Advice for UNHCR card holders regarding the “6P” programme announced by the Government of Malaysia

by Unhcr Malaysia on Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 1:30pm

 

The "6P" programme is a proposed system to manage migrants in general in Malaysia. There have been media announcements that refugees could be affected by this, and UNHCR is liaising with the Government of Malaysia on any areas that could affect refugees, and will continue to be involved in any issues related to the protection of refugees in this regard.

 

However, at this time, UNHCR advises all UNHCR card holders to wait further information and instruction from UNHCR on the "6P" programme. UNHCR will not assign any companies or agents to speak to refugees on our behalf, and we will not assign any companies or agents to collect money from refugees on our behalf. All services provided by UNHCR for refugees are free. Therefore, do not make payments to any companies or agents claiming to be involved in the "6P" programme, and do not directly approach any agencies at this time to register under the "6P" programme. 

 

Should you have further questions or concerns contact UNHCR directly. 

 

In Bahasa Malaysia

 

Nasihat bagi pemegang kad UNHCR tentang program "6P" yang diumumkan oleh Kerajaan Malaysia. 

 

Program "6P" adalah satu cadangan sistem untuk menguruskan pendatang asing di Malaysia. Terdapat pengumuman di media yang orang pelarian juga mungkin terlibat dengan program ini. Pihak UNHCR berurusan dengan Kerajaan Malaysia dalam mana-mana hal berkenaan orang pelarian, dan akan terus terlibat dengan apa-apa isu berkaitan perlindungan terhadap orang pelarian dalam hal ini. 

 

Pada waktu ini, pihak UNHCR menasihatkan semua pemegang kad UNHCR untuk tunggu maklumat dan arahan seterusnya dari UNHCR tentang program "6P" ini. UNHCR tidak akan memberi tugas kepada mana-mana syarikat atau agen untuk bercakap dengan orang pelarian bagi pihak UNHCR, dan kami tidak akan memberi tugas kepada mana-mana syarikat atau agen untuk mengutip duit dari orang pelarian bagi pihak UNHCR. Semua perkhidmatan UNHCR bagi orang pelarian adalah percuma. 

 

 Oleh itu, jangan membuat apa-apa bayaran kepada syarikat atau agen yang mendakwa sebagai terlibat dalam program "6P", dan jangan hubungi mana-mana agensi pada waktu ini untuk berdaftar di bawah program "6P" ini.

 

Jika ada apa-apa soalan atau kebimbangan, hubungi UNHCR.

 

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Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea

Published on : 7 July 2011 - 11:00am | By Dheera Sujan (Photo: Dheera Sujan) He is a good looking man – or he would be, if it wasn't for the hollowness of his eyes, that makes you think he looks at the world in a different, darker way than most other people. Mohammed Rohim (28) does indeed have reason to view the world differently. After all, he is a Rohingya in Bangladesh. That means that he's had about a tough a life as it's possible to have on this earth. Mohammed was born in Rakhine state in western Myanmar. As a Rohingya, he belongs to the poorest group in an impoverished country. The predominantly Muslim Rohingya are arguably the worst treated of all of the country's ethnic minorities. They need official permits to marry, own land or move to another area. They are often recruited as unpaid porters, used as human mine detectors and heavily taxed in crops and money. So badly have they been treated, that for years, they've been escaping across the river to neighbouring Bangladesh. Escaping for love, freedom and a better future Mohammed Rohim's family was poor, so he couldn't pay the requisite bribes when the authorities came looking for slave labour. For at least ten days every month, he was forced to work for nothing at the local army camp. Mohammed was in love with a girl who lived next door. The feelings were reciprocated, but the permit they needed to get married, cost an exorbitant 160,000 kyat (150 euro). So the young couple, decided to flee to Bangladesh. "When I left, my parents were crying," he says, "so crying. They knew we'd never meet again." Rohingya who make the decision to leave their village know they're burning their bridges. They are struck off the local registers and become, to all intent and purposes, officially invisible in Myanmar; non people, with no rights to land, to papers, to birth certificates for their children. The couple had a difficult trip. They paid 10,000 kyat each to stow away on a cattle barge. Every time the barge pulled up to a stop at the river bank, the couple had to hide in the latrine; the trip lasted 13 hours. When they arrived in Teknaf, in souther Bangladesh, they entered the illegal shadowland of the some 200,000-500,000 illegal Rohingya living in the country, always on the alert for police, open to exploitation, and forced to bribe their way through daily life. Mohammed got a job on a fishing boat where for a 9 hour day, he earnt 80 cents. One day while fishing, he lost a net worth 6000 taka (60 euros). The owner threatened him, so he borrowed money bonding himself in labour to pay it back. Over the next three years, he worked as a daily labourer, as a gardener, in shrimp growing, whatever he could find to feed his growing family. Life is no easier Mohammed has been in Bangladesh now for 4 years and has three children, but life is not getting any easier. These days, he pulls rickshaws. ferrying people around town at a fast trot, through the heat and the monsoon rains. He pays a daily rent of 60 taka for the rickshaw and earns around 200 or 270 taka (2 – 2.70 euro) on a good day. He sleeps in the rickshaw, eats two simple meals a day, and the rest of his earnings go to feed his family, currently living in a hut made of mud and plastic sheets in Kutapalong camp. It's an unregistered camp which means that no one gets any food assistance at all. It's too far from Cox's Bazaar where he works, so Mohammed takes a bus there once a week to bring them money and to make repairs to the hut which is often washed away after a heavy rain. Despite the chiseled muscle of his shoulders and calves, his jutting cheekbones and spare frame are a testament to an underlying malnourishment. His face shows an exhaustion out of keeping with a 28 year old man at the prime of his life. An act of human kindness As we near the end of the interview, I ask him whether in all these years in Bangladesh, he's ever been shown an act of kindness. He thinks for a while and replies, "a politician came once and gave each family 7 kilos of rice and some soap". "No," I say to him, "I'm not talking of political gestures – I mean, has anyone looked you in the eyes, and recognized that you have suffered a lot, and just been kind to you as a fellow human being?" I see him searching for an answer to a question he's clearly never thought about before. I can see he wants to answer me, but the question simply defeats him. Finally he says with an almost apologetic shrug, "just that politician and the rice." And what does Mohammed dream of? What is it that he wants most in the world? "If they would just stop the forced labour, and if I could find work, I would go home. This is not my country, not my place. I only want a life." Source: Radio Netherlands Worldwide

Refugees struggle after huts destroyed by heavy winds

Azara (alias) Lal Buri, the fifty six year-old wife of the late Abdullah, continues to struggle to survive in the Kutupalong makeshift camp since her hut, built with bushes and plastic, was destroyed by heavy winds on May 20. "I and my 90 year-old mother, Gul Somba, lived in a small hut without support from any INGO (international Non-government organization), the UNHCR or Bangladesh authority, nearly three years near Kutupalong official (refugee)camp," she told Kaladan News in an interview. "Fifteen years ago, my husband died from fever in Buthidaung, area No.2, of Arakan State. I have two sons. They live with their family members outside the camp so they can work," she said. "I take care of us by begging for rice and if I don't beg each day, I have to starve. Today, I could not cook rice in the morning," she said. "I can't build the hut again because I have no money to buy plastic and bamboo. Now, I am starving because I can't go to outside the hut to beg and also my body is in pain. (She was injured when the hut was destroyed.) It makes me cry because rainy season is coming, so I may have to stay in the bushes," Lal Buri said. Many huts were destroyed by heavy rain and wind at that time, and like Lal Buri, most refugees can't afford to rebuild. Another refugee, Md. Ismail, a 28 year-old daily laborer said his hut was also destroyed by heavy rain and winds. He can't afford to rebuild his home either. "We haven't received any help to build our huts from any quarter yet," one community member said. He said refugees who are widows, like Lal Buri, have even more difficulty to rebuild their huts. "We have been living in the Kutupalong makeshift over three years, but we don't get any support from the UNHCR," he said. "We get only basic medical treatment from MSF (Holland) and also get sanitation from Hunger for Action (ACF)." A school teacher said his family all crowd into a very small hut, struggling to survive without support from any aid agency because the family is still not recognized officially as refugees by the UNHCR and Bangladeshi authorities. "We are very afraid about the coming rainy season because refugee children will face pneumonia and odima." He also said that over 40,000 unregistered Rohingya refugees live in and around the Kutuplaong makeshift, camp without legal status. "So, we would like to request the UNHCR and Bangladesh authority rebuild our huts as soon as possible." Similarly, a refugee community leader from Leda camp said the situation at Leda Tal is awful as well because many huts there also suffered damage during the heavy rain and wind. "The huts are no longer strong or sturdy as they are all at least three years old. They were built only with bamboo and plastic sheets," he said. "Now, some shacks (huts) have collapsed completely and the refugees fear for their lives while they are sleeping during the night. We fear for our young children if heavy wind blows in the daytime or night. Every shack is getting rain water inside when the rain falls." There are more than 12,000 Rohingya refugees in the camp. The Leda Refugee Camp is managed by Muslim Aid UK, which also provides healthcare programs. The NGO 'Solidarity' is providing sanitation in the camp.   The refugees work for their survival at different jobs. Some refugee women are facing sexual harassment by locals while collecting firewood for their survival and to support their family, from a forest far from the camp. The widow, Lal Buri, is urging the international community and UNHCR to help her and all the refugees, before it's too late. Date: July 8, 2011 Source: Burma News International

UN human rights expert to vist Myanmar next week

United Nations, Feb 11 (PTI) UN human rights envoy Tomas Ojea Quintana will visit Myanmar next week, hoping to meet pro democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, as the military junta prepares to hold national polls this year. This will be Quintana's third trip to Myanmar. Previously, permission to meet Suu Kyi was denied to him.The Myanmar is slated to hold its first election in over two decades, this year. "I hope that my request to the government to meet with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi will be granted this time. "It would be important for me to meet with political party leaders in the context of this year's landmark elections," said Quintana, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Suu Kyi, 64, has been under detention for most of the past two past decades.She is the leader of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), which won the national elections in 1990. Last year, Suu Kyi, was sentenced to 18 months of house detention for violating terms of her detention after an uninvited American swam ashore to her house where she was already being held. The verdict will prevent her from contesting the elections scheduled in 2010. The US and other Western nations have been imposing sanctions because of Myanmar's refusal to release Suu Kyi, and the military junta is accused of human rights violations in the country. In the past, China and Russia have vetoed Security Council resolutions against Myanmar. During his two-day visit to Myanmar in July, UN Chief Ban Ki-moon, made three demands on Myanmar leadership - to release 2,200 political prisoners, hold free and fair elections in 2010 and resume a dialogue between government and opposition. On this trip, the special Rapporteur will also travel to Northern Rakhine state, home to thousands of Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic group. In his previous report to the Geneva-based Human Rights Council, Ojea Quintana, recommends the repeal of a discriminatory legislation in Northern Rakhine State where many Muslims have been deprived of citizenship, movement and fundamental freedoms. "Muslim communities compromise serious human rights violations," he said, previously. A lawyer from Argentina and a human rights expert, Ojea Quintana, was appointed special Rapporteur in May 2008, and will report his findings to the Human Rights Council in March. Source: DECCAN HERALD

Rohingya refugee camp washed out

By DVB Published: 6 July 2011 Flimsy huts spawl over the hillside at the Kutupalong camp in Bangladesh (Joseph Allchin) Days of heavy rain in eastern Bangladesh have sparked panic in the unofficial Kutupalong camp that houses tens of thousands of refugees from Burma, with flimsy huts destroyed and food shortages worsening. A Kutupalong camp committee member told the Bangladesh-based Kaladan Press Network yesterday that several huts had been washed out, while many others had lost roofs. Concerns have also mounted about the ability of the refugees in the camp, none of whom are recognised by the UN's refugee agency and thus receive no UN assistance, to provide food for themselves, with their normal means of making money scuppered by the extreme weather conditions. Kutupalong houses thousands of refugees from the Rohingya minority, which have fled their native Arakan state in western Burma following systematic persecution by the Burmese government, which refuses to grant them citizenship rights. Estimates of the total number of Rohingya in Bangladesh range from 200,000 to 400,000 – wary of creating a pull-factor for more refugees, the Bangladeshi government has allowed only 28,000 to be registered by the UN. In June, Bangladesh's food minister, Abdur Razzaque, warned Western nations against pressuring Dhaka to register the remaining Rohingya, the vast majority of whom have sought refuge in Cox's Bazar, where as in the rest of Bangladesh, overcrowding and scarcity of resources are serious problems. Physicians for Human Rights estimate that the acute malnutrition rate for children in Kutapalong, one of the main unofficial Rohingya camps in Cox's Bazar, is 18.2 percent. This is defined by being 60 percent or less of the median average weight for the age group, which the World Health Organisation suggests will result in a 30 to 50 percent mortality rate amongst the inflicted. The Holland chapter of Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) provides medical assistance to the Kutupalong camp, but complaints continually surface that aid is in short supply. As well as the infrastructural problems that rainy season brings, the wet weather conditions also fuel illnesses such pneumonia and malaria. Source: Democratic Voice of Burma

Phuket's Boatpeople Still Being Held in Inhumane Conditions

Boatpeople apprehended five months ago on Phuket remain prisoners By Alan Morison and Chutima Sidasathian   PHUKET: Concerns are growing for the physical and mental health of 33 Rohingya, some as young as 14, who have been held in isolation in a cramped cell on Phuket since February. One teenage Rohingya is believed to have recently fallen sick and been admitted to a Phuket hospital, with others are also thought to be suffering the effects of prolonged incarceration in cramped conditions. ''Everything's fine,'' said Phuket's Director of Immigration, Colonel Panuwat Ruamrak when a reporter inquired about the condition of the boatpeople after more than five months in Phuket's Immigration cells. ''When people fall sick, we take them to Vachira Hospital in Phuket City and then bring them back.'' When asked whether the boat people had access to sunlight and exercise, Colonel Panuwat did not respond. Two teenage Rohingya previously died in custody in another Thai Immigration facility after having been kept for months in a small room without access to sunlight or exercise. It is believed that the would-be refugees on Phuket are beginning to suffer depression and more serious mental disorders because their incarceration has no end, and they have no contact with their families in northern Burma or Bangladesh. Phuketwan glimpsed the Phuket Rohingya, outcast Muslims deprived of citizenship in their homeland, as a security camera showed them praying in the cell back in April. Previous visits to the cells at Immigration in Phuket City leave us in no doubt that the conditions are too cramped for 33 people, and that it remains a breach of rights to have boys as young as 14 incarcerated with adults. Nothing is known of the fate of 35 other Rohingya, apprehended at the same time when the group's ricketty boat arrived on a beach in southern Phuket in the dark on January 31. Because there was not space to hold all the boatpeople on Phuket and no room at a larger Immigration facility in Ranong, on the border with Burma, those 35 were sent to a holding facility in Phang Nga, the province north of Phuket. Among them were more teenage boys, including a 12-year-old. Local authorities in Phang Nga have since declined to reveal anything about their location or condition. The arrival of the boatload of 68 men and boys on the popular holiday island of Phuket in January remind the world that no solution has been found to the plight of the Rohingya, a stateless minority persecuted within Burma, barely tolerated in Bangladesh, and pushed back out to sea from Thailand in a notorious secret breach of human rights in 2008 and 2009. Two teenagers from the first boatload of Rohingya to reach Thailand after Phuketwan and the South China Morning Post newspaper revealed the ''pushbacks'' died in custody in Ranong, months later. The remaining survivors were bent double and suffering from lack of space to exercise or fully move when they were transferred to a better facility in Bangkok. The colonel in charge of the Ranong facility had previously assured Phuketwan that the Rohingya were being well-treated and happy to no longer be at sea. The election of the Pheu Thai party last Sunday brings the Rohingya saga full circle. The revelation that the boatpeople were being pushed back out to sea came soon after a Democrat Party government had been appointed to rule Thailand. It is believed the decision to push back the boatpeople was made by the Democrats' predecessor, a remnant of fugitive Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's original Thai Rak Thai party. On Sunday, Thaksin's sister Yingluck led the poll landslide into power of the Pheu Thai Party. In more than two years of Democrat rule, nothing changed for the Rohingya. The boatpeople on Phuket and elsewhere are likely to be kept in cramped cells indefinitely as a warning to others not to come ashore in Thailand. Source: Phuketwan

Bad Weather Forces Halt to Construction of Foreign Projects in Arakan

Sittwe: Some foreign projects in western Burma's Arakan State have been put on hold temporarily due to heavy rain and flash flooding hitting the area during the current rain season.

The projects with construction currently halted due to the bad weather include the seaport in the capital Sittwe that is being built by India as a component of the "Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project," and and the Madae deep seaport in Kyaukpru that is being built in China as a component of the dual oil and gas pipeline project in the state.

"The construction of Sittwe Port has stopped for the rainy season because it is very difficult for the construction as well as for bringing the materials to the site by vessels due to heavy rains, flash floods and rising sea level in the season", said a local contractor who supplies rocks and gravel for the construction of the port.

Sittwe Seaport

U Aung Mra Kyaw, an MP of the Peoples' Parliament from Sittwe, also confirmed the seaport construction was halted due to the difficulty with the rainy season.

"The Indian construction team is still being found in Sittwe and it is likely they have to halt their construction work due to inconveniences in the season. The heavy showers are continuing in our region and I heard that half of the landfill for the port construction has been already worn away by the rough flow of the Kaladan River", said U Aung Mra Kyaw.

An engineer from the inland water transport also said that there are now difficulties for the ships to enter into the Sittwe Port as the worn-away landfill from the port has settled in the mouth of the river.

A local resident said the construction work on the deep seaport being built for China on Madae Island in Kyaukpru has also stopped for three months of the rainy season.

Madae Seaport in Kyauk Pru

"The construction work for the port has been suspended for three months until the end of the rainy season because the weather is very rough in the season here and it is very difficult for the local boats to supply raw materials for the construction", said the resident.

He said that the local workers have also returned to their home with the close of their jobs in the season.

The Madae deep seaport is being constructed by the CNPC Southeast Asia Pipeline Company Ltd and is targeted to be complete by May 2013. The port will be used as terminus for the oil carriers from Middle East and Africa for supplying crude oil as well as local offshore gas through the pipelines from the port to China.

Source: Narinjara