The
Human Cost of Statelessness
A six-hour
bus ride from Bangladesh’s capital city, Dhaka put us in Rangpur just before
5:30 p.m., with the last rays of daylight all but gone. The
population of this northwestern city includes 30,000 Urdu-speaking
Bihari. Our first stop was an
area called Camp Three where
we conversed with the leader
of the stranded Pakistanis,
Mr. Alhaj Nasim Khan. In his mid- 80s with thick glasses and a
distinguished white beard, he sat across from us at a simple
wooden table and stated, “Our only crime was to side with
Pakistan during its darkest hours. Now this is how we are passing
our days.”
We talked with camp leaders
about sanitation and hygiene
concerns and learned there
are only two working wells and ten latrines for the 5,000
residents of Camp Three. “There is no privacy,” one person said,
“especially for our women.” A young man who guided us through the
camp pointed out an old, covered latrine. “It made people
sick,” he reported.
Housing for camp residents consisted of overcrowded cane structures. The number of
families is growing and accessible land is becoming increasingly
scarce, continually compounding the problem. Passing through
the dark narrow alleys, we
stopped to visit one house
missing part of its wall, leaving the roof on the verge of
collapse. It was a remnant of the ruin caused by a tornado that hit
the area in September, destroying 54 homes within the camp.
With our heads touching the ceiling of one tiny home, we were told that twelve people
lived in the house, including four children. The primary
breadwinner, a young man with only one hand, reported that he
only made up to 90 taka ($1.50) a day doing odd jobs, such as
rickshaw pulling or working as a guard. He listed the main
problems in the camp as housing, employment, and hygiene.
Another shelter we visited was the residence of the “Camp-in-Charge.” He obligingly arose
from his sick bed to talk with us. Having no medicine to treat
his lung ailment and no caretaker, his condition seemed bleak.
Outside his doorway, we met a
young leper whose fingertips
were red and white from pus and
blood. A few steps later,
a man with a dreadfully swollen stomach and intestines
appeared. We witnessed firsthand the uncountable medical needs
left untreated, as there was no camp medical clinic and few
individuals had the necessary
funds to seek help outside
the camp.
Our visit to Camp Two echoed the problems we had already encountered. A mother of ten,
with her blind son by her side, said, “Living is not the
issue. Identity is the issue. Without it, how can we survive?” Her
husband, suffering from diabetes, is able to find odd jobs.
“Our family ate only once today,” the mother added.
At a nearby house, a woman had opened a
small shop inside their
eight by eight foot
room to support her six children while her husband is hospitalized
with liver jaundice. “If anyone else falls sick, we can’t afford a
doctor. It has become quite impossible to survive,” she told us.
“Due to poverty, we are sometimes starving.”
As we left one dark exterior walkway and entered a pitch black room, we encountered a very
sick man wrapped in a tattered
blanket and lying on a
worn-out floor mat. As another person lit a small candle, its
illumination revealed the figures of two terrified young girls in rags
cowering behind the man and
pressed tightly against each
other. “No one is caring for them, and their father can’t afford
to marry them into another family.” The two girls face a lifetime
of borrowing and begging.
Outside, the gathering crowd
attracted the attention of a local security officer, and we
began to wind down our visit.
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