The hunger-striking refugees include women and children. They began their protest on Monday
Team Clarion
NEW DELHI — More than a hundred Rohingya and Chin refugees from Myanmar, currently detained at a Matia transit camp in Goalpara district in Assam, have been on a hunger strike since Monday (September 9) protesting against their indefinite detention.
The hunger strikers include women and children. They are demanding to be transferred and handed over to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the national capital and later asked for resettlement, media reports reaching here said on Friday.
According to a Rohingya human rights activist, 40 of the inmates hold refugee cards issued by UNHCR. But they remain in detention, he said.
Meanwhile, a rights organisation fighting for the Rohingyas has asked the Indian government to release the hunger-striking refugees.
“They came to save their lives, and they are innocent. The Matia Detention Centre alone holds over 100 people, 40 of whom have refugee cards issued by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees… we request that the government release them,” Rohingya Human Rights Initiative Director Sabbre Kyaw Min was quoted by the media as saying.
“We urgently appeal to the government of India, the judiciary, and the international community to act now,” he said. “The release of these refugees is not only a matter of legal obligation — it is a matter of humanity.”
In July 2023, 35 of the refugees at the detention camp wrote to the administration, requesting to be transferred out of the detention and their letter was forwarded to the state home department but no action took place to address their demands.
The Matia detention centre was inaugurated in January 2023. The camp detainees are those who have allegedly entered India without proper documentation including refugees fleeing persecution from Myanmar.
The camp is India’s largest detention centre for undocumented migrants.
The hunger strike protest by the detainees brings attention to the issue of refugee rights in India and the country’s non-signatory status to the UN refugee Convention.
About 1.2 million Rohingya have been living in Bangladesh since August 2017, fleeing a severe military crackdown in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, while there are an estimated 40,000 Rohingya in India, dispersed across the country.