← From Our Own Correspondent
From Our Own Correspondent
Life in India's Rohingya Refugee Camps
00:27:45
Having fled violence in Myanmar 40,000 Rohingya live in India, but for how much longer?
Loading summary
Transcript12 lines
- [00:00]
BBC Presenter
This is the BBC.
- [00:05]
Narrator/Reporter
Hello. Today, will the popular holiday on the Costa become a week in Catalonia rather than a week in Spain somewhere else? For a holiday in the sun, we hear from the south of Sinai, apparently a world away from the turbulent north. In Beijing, we're after avian poachers equipped with huge nets and loudspeakers. BLARING birdsong and Question of the have you ever wondered what Smurf flavoured ice cream tastes like? We have the answer from Italy. During the last six weeks, more than half a million Rohingya people are thought to have left Myanmar and crossed into neighbouring Bangladesh, trying to escape violence and persecution by the Burmese military and Buddhist mobs. Many are crammed into refugee camps close to the border. Once described by the UN as probably the most friendless people in the world, the Rohingya have been fleeing for decades, though never before in such numbers. In the past, thousands of them travelled through Bangladesh and on to India. But as Melissa van der Klookt found in Delhi, many now fear for their future there.
- [01:20]
Melissa van der Klookt
Wearing a checked blue longi wrapped about his waist, Abdel lights the stove outside his small shop to make tea. As he does, he remembers another tea stool that he ran with his wife in what now seems another life. The military burnt it down, he says, and our house. But he smiles as he offers me a cup. We built it again here, like the one we left behind. Abdul is one of thousands of Rohingya refugees who fled Myanmar after an earlier wave of violence. In 2012, he found his way by foot and boat to Bangladesh, through a series of refugee camps and across the porous border to India. For some, that journey took months, for others, several years. But here, at the bottom of a dirt track behind a dump for plastic bottles and cans on the outskirts of Delhi, Abdul, his wife and three children, along with 250 others, have built their new lives. It's early evening and an elderly woman walks home with an armful of pumpkin leaves picked from a nearby field. Children are being hosed down under a water pump. A mother inspects her daughter's head for lice, while another dishes out spicy potato. This patch of urban wasteland on the banks of Delhi's Yamuna river was given to 45 Rohingya families by a Muslim run charity several years ago. Soon after they arrived, the tiny alleys they have constructed are thick with flies and waste, and the cramped dwellings are nailed together from crates and scraps of packaging and tarpaulin. But it's home. A row of children's clothes hangs on a line, and in one room a fire is lit. It's peaceful here, says Kusoma, who is 33, as she washes clothes in a bucket. Her family, like many others here, say they were driven out of their coastal village, where they fished by rounds of nighttime beatings. Someone has hung several small Indian flags above their curtained doorway, and children disappear into dark interiors where furnishings include an old bike frame turned into shelves and a strip of tablecloth that doubles as a bed. A man comes here most days to sell cheap leftover fish, which the Rohingya women like to cook along with rice. Burma khana, says Kusoma, using the Hindi word for food. Two years ago, the men erected a mosque woven out of blue plastic sheets. It now stands at the heart of this warren of makeshift streets and is used daily for prayers. However, no one celebrated the Muslim festival Eid this year, says Mohan. He's 23 and helps teach the children Islamic studies. It was in solidarity with the people dying at home in Myanmar, he tells me. The fate of this small community here now also hangs in the balance. While some 16,000 Rohingya are registered by the UN as refugees in India, and many in this camp produce their plastic identity cards, overall numbers are thought to be much closer to 40,000. The current Indian government, which is led by the Hindu nationalist BJP party, insists they are not refugees but illegal immigrants. It accuses them of links to militant Islamic groups and last month declared they must be deported back to Myanmar. As India is not a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention, their legal status is murky. Several men who have gathered in Abdul's tea shop are discussing a petition by two Rohingya challenging the Indian government's position in court. What can we do? Abdul asks as his youngest son plays about his feet. Of the 250 people in this camp, almost half are babies and children. We are citizens of nowhere, he says. But we were put on the planet. By Allah. We belong somewhere like other Rohingya elsewhere in India, in camps from Hyderabad to Jammu, Abdul traveled the extra distance over the border from Bangladesh, scraping together money to pay touts for the sake of his children. In Bangladesh, if you leave the camps, you're arrested by the police, he says. He met refugees who had been there for years with no prospect of change. Here, men can at least earn a little as laborers and their children go to a nearby school. One teenager in a tracksuit and T shirt Hussain, has learned to read and write English. When I was younger, I wanted to be a footballer, he says. Now I live in this situation. I want to be a businessman? I'm studying for my community. He can barely recall his old home. My family ran away when I was 4. All of us here want to go back there if there is peace. But how can we go back to die? Abdel agrees. Every week the camp hears of more horrors from families still in Myanmar. If we are sent back, he says, we are being thrown to hell.
- [05:52]
Narrator/Reporter
Melissa van der Kloekt the history is complex. The views range from passionately for to determinedly against the temperatures rising. The disputed referendum on Catalonia's independence has brought matters to a head in Spain. For all the political arguments, the constitutional and legal disputes, it's the violent attempts by the police to suppress voting which Nao Gallagher found foremost in people's minds.
- [06:23]
Nao Gallagher
A Scottish correspondent returning to Barcelona doesn't expect to need an umbrella on the morning of the disputed vote, I had to rely, not for the first time, on Catalan kindness towards a journalist far from home. Polls had not yet opened, but voters were queued around the corner, their parasols of pink and magenta floating like fluorescent jellyfish through the soft October rain. Augustine, a bald and wiry man in his 40s, offered me his we'd met the night before, when not being used for referendums, the grand 19th century building serves as a school in the city's Rabaul district. Augustin was one of those organizing a sit in to stop the Spanish police from locking voters out of it. But his company were unlikely revolutionaries. A few musicians with mandala and fiddle, bowed underarm, played folk melodies, while a girl, blond haired and too young to be at school herself, dressed, drew the Catalan independence flag with yellow, red and blue crayons. The children, I was assured, would leave before dark, while the adults bedded down here for the night. Umbrellas offer no protection from batons and rubber bullets, though Augustines in black did bear a passing resemblance to the riot shields deployed by Spanish police to protect themselves from unarmed men and women with handbags. That Sunday, news began to filter through that Spanish riot police were using force to remove voters from polling stations and ballot boxes. It was soon followed by images of women being dragged by the hair, voters being kicked and struck with batons. I saw two young women huddled together under their umbrella, listening to the news through their phones, white earphones. They are attacking people, one told me. I'm afraid. An unofficial steward with a black beard cupped his hands and shouted terse instructions in Catalan. Qui pasa? I asked. They're getting the older people out of the way in case the police come. Students joined arms to defend the weak point where they expected the police to approach. Every sudden movement or unexpected noise was met with a collective shh as people looked around in nervous silence. The tension was broken as the Catalan police, the Mossos who had been looking on without taking any action, drove away through the crowd to grateful, relieved applause. At last, about an hour later than scheduled, the first elderly voters went through the doors, emerging just a few moments later with tears in their eyes. Wherever we went, the BBC crew were met with applause, but the tension remained. One woman implored us to follow her around the block to another polling station. We think they're coming here next, she explained. Please stay. If the cameras leave, the police will come. We told her that we had to leave if our audience were to see what was happening. Please, she insisted, tell them everything. Back at the school, as the sun was setting, worry the vote would be prevented gave way to concern that the ballot boxes would be confiscated and the votes never counted. A steward who recognized us from the morning ushered us behind the great storm doors, which were slammed shut to cheers from the hundreds still outside. A heavy iron bar and two long school benches were used to barricade us in for the duration of the we were taken upstairs so we could film the votes being tallied, but were asked not to show the faces of the volunteers doing the counting, most of them very young. Only once the result had been verified and passed on to a Catalan government official were the doors reopened and the now empty ballot boxes held aloft in triumph before the awaiting crowd. The Spanish government has defended the actions of its police and has international support in considering this vote illegal. But talk of constitution seems inadequate to those who witnessed paramilitary police attacking a civilian population, which the Spanish state claims as its own. While a confrontation was expected, the sense of shock was palpable. One woman approached me in tears. I just can't believe they've done this. I'd lost track of Augustine earlier, before I'd had the chance to return his umbrella. As the crowd began to disperse, I found him again, sitting on the school steps where we first met. Keep it, he told me to remember this.
- [10:43]
Narrator/Reporter
Niall o' Gallaher Islamic State militants have killed hundreds of soldiers and police in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula since the overthrow of President Mohamed Morsi in 2013. Last month, at least 18 policemen died after a roadside bomb was detonated next to a convoy before jihadists opened fire on those who survived the blast. The that was in North Sinai. The Foreign Office advises against any travel there and all but essential travel to most of South Sinai too. But when he travelled to the south, Jacob Burns met locals keen to show off more peaceful scenes.
- [11:25]
Jacob Burns
The night ferry from Aqaba to Nawaba is a reminder that travel for pleasure is a fairly new thing. Most of the ship's passengers are hard working Egyptians, waiters, security guards and the caretakers who are a fixture of every Jordanian office. The men are packed on deck, dressed in traditional long shirts and giddy with going home. One says that he's not been back to his family in Port Said in a year and a half and jokes that he spent all the money he saved just on presents for his kids. Inside, amid the all pervading smell of bean stew, women returning from pilgrimages to Mecca sleep with their patterned abayas drawn about them. By contrast, the beaches at Ras Chaitan, 15 minutes drive north of Nuabis port, are a little slice of traveller utopia to rank with the world's best. Where Sinai's mottled red mountains drop into the sea, the otherworldly beauty plays host to an alternative side to the Middle East, a strip of reef beach huts and hedonism. The place is a collective pressure release valve for Egyptians, Israelis and others. Where hashish is smoked openly, women can wear whatever they feel comfortable in and life moves at an altogether less frantic pace than those living in the region are used to. For many, this will not be the image that the word Sinai conjures up nowadays. Indeed, there is fighting up in the north, a long running slow motion insurgency which has grumbled on since 2011 and which grew worse after the militant fighters pledged allegiance to the so called Islamic State in 2014amidst a wave of state repression. Though that fighting is far away from Rashitan and the south coast, the toll taken on the region by past atrocities is obvious. Swathes of empty accommodation litter the landscape and sand is coming up through the cracked floor of Nuayiber Port's passenger terminal. A deadly April attack on a police post near the ancient St. Catherine's monastery was further bad news for the embattled tourism industry. Musalim Faraj Tarabin, a renowned local trekking guide, says that Sinai survives on tourism, natural luxury and religious. It's difficult, but I still have hope we can build something special here. The western media never report things properly. South Sinai is far from North Sinai and it is safe was a refrain I heard time and time again. Yet the monastery attack was a worrying foray, far outside the usual area of so called Islamic State operations. But not everyone is discouraged. Tall groups is still driving the stunning road up to the monastery. Each bend brings a New hue of rock or a sudden vista out across a field of sand dunes. The monastery itself looks as though it could have been hewn directly from the great slabs of mountain that hem it in, yet still manages to be graceful. The church's interior conjures up all the pomp of Greek Orthodoxy, with icons in flaking gold and plump chandeliers hanging low. Catching a moment inside alone brings home the sensation of a place outside time. Ahmad Saleh, a herbalist in the village next to the monastery, says despite its barren desert appearance, Sinai is actually a wonderful habitat for herbs to grow. 472 species in total, he boasts, and 19 of them not found anywhere else in the world. He makes and sells his own herbal mixes. He was just prescribing an elderly gentleman something for memory loss when I visited. When asked how he discovered the medicinal properties of his plants, he laughs and says, I know which of my children to send for bread and which of them to guard the sheep. I grew up amongst the plants. I know each of them and their personalities. Back at the beach, several visitors told me about a special atmosphere here, one that draws them back year after year, a physical and mental beneficence that seems to accord with what Ahmad said of the place's fertility. Locals, Cairenes, Westerners, Israelis and Palestinians socialize freely, and the sound of Hebrew mixes with Arabic and English. In a region where liberal spaces all too often exclude conservatives, and vice versa, beer drinkers and the religiously observant share tables. Although much of this is rooted in the tolerant culture of the local Bedouin, it is also clear how much the region depends on visitors to survive. And I'm struck by just how far it is from the puritanical vision of of the Islamic State. And that, I think, is something worth supporting.
- [16:20]
Narrator/Reporter
Jacob Burns powdered rhino horn to treat gout. A tiger's head to decorate a sitting room. Ornaments carved from elephant and hippo ivory to demonstrate success. Chinese consumers are often blamed for animal poaching around the world, but the government in Beijing recently banned the trade in ivory and is trying to dampen demand for the parts of other industries. Endangered species. There are also attempts to stop poachers of smaller animals closer to home, as Frank Hersey discovered.
- [16:54]
Frank Hersey
Hiding behind a tree, waiting for the police to come as we looked for weapons. To defend ourselves from poachers was not what I'd had in mind that morning. Along with a colleague, I'd arranged to meet Gusuan, who goes by Silva after the Spanish footballer David Silva, at 5:30am in a wasteland east of Beijing's 5th Ring Road. Silva runs an NGO called Let Birds Fly and goes out almost every day on anti poaching patrols. It was the end of the season for birds migrating from Australia to summer in China, Russia and Mongolia. But as Silva pointed out, from Guangzhou to Harbin, China is one big trap. Around here, the old low level housing has been demolished to make way for future high rises. In the meantime, surrounded by scraps of planted woodland, it's a popular spot for fly tippers and poachers. It's like Chernobyl here, Silva said. The people are gone, but the animals are coming back. There are so many poachers that they're leaving paths between the trees. Around Beijing, birds are still caught for food, for their exotic wild flavour and to be pets. Anyone spending time in China will soon notice older men and it's only ever men taking their pet birds for walks, swinging the cages as they go, gathering in groups for some mutual appreciation. Birds are prized for their beauty and their song. Hatchlings of common species knocked from their nests can sell for around 20 pounds, while a prized Siberian ruby throat reportedly sold in nearby Tianjin recently for £46,000. We'd already stumbled upon a suitcase under a tree stuffed with huge nets and the telescopic poles used for putting them up. Silver had shown me how to bend the poles so they couldn't be used and we'd hid in the nets to pick up later. He documents everything to put on his social media feeds. Then, deeper into the woods, we heard something and Silver dashed off through the trees. We caught up with him to find a huge net around 4 by 10 meters strung across a clearing. A couple of birds were already entangled in it. All around were small cages hanging in the trees containing live birds. Their calls were meant to attract other birds into the trap. What Silver had heard was the recorded amplified bird song coming from speakers in the trees. Silver called the forest police and sent WeChat messages to individual officers he knows. Let's hope the poachers come back soon so we can grab them, he said as he disappeared into the trees, leaving us on our own. So there we were behind a tree keeping watch on a trap when the poachers came back. They must have spotted us earlier as they now circled around looking for us. One man coming within touching distance. We froze until eventually they left. Over an hour later, when we finally left our hiding spot, we found Silver nearby, holding onto an electric three wheeler with an oldish man in it, smoking, angry and under citizen's arrest. Silver had grabbed himself A poacher. I'm old and disabled. The police aren't going to do anything to me, so what's the point? Whined the man. The pair had a strange and generally peaceful back and forth until eventually the man broke free and made a slow getaway on his trike. We couldn't keep him, but we've got his birds, said silver. It was 11am and very, very hot. The birds were overheating. We carried their cages into the shade as Silver reassured me that the police always come. We took down the cages and the loudspeakers, only to find another bag filled with more caged birds. At last, the forest police arrived and immediately took down the net and started freeing the birds. Without enough scissors to go around, one officer took a lighter and burnt a pine, bunting free. A couple of birds were already dead of heat, stress and cuts from their net. We headed off to find more traps, including the biggest one Silver had ever seen, around 8 meters high and over 15 meters long, with another, smaller trap next to it. These traps had over a dozen caged birds and various speakers. Again, we started to free the surviving tangled birds. This was the saddest part of the day. A policeman gently cut a sparrow free from the smaller net, only for it to fly straight into the larger net. Eventually, we demolished both traps. The police had to cram the birds into fewer cages, as they simply wouldn't all fit into the patrol car. We crushed the leftover cages before heading back through the baking desolation to collect the bags of nets we'd hidden. That morning, Silver went home to do the rest of his job reporting, blogging, tweeting. I went back to bed.
- [21:50]
Narrator/Reporter
Frank Hersey, Anyone my age has a memory of the real ice cream treat in childhood. A trip to one of the Italian ice cream parlours which enlivened many a drab post war town. Gelato may translate as ice cream, but Italians use more milk and less cream, meaning less fat, and the slow churning process leads to a denser texture and often a stronger flavour. In Italy, artisan gelato parlours still proudly make their products on site, promising fresh and natural ingredients. But there are some impostors and some rather strange new flavours, as Danny Mitzman
- [22:32]
BBC Presenter
learnt early autumn in Italy, when mornings and evenings have an undeniable chill. But at midday you can pretend it's still summer. Bologna's piazzas and benches are still peopled with pleasure seekers savouring the soon to be elusive sensation of sweetness mixed with sunshine. It's the end of another Gelato season and one of the best ever, with national consumption up by more than 10% since last year. Gelatieri, the people who make it, say it's one of the easiest products to sell because it always makes you smile. I'm fond of telling envious visitors that my adopted hometown is the birthplace not just of tagliatelle and tortellini, but also of modern gelato culture. While there may be some debate about gelato's origins, the Italians definitely spread it worldwide, and nowhere was more instrumental than Bologna. The first automated gelato machine was patented by Otello Catabrigo way back in the 1920s, and the city's continued to be the leading international equipment manufacturer. Whether you visit the swankiest Manhattan gelateria or a Mr. Whippy van in Blackpool, you'll likely spot the name Carpigiani on their machinery. Yep, Bolognese. We even have a Gelato University and a Gelato Museum. But gelato is a truly national phenomenon. Of the world's 60,000 gelaterias, nearly 2 thirds are in Italy, with its digestible balance of protein, fat and sugar. Unless you're diabetic, artisanal, gelato's almost considered a healthy food here, with some Italian GPs suggesting it can be a perfect lunch on a hot day. Taking foreign friends to a gelateria here is always a joy, although it can be a little confusing for them. Is that vanilla? They ask, pointing at the white fiordilate. Literally. Flour of milk. The flavour, made with milk, sugar and cream, is frustratingly untranslatable. So is that vanilla? They proceed, indicating crema. Again, I'm stumped. I've seen it translated as custard cream, but to me, that's a biscuit. I explain. It's the addition of eggs, which gives it its yellow color. And even if it is sometimes flavoured with vanilla beans, it's still not vanilla. It's crema. It's one of the classics here, alongside chocolate, hazelnut, strawberry and, in eternal top spot, pistachio. While most consumers opt for a cone or a mini tub, you can also get a gelato sandwich, a brioche stuffed with a few scoops of your choice. It's traditional to have two or three flavours together, but I find Italian gelato fans tend to split into two distinct teams. Those who love le creme creamy, rich flavours like chocolate, nutty ones and of course, crema, versus those who only like the fruit flavours. You can choose whatever you want, but if you asked for chocolate and lemon, or strawberry and hazelnut, Together, you might be considered a touch quirky. Last week I tasted an exquisite extra virgin olive oil flavor made by Mirco Tognetti, a fabulously titled gelato master from Luca in Tuscany. Like everything else, he says, gelato has trends and healthy gelato is the latest lactose free, gluten free, sugar free and vegan versions. He's especially unimpressed by the last one, pointing out that traditional fruit flavours are almost always sorbets, so they're vegan anyway. But he has made a water based pistachio and he does like experimenting. Even he was surprised that his second best selling flavour this summer after pistachio was turmeric, honey and pineapple nut. Then he drops a bombshell. 96% of self professed artisanal gelaterias don't actually make all their own ice cream on site from scratch with natural ingredients. Instead, they're using flavouring sachets, processed pastes and artificial additives. But he reassures me it's easy enough to spot the difference in the product. If the pistachio's bright green, the strawberries deep red and the chocolates nearly black, it's not the real thing. And then there's Italy's strangest flavour, the ubiquitous puffo. A glaringly artificial shade of bright turquoise. It translates as smurf and it certainly is the colour of the little blue people. Although I'm not sure what smurfs are supposed to taste like. Nor, it seems, are Italians. Puffo looks as though it should taste like a mix of bubblegum and children's toothpaste. But even the gelato sellers seem unsure. Some tell me it's coloured Fiordi latte, others say it's aniseed. One thing's for sure, you'll never find it in a true artisanal gelateria, which is, I think, a good thing, as using real Smurfs would be decidedly non vegan.
- [27:35]
Narrator/Reporter
Danny Mitzman and the Taste of the Week. And that's all from us today. We'll be back on Saturday morning with more from our own correspondence. Do join us. Goodbye.