Vector Volume 11 Issue 2 - 2017

Non-Health for Non-Persons:
Rohingya Muslims in Crisis
[Feature article]
Jumaana Abdu
Jumaana is currently finishing her first year of medicine at the University of New South Wales.
She aims to find a career path which combines her passion for medicine and human rights.
She also hopes her future involves as a side-profession of writing, fiction or otherwise.
In a tightening spiral of human suffering that winds
back five decades, the Rohingya have come to be
mentioned as a customary precursor to the phrase “most
persecuted minority in the world”. The long-disowned
nationals of Myanmar are estimated at a population
of 1.2 million,[1] stateless victims of humanitarian
violations so comprehensive and extensive that the
world’s empathy can only be directed towards a vague
fog of injustice. However, as flagbearers of the right to
health and human dignity, healthcare professionals must
be able to shine a torch into the fog and discern the
faces within.
Current Situation
While systematic persecution of the Rohingya Muslims
has been noted since the stripping of voting rights and
the military “purges” of the 1970s, events within the past
year have seen violence escalate dramatically. A border
attack by a group of radicalised Rohingya Muslims on
Myanmar’s police last October resulted in an estimated
10 casualties. Extremist violence is unacceptable and
unhelpful, though one can see the desperation, injustice
and generations-worth of marginalisation from which
this radicalisation was inevitably born. Since the attack,
disproportionate and indiscriminate military retaliation
has resulted in hundreds of deaths and torrents of
Rohingya fleeing Myanmar’s northern Rakhine state,
where the situation is worst. The United Nations (UN)
reports that from the last week of October 2017 to the
first week of September 2017 alone – just two weeks –
270,000 people fled to Bangladesh for safety.[2]
The humanitarian crisis in which the Rohingya find
themselves is undeniable. Officially stateless, access
to basics such as healthcare, education, employment,
security and freedom is often impossible. Tragically,
these deprivations are far less confronting than other
reasons for which the Rohingya have been forced to flee.
With UNHCR reports documenting common experiences
2