Myanmar refugees in Assam detention camp go on hunger strike, seek settlement to any third world country

Guwahati: In what has drawn the attention of many human rights organisations, a group of 103 Rohingya and Chin refugees from Myanmar, lodged in Assam’s Goalpara transit camp have resorted to a hunger strike to protest their indefinite detention.

The refugees, including women and children, are demanding transfer to a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) facility in New Delhi for potential resettlement in a third country.

Taking note of hunger strike, Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has rushed senior officials, including the Inspector General of Prisons and home secretary to the Matia detention centre of Goalpara which is India’s largest detention centre for refugees.

Informing that 40 of the inmates languishing at Matia detention centre even after possessing refugee cards issued by the UNHCR, Director of the Rohingya Human Rights Initiative, Sabber Kyaw Min has appealed for advocacy to ensure the refugees’ dignity and well-being.

India’s status as a non-signatory to the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol has complicated the situation. The state authorities however asserted that inmates are receiving adequate care, including nutrition and facilities, in accordance with prison manual guidelines.

The refugees, who have cards issued by the United Nations’ refugee agency, have been demanding that they should be handed over to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, transferred to a detention centre in Delhi and demanding their resettlement in a third country

About 35 Myanmar citizens who have been detained in the Matia transit camp had also submitted a representation to the district administration seeking their “resettlement to any third world country or shifting them to any refugee camp within” India. The district administration on July 16 forwarded the refugees’ letter to the Assam home department.