Hate campaign haunts Rohingya in India amid pandemic
Munawar Zaman
Press TV, New Delhi
Rohingya refugee camps in India are gripped in utter panic about the possible outbreak of coronavirus due to lack of facilities to deal with the situation.
Amid the Covid-19 outbreak the community is facing a vicious hate campaign with many locals calling them virus spreaders and infiltrators and sometimes termites.
Presently more than 40000 registered Rohingya refugees live in India across four states and the community is currently under desperate conditions due to lack of food, water toilets and work. Some local NGOs are lending support but the community felt safe till the hate campaign took over India a year ago with anti muslim sentiments running high.
The covid-19 pandemic has brought more miseries to the community since most of them used to work in the unorganized sector. Now due to lockdowns most of them have lost their jobs forcing them to live on charity while hunger and poverty loom over the community.
The UNHCR which is responsible to support the refugees has been doing very little so far. Activists say that the most urgent need for these refugees is food, water and other basic essentials. Moreover the ruling BJP is also running a vicious campaign to expel them out of the country calling them a security threat.
The refugee camps are cramped and the spread of virus is inevitable they say. Most of them work as daily wage workers or scrap collectors to make a living but the government restrictions and lockdown has left many out of work. Now the community is struggling on their own to survive both the virus and the hate campaign amid need for desperate help from the AID agencies.
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