美国国家公共电台 NPR A Young Rohingya Mom: Pregnant, Stateless, Living In Limbo

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ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

There are more than 130 officially recognized ethnic¹ minority groups in Myanmar. Each has its own culture, even language. The Rohingya Muslims are not one of them. Myanmar's government won't grant them citizenship². Its leaders won't even utter the word Rohingya because they don't believe the group exists. And that's led to the crisis that we've been following closely. Some 800,000 Rohingya have fled what some human rights groups are calling a campaign of genocide by Myanmar's army. NPR's Jason Beaubien recently visited Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh, and he brings us this story about what it means to be stateless.

JASON BEAUBIEN, BYLINE³: Twenty-year-old Sanura Begum misses her cattle. Sitting in her plastic and bamboo shelter in the Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh, Begum says she longs for her sturdy, wooden house on her parents' farm back in Myanmar.

SANURA BEGUM: (Through interpreter) I used to take care of the animals, and I'm still really missing them.

BEAUBIEN: Her family had 20 cows, 12 water buffalo⁴ and some chickens, she says. They used the buffalo for milk and to plow⁵ their rice fields. They grew chilies⁶ and vegetables. And unlike now, they had plenty of food. On this day, Begum says she's run out of rice and won't get her next ration⁷ from the World Food Program for another four days.

Begum fled her village in Myanmar in August after the Myanmar Army launched a scorched⁸ earth offensive against Rohingya militants⁹. The government soldiers ransacked¹⁰ Rohingya villages throughout the state. Begum believes she would've been killed if she stayed. Along with her husband, her sister and her 2-year-old son, she walked to the border with Bangladesh.

BEGUM: (Through interpreter) We left with one straw mat, two cooking pots and 10 kilos of rice. We had just our own clothes and nothing more.

BEAUBIEN: They left everything else behind, including all of her animals. She says she doesn't know what happened to her cows or her buffalo, but she thinks the soldiers probably took them. In Myanmar, the Rohingya have been persecuted¹¹ for decades. The Muslim minority aren't considered citizens despite having lived there for generations. The Myanmar government insists they're illegal immigrants who arrived years ago from Bangladesh.

Begum and the other Rohingya weren't allowed to leave their villages without the permission of the military, which was rarely granted. Begum says before coming to Bangladesh, she'd never seen a doctor or been to a health clinic. In addition, she says the soldiers insisted that her parents' farm belonged to the army.

BEGUM: (Through interpreter) We had to pay them every week.

BEAUBIEN: She says if they sold a cow, the soldiers demanded half the sale price of the cow as a grazing fee.

BEGUM: (Through interpreter) The soldiers said this is our land, so if you are raising any cows, any goats on our property, you have to give half to us. The people who didn't pay - the soldiers tortured these guys. So in the end, you had to pay.

BEAUBIEN: Now, in what's become the largest refugee camp in the world, Begum's days are relatively¹² quiet. She cooks in the morning and washes clothes at a communal¹³ hand pump. Sometimes she takes a nap in the afternoon. On the day I met her, she was at a Doctors Without Borders clinic and had just found out that she's pregnant with her second child. Begum is only 20 years old, and she only has one other kid, but she says this is her last pregnancy¹⁴.

BEGUM: (Through interpreter) In Myanmar, when we give birth, the children grow up, and the military kill them. So if I have a lot of children and we have to go back to Myanmar, they'll kill my children. So I'm not having any more children.

BEAUBIEN: Last month, Bangladesh and Myanmar finalized¹⁵ a deal to send Begum and nearly 800,000 other Rohingya refugees back to Myanmar. Begum, however, says she'll only go if she's given citizenship and the return of her livestock¹⁶. Then, she adds, she also wants her land and her house back. I ask how likely she thinks it is that all that would happen. She shrugs¹⁷ and says that only God knows.

In the meantime, she hopes her children can go to school in Bangladesh. And while there isn't any room in the camp for cattle, she's thinking she might try to get some chickens. In other words, she's essentially¹⁸ settling in. Jason Beaubien, NPR News, Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh.

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