Photo Credit: Refugees International/ Maureen Lynch
02/23/2006

The Bihari people of Bangladesh live in 70 camp-like settlements throughout the country like this one. Living conditions are miserable due to high population density, aging accommodations, poor sanitation and hygiene, lack of education and healthcare facilities, and limited access to livelihoods, with most employable individuals consigned to day labor, barbering, or rickshaw pulling.

In pre-independence India, the Biharis were an Urdu-speaking Muslim minority who resided in the Hindu region of Bihar. At the time of partition in 1947, some of them chose to move to East Pakistan and others to West Pakistan. When civil war broke out in 1970, the Biharis sided with West Pakistan. After the war and the independence of Bangladesh, they were unwelcome in either country. Refugees International is advocating for the governments of Bangladesh and Pakistan to resolve this problem.