By Neelam Rahim

June 13th marks black 4 Rohingya day, where people stand up to remind the world about the persecution the Rohingya still face.

In December 2021, cox bazaar refugee camp, the largest refugee camp in the world, saw the Bangladeshi government shut down all forms of schooling and madrassa. Today we chat about the Rohingya people and how we can make a difference. 

 Radio Islam speaks to Shabnam Mayet, an advocate and a co-founder of protect the Rohingya, a South African-based awareness organization.

 Around five hundred thousand children are denied access to school and religious classes.

 Shabnam says, “because of the genocide that occurred in September of 2017, a million Rohingya were forced to leave Myanmar where they already lived under very difficult conditions and were constantly persecuted since the late 1970s. While the Bangladeshi government has kindly taken in a million refugees, they have not afforded them refugee status. So the one million Rohingya that lives in Cox’s Bazar are forced to live in the camps. The camps have now been fenced in. The situation in the camp is not good, and Rohingya have moved in the past from Bangladeshi schools. Now they have informal schools, not enough, but those have also been closed by the Bangladeshi government.”

“The situation of Rohingya has always been dire, and in previous situations of violence, they had to flee before to Bangladesh as well. Rohingya fled to Bangladesh in the ’80s to get out of the military’s way. The brutality was shocking. Rohingya, besides education, require many services, least of all mental health excess because of the things they’ve seen,” says Shabnam.

Shabnam said June 13th, black for Rohingya day, is an initiative to remember the Rohingya people and sow some solidarity.

“We wanted to find a way that would be easy where all South African’s could do something as everyone has access to social media and a black piece of clothing. We thought we would get everyone out and wear black clothing to social media. Use the hashtag and possibly share a message of solidarity,” says Shabnam.