Archer Blood Center Seminar on Rohingya Crisis

Archer Blood Center Seminar on Rohingya Crisis

The 2015 Rohingya refugee crisis refers to the mass migration of people from Myanmar in 2015, collectively dubbed “boat people” by international media.[1][2] Nearly all who fled traveled to Southeast Asian countries including Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand by rickety boats via the waters of the Strait of Malacca and the Andaman Sea.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that 25,000 people have been taken to boats from January to March in 2015 by migrant smugglers.[6][7] There are claims that, while on their journey, around 100 people died in Indonesia,[8] 200 in Malaysia,[9] and 10 in Thailand,[10] after the traffickers abandoned them at sea.[11][12]

In October 2015, researchers from the International State Crime Initiative at Queen Mary University of London released a report drawing on leaked government documents that reveal an increasing “ghettoization, sporadic massacres, and restrictions on movement” on Rohingya peoples. The researchers suggest that the Myanmar government are in the final stages of an organized process of genocide against the Rohingya and have called upon the international community to redress the situation as such.[13] But not all refugees are Rohingya. Many Bangladeshis trying to escape grinding poverty are also among the migrants. So, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina slammed the country’s economic migrants, many of whom are stranded in dire conditions at sea, calling them “mentally sick” and accusing them of hurting the country’s image. Calling the boat people from Bangladesh “mentally sick” for fleeing in search of jobs, the premier said they “could have better lives in Bangladesh”.[14]