KARACHI: For an estimated 300,000 Rohingya Muslims living in squalor in Pakistan’s largest city, the news from Myanmar in the past two weeks is reviving painful memories of the violence that drove many of them here half a century ago.
Some say they have got word of relatives being killed in Myanmar’s Rakhine state or are not being able to contact family members.
Karachi’s Rohingya community comprises migrants from an earlier era of displacement dating back to the 1960s and ‘70s. Despite decades in a foreign land, they have stayed in touch with family back home, especially in recent years through mobile phones and social media.
In the past two weeks, nearly 300,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh after the Myanmar military launched an offensive in response to a series of attacks by Rohingya insurgents on police posts and an army base. Hundreds of homes in Rohingya villages have been burned and about 400 people have been killed.
The older members of Karachi’s Rohingya community fled from a repressive military regime that took power in 1962, escaping on foot or by boat to Bangladesh, which was then East Pakistan. Eventually, they made their way to Karachi.
Most of the people living in the slum called Arakanabad were born in Pakistan, or fled violence in their homeland decades ago. It’s named for Arakan, which was what Rakhine used to be called.
Raheela Sadiq, a more recent migrant who came to Pakistan 15 years ago, said she has been unable to contact relatives in Rakhine via mobile phone for nearly two weeks.
“I have seen what is happening to people over there on the Internet,” she said as tears filled her eyes.
Videos and pictures depicting violence in Rakhine and shared on social media are passed around quickly in Arakanabad, adding to fears and anxiety about relatives back home.
Fisherman Noor Mohammed, 50, said three members of his family in Rakhine were killed a few days ago.
“My brother, brother-in-law, and nephew were there (in Rakhine). They are all dead now. The army over there killed them,” he said, adding that he heard the news from another nephew who is still alive.
Hoor Bahar, 60, said she left Rakhine with her husband over 30 years ago when her mother and sister were killed.
“I have one sister left who went to Bangladesh seven to 10 days ago,” she added. However, she said, her sister is being held on a beach by boatmen who brought her from Rakhine and are demanding $350 as payment.
NO LEGAL STATUS
Arakanabad smells of fish. The Rohingya who live here largely work on fishing boats, or clean the catch brought by fishermen who set sail from the nearby Qur'angi Creek.
Most of them say they are not able to obtain Pakistani identity cards, essential for opening bank accounts, enrolling children in schools, using public hospitals, and even getting a job. Fishing boats, where identity cards are not asked for, are one of the few employment options left although fishermen can sometimes be asked for identification by coast guards.
“There is no policy in Pakistan for the Rohingya,” said Noor Hussain, the Pakistan head of the Rohingya Solidarity Organization, pointing out that the without state-issued identity cards the community cannot progress.
Thousands of Rohingya families are crammed into the one-room cement brick houses that line the narrow streets of Arakanabad.
Children play amidst knee-high garbage, and crowd around to share slices of jello topped with sugar, or other sweetmeats sold by hawkers.
“The community is living in extremely difficult circumstances, and our youth is being destroyed because they cannot get an education,” said Hussain.
Despite the poverty, the community raised around 1.5 million rupees ($15,000) over the Eid Al-Adha holidays earlier this month to help refugees fleeing Rakhine.
“Our community is not a burden on Pakistan,” Hussain said.
“The government of Pakistan is making millions of dollars by exporting the fish our people catch,” he said, adding that giving citizenship rights to the Rohingya would only benefit the country.
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Rohingya refugees in Pakistan fear for relatives in Myanmar
Rohingya refugees in Pakistan fear for relatives in Myanmar
Community conflict creeps close to DR Congo capital
KINSHASA: Tensions over land between two communities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is gradually morphing into an armed conflict that has reached the outskirts of the capital, Kinshasa.
It started with a dispute between tenant farmers and landowners, spread to involve spiritual rituals and then led to actual fightin1g with guns and machetes.
The conflict in the fertile Bateke plateau region, about 70 kilometers (40 miles) northeast of the DRC capital has been smoldering for nearly four years and has already claimed several thousand lives.
Little about it reaches the outside world, overshadowed as it is by the violence raging in the east of the vast central African country since the resurgence in late 2021 of anti-government armed group M23.
On one side are the Teke, whose members consider themselves to be the original inhabitants and owners of the villages located along a 200-kilometer stretch of the Congo river.
On the other side are the members of the Yaka community, farmers who settled there after the Teke.
In 2022, conflict broke out between the two groups when the Yaka rejected an attempt by Teke chiefs to raise the fee they charged for farming the land.
Tensions then escalated into “widespread violence,” according to Human Rights Watch.
- ‘Divine intervention’ -
Several thousand Mobondo militiamen, presented as members of the Yaka community, are thought to be involved in killings that continue in parts of Mai-Ndombe province, just northeast of the capital, despite army deployments in the region.
They take their name from “fetishes that protect against bullets,” engage in spiritual rituals and, according to survivors, believe themselves to be invulnerable.
They have been accused of several attacks in recent months, including one in November where 27 villagers were killed in the Mai-Ndombe village of Nkana, 75 kilometers from Kinshasa.
In early January, a 37-year-old Belgian-Congolese man was hacked to death by machete on his farm in Mbakana, just east of the capital.
His wife and two children escaped the attack, which has been blamed on suspected Mobondo fighters.
Two years earlier, university lecturer Jonathan Kwebe, eluded an attack in Mai-Ndombe. It was thanks to “divine intervention,” he told AFP.
He was on a bus with around 40 other passengers, including women and children, when they were ambushed on the road to the western town of Bandundu by Mobondo militias.
“They were armed with machetes, arrows and hunting rifles. They made us get off the bus and took us to their village. Then they said they’d behead everyone who was Teke,” Kwebe recalled.
Luckily, they were rescued at dawn by Congolese soldiers who had launched a raid against Mobondo fighters in Bandundu.
They fled on another bus along a road “littered with corpses,” the teacher recalled.
- Creeping closer to Kinshasa -
Currently, the Mobondo are active in all three provinces neighboring Kinshasa to the east.
Witnesses say violence has spread from village to village where the Yaka and Teke had previously coexisted peacefully.
The Mobondo have now extended their presence to the outskirts of the capital and even encroached on parts of Central Kongo, on the west side of Kinshasa, according to a report in November by the Danish Institute for International Studies.
The Bateke plateau, northeast of Kinshasa, is one of the capital’s main sources of farm produce — one reason why the Congolese authorities have made several bids to stem the spiral of violence.
But attempts to get the Yaka and Teke to negotiate have failed.
And a government campaign launched in January to encourage the Mobondo to surrender has so far resulted in the demobilization of only around 100 fighters, according to Deputy Defense Minister Eliezer Thambwe.
In February, as the threat drew closer to the capital, former deputy prime minister Peter Kazadi accused certain traditional chiefs of seeking to barter peace for cash.
It is hard to assess the toll from this poorly documented conflict.
In a report published in December, the DRC’s Diocesan Justice and Peace Commission calculated that more than 5,000 people had been killed and more than 280,000 displaced since the conflict began.
It started with a dispute between tenant farmers and landowners, spread to involve spiritual rituals and then led to actual fightin1g with guns and machetes.
The conflict in the fertile Bateke plateau region, about 70 kilometers (40 miles) northeast of the DRC capital has been smoldering for nearly four years and has already claimed several thousand lives.
Little about it reaches the outside world, overshadowed as it is by the violence raging in the east of the vast central African country since the resurgence in late 2021 of anti-government armed group M23.
On one side are the Teke, whose members consider themselves to be the original inhabitants and owners of the villages located along a 200-kilometer stretch of the Congo river.
On the other side are the members of the Yaka community, farmers who settled there after the Teke.
In 2022, conflict broke out between the two groups when the Yaka rejected an attempt by Teke chiefs to raise the fee they charged for farming the land.
Tensions then escalated into “widespread violence,” according to Human Rights Watch.
- ‘Divine intervention’ -
Several thousand Mobondo militiamen, presented as members of the Yaka community, are thought to be involved in killings that continue in parts of Mai-Ndombe province, just northeast of the capital, despite army deployments in the region.
They take their name from “fetishes that protect against bullets,” engage in spiritual rituals and, according to survivors, believe themselves to be invulnerable.
They have been accused of several attacks in recent months, including one in November where 27 villagers were killed in the Mai-Ndombe village of Nkana, 75 kilometers from Kinshasa.
In early January, a 37-year-old Belgian-Congolese man was hacked to death by machete on his farm in Mbakana, just east of the capital.
His wife and two children escaped the attack, which has been blamed on suspected Mobondo fighters.
Two years earlier, university lecturer Jonathan Kwebe, eluded an attack in Mai-Ndombe. It was thanks to “divine intervention,” he told AFP.
He was on a bus with around 40 other passengers, including women and children, when they were ambushed on the road to the western town of Bandundu by Mobondo militias.
“They were armed with machetes, arrows and hunting rifles. They made us get off the bus and took us to their village. Then they said they’d behead everyone who was Teke,” Kwebe recalled.
Luckily, they were rescued at dawn by Congolese soldiers who had launched a raid against Mobondo fighters in Bandundu.
They fled on another bus along a road “littered with corpses,” the teacher recalled.
- Creeping closer to Kinshasa -
Currently, the Mobondo are active in all three provinces neighboring Kinshasa to the east.
Witnesses say violence has spread from village to village where the Yaka and Teke had previously coexisted peacefully.
The Mobondo have now extended their presence to the outskirts of the capital and even encroached on parts of Central Kongo, on the west side of Kinshasa, according to a report in November by the Danish Institute for International Studies.
The Bateke plateau, northeast of Kinshasa, is one of the capital’s main sources of farm produce — one reason why the Congolese authorities have made several bids to stem the spiral of violence.
But attempts to get the Yaka and Teke to negotiate have failed.
And a government campaign launched in January to encourage the Mobondo to surrender has so far resulted in the demobilization of only around 100 fighters, according to Deputy Defense Minister Eliezer Thambwe.
In February, as the threat drew closer to the capital, former deputy prime minister Peter Kazadi accused certain traditional chiefs of seeking to barter peace for cash.
It is hard to assess the toll from this poorly documented conflict.
In a report published in December, the DRC’s Diocesan Justice and Peace Commission calculated that more than 5,000 people had been killed and more than 280,000 displaced since the conflict began.
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