Amid the rise in Rohingya influx in the North Eastern States through the international border of Bharat-Bangladesh, the Intelligence sources of the Border Security Forces (BSF) in Tripura has attributed it to the global ignorance and drastic drop in foreign assistance for the displaced ethnic group.
Source in the BSF said the bordering
population of Tripura must identify this escalating crisis and take proactive role
in helping the security agencies to put a complete stop in cross border human
trafficking.
“The only reason behind the exponential rise in detention of
Rohingya migrants in Tripura and neighboring North Eastern State is that they
don’t have other option. They enter Bharat and get scattered in different parts
of the country in search of petty jobs. The detentions that are being made in
various parts of the State can never draw the real picture of how many
Rohingyas are already living in the country. The border touts play a vital role
in providing them shelter and later getting them enrolled in the government
database such as Adhaar, Voter ID, Pan Card etc,” said the official on condition of anonymity.
He said apart from the males with family, a substantial number of
unmarried females are crossing the borders in recent times.
“The touts of
bordering areas bring them and hand them over to the next point of the chain.
The females are brought in Bharat for two major reasons — marriage and flesh
trade.
Lately, three girls were detained from Kamalasagar area of the
Sepahijala district. During the police probe, they revealed that their
contact person in the border promised them to get their marriages solemnized
with grooms based out of different locations of the country. With high hopes of
a good living, they entered Bharat illegally”, said the senior official.
After a thorough review of the intelligence wings of Tripura
Police and BSF, they concluded that the Rohingya migrants
are trying hard to get themselves resettled in Bharat because the international
assistance provided for them is getting lower gradually. And after, the
Russian-Ukraine war, the Rohingya crisis has failed to garner the attention of
the international community.
“So far we know, several years back the foreign aid used to be
somewhere around 60 US dollars per person that has reduced to six US dollars
per person right now. Naturally, it is quite hard for the displaced Rohingyas
to sustain with that,” stated the official.
Reportedly, Bangladesh used to receive $689 million for the Rohingyas
sheltered there in 2018 which has plummeted to $383 million.
The experts like Rashed Al Mahmud Titumir, Chairman of Department of
Development Studies in Dhaka University, laid
emphasis on strategic shift in handling the situation prevailing there.
He also
estimated that by the year 2027, the Bangladesh Government would require 2,227
million US dollars to provide for the Rohingyas sheltered here.
A report of an international publication on the world food
programme’s (WFP) decision to slash the food aid for Rohingyas published in
March 2023 indicated that the aid for the internationally displaced people
might continue to fall. In March, the WFP cut short the food support from $12 to $10 per
head citing donation shortfall.
Considering all these issues, the problems related to influx of
Rohingyas in Bharat and the North Eastern might rise further in the near future.
Border Security Forces’ data stated last year only
59 Rohingyas were detained by the troopers in the border areas which
is likely to get doubled at the end of 2023.
