a people’s mandate against the BNP’s failure.”

Rahman attributed the Awami League’s success to the fact that an anti-graft drive, launched by the interim government, netted many of the top leaders of the BNP. Zia’s influential elder son, Tarique Rahman, fled the country when investigators knocked on his door.

The unelected interim government, to its credit, worked on electoral fraud, removing 13,000 ‘ghost voters’ from revised rolls and issued new, computerised identity cards.

Elections were originally scheduled for January 2007, but were postponed after a military-backed interim government took over under a state of emergency necessitated by political violence over allegation of election fraud after Zia stepped down in October 2006, having completed a five-year term in office.

After the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur, the country was ruled by Zia’s husband Ziaur Rehman until he was, in turn, assassinated in a coup in 1981. The country was thereafter ruled mostly by a succession of military dictatorships until 1991 when parliamentary democracy was introduced.

Since then the two women, Zia and Hasina, dubbed the “battling begums” for their intense rivalry and personal hatred, ruled the country in alternative terms. Zia was prime minister twice from 1991 to 1996 and then from 2001 to 2006.

Analysts said the new government will have to continue the fight against rampant corruption, arrest the rising prices of essential commodities and reduce poverty in a country where over 40 percent of Bangladesh’s 150 million live on less than one US dollar per day.

Recent Central Bank reports said rising prices of food items have eroded the purchasing power as well as living standards government and non-government employees, industrial workers as well as people with limited incomes and pushed large numbers of people below the poverty line.

In her first press briefing, after the election results were known, Hasina said her main challenges were curbing poverty and fighting fundamentalist militancy.

Zia, in her post-poll briefing, alleged that polls were rigged in favour of the Awami League and were therefore unacceptable. But, on Thursday, her BNP party relented and said it wanted to give Hasina a chance to govern – though international monitors said there was no reason to suspect fraud.

”We know beyond doubt that the election was rigged and results were manipulated,” BNP secretary-general Khandaker Delwar Hossain said. “Yet we would like to give the Awami League a chance to rule and prove its efficiency.”

Hasina’s toughest job will be addressing the issue of war crimes as she received massive support from people demanding that those who helped the Pakistani army carry out the 1971 genocide be brought to trial.

Though the numbers are disputed the Guinness Book of Records lists what happened in 1971 as among the top five genocides of the 20th century. It is generally accepted that at least 200,000 people perished.

Already, Hasina has sought help from Ian Martin, the U.N. secretary-general’s special representative to Nepal, who was in Dhaka on Thursday. Martin is reported to have assured Hasina cooperation in arranging for the trial of war criminals, should the Bangladesh government make a formal request.

Prof. Rahman said the Awami League was in danger of being unable to deliver on the many promises made and raising the people’s expectations. “It’ll be difficult for the party to meet the people’s demands.”

The ‘New Age’ daily, in its editorial on Dec. 30, said: “The biggest challenge that Awami League has been exposed to is properly handling the huge parliamentary strength.”

The editorial suggested that two-thirds majorities in Bangladesh, and other South Asian countries, have often resulted in failure to ‘’behave democratically, particularly in terms of accommodating dissenting views of the opposition parties on the one hand and the critical media on the other”.

“We only hope that the Awami League will take lessons from history and contribute to the institutionalisation of a sound parliamentary system of governance in the country,” the New Age said in its editorial.

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