'There is no future for us': Rohingya refugees given little protection in India

The heat bears down on Mohammad Salimullah as he trudges through the makeshift camp in the southeast part of India's capital. It has been his family's home for 10 years, ever since they escaped a campaign of violence in Myanmar's Rakhine state. 

"We never imagined leaving our country and coming to India to live in these uncertain conditions," said Salimullah, 36. "In Myanmar, we were living in oppression. Here, you could say we are living a life of freedom — but look at our situation."

The father of two stooped to pick up a neighbour's crying toddler, soothing him as he described to CBC the squalid conditions of the improvised refugee settlement in New Delhi that more than 50 families belonging to Myanmar's persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority call home.

The camp consists of tents cobbled together with scraps of old sheets, tattered tarps, bamboo sticks and whatever else the adults could scrounge. It has no running water, only intermittent electricity and little protection from the elements. 

"Our young suffer from diarrhea and frequent vomiting," Salimullah continued. "The future of our children is bleak." 

It's also precarious. The makeshift camp has been in Delhi's Kalindi Kunj area for 10 years, but numbers swelled in 2017. That's when hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled a brutal military crackdown in Myanmar that the United Nations described as a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing," and crossed into neighbouring countries like Bangladesh and India.

The more than 250 people living at the Delhi camp carry official refugee status cards issued by the United Nations, meant to offer protection from arbitrary detention. But that means little to Indian authorities.

The Indian government considers the Rohingya "illegal foreigners," and officials have repeatedly stated they wish to deport the refugees to Myanmar, even after the military staged a coup to seize power in February 2021, plunging the country into further violence.

On Wednesday, Tom Andrews, the UN's special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, told the international body's human rights council that conditions for the country's 54 million people have gone from "bad to worse to horrific" since the military took control. 

He added that "five years after a genocidal campaign was launched against them, the Rohingya continue to face discrimination, repression and human rights abuses each and every day." 

The UN considers Rohingya Muslims both the most persecuted minority in the world and one of the world's largest stateless populations, denied citizenship for decades in their native country. 

Estimates vary widely, but human rights groups believe there are some 40,000 Rohingya in India, at least half of whom are registered as refugees with the UN's Human Rights Commission.

The threat of eviction from India flared up again last month, when a senior federal minister tweeted that the refugees living in Delhi would be provided housing, only to have his own government deny that offer hours later. 

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government reiterated that the Rohingya Muslims are considered illegal immigrants, and stated that they should be moved to detention centres to await deportation.