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Camera: Tridip K Mandal
Video Editor: Puneet Bhatia
Production Support: Hussain Johar
Perhaps, these are the thoughts of every Rohingya refugee living in India.
Spread across Delhi, Jammu, Haryana and Hyderabad, the community of about 18,000 people, is currently fighting not just the coronavirus, but also a perception battle.
When those attending the Tablighi Jamaat congregation at the Markaz mosque in Nizamuddin tested positive, it was suspected that many of them are Rohingyas. Although 1,000 Rohingyas living in Delhi were screened, none of them tested positive for the virus.
Most of these Rohingyas living in India work as daily wage labourers, small time traders or street vendors. Very few of them are educated or have a steady job.
Mohd Abdullah came to India in 2012. He lives in Delhi’s Kalindi Kunj Camp with his wife and four children. After eight years of living as a refugee in a foreign land, his life was finally starting to look up when he bought an e-rickshaw.
Little did he know that the Novel coronavirus would soon take the country by siege.
Mohd Abdullah at least has a home to live in. At the other end of the city of Delhi, in Khajuri Khas, where more than 200 Rohingyas live, there’s a looming threat of losing the roof over their head anytime now.
In Khajuri Khas, the Rohingya families live in cramped rented accommodations, paying anything from Rs 3,000 to 5,000 every month. But ever since the lockdown began, many of them have lost their jobs.
And now, the landlords are threatening them with eviction.
Many Rohingya refugees in Delhi approached the UNHCR to help them financially, mainly to pay their rents. But so far, they haven’t heard back from them.
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