World Refugee Day hits close to home for Arakan State

By Admin 21 Jun 2023

DMG Newsroom
21 June 2023, Sittwe

The United Nations has designated June 20 as World Refugee Day to honour refugees around the world.

World Refugee Day falls each year on June 20 and celebrates the strength and courage of people who have been forced to flee their home country to escape conflict or persecution. World Refugee Day was first established on June 20, 2001.

There are many people in Arakan State who are displaced due to military conflicts and other conflicts.

“As for those of us who fled the fighting, we now want to return home. Every time I think about how people will be worried about food on World Refugee Day, I get worried,” said Daw Ma Shwe Win, an IDP woman at Cedipyin displacement camp in Rathedaung Township.

The total number of IDPs in Arakan State, including those who remained at displacement camps due to the 2018-2020 fighting between the military and Arakan Army, stood at about 78,000, according to a May 2 report from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA).

IDPs are taking refuge at displacement camps in Buthidaung, Rathedaung, Sittwe, Ponnagyun, Kyauktaw and Mrauk-U townships and are facing various hardships.

“We are facing various difficulties including livelihood hardships,” said U Nyo Thar Oo, an IDP man from Pi Pin Yin displacement camp in Mrauk-U Township.

He left his native village Pauktawpyin in Mrauk-U Township in 2019. They are currently unable to return home as junta soldiers and Arakan Army members are still stationed on the Thingyit Hill near the village, he added.

Similarly, a large number of Muslims took refuge in displacement camps in Arakan State and refugee camps in neighbouring Bangladesh due to the upheavals that occurred in Arakan State in 2012 and 2017.

A UN Myanmar report released in September 2022, said that 153,000 Muslim IDPs in Arakan State are living in displacement camps, and about 700,000 Muslims are taking refuge in refugee camps in neighbouring Bangladesh.

There are 14 Muslim displacement camps in Sittwe Township and Muslim IDPs will likely face accommodation difficulties in the rainy season as they are unable to repair their damaged shelters destroyed by Cyclone Mocha.

“Every IDP has his or her own hope. We want to return to the original place. I don’t want to live as an IDP,” said Ko Zaw Min Tun, a Muslim IDP from the Thetkelpyin displacement camp in Sittwe Township.

About 6,000 Muslims have been taking shelter at the Thetkelpyin displacement camp in Sittwe Township for more than a decade.

The number of forcibly displaced people in the world has increased from 33.9 million in 1997 to 69.9 million in 2016, and rose to 100 million in 2023, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in a message on World Refugee Day on June 20 called on the relevant authorities to realise the hope of more than 100 million refugees around the world, according to UN Myanmar.

“We need much stronger political will to make peace, so refugees can return safely to their homes,” said Guterres.