Rohingya refugees in India on hunger strike over 'prolonged' detention

By Tora Agarwala and Sudipto Ganguly

GUWAHATI, India (Reuters) - More than 100 Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar including women and children have been on hunger strike since Monday to protest at their indefinite detention at a camp in northeastern India, authorities told Reuters.

More than one million Rohingya refugees fled to countries including Bangladesh and India after a military-led crackdown in Myanmar in 2017. They have little hope of returning home, where they are largely denied citizenship and basic rights.

The protesters include about 103 Rohingya Muslims and 30 Christian Chin refugees, also from Myanmar, and many have refugee cards issued by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said a Rohingya who is in touch with the protesters in Matia Transit Camp in Assam state.

The camp is India's largest detention centre for undocumented migrants who enter India illegally.

"Many of them have finished their terms, but are still stuck in detention. They are not criminals, they fled persecution," the person said, adding that 36 Rohingya protesters possessed UNHCR cards.

"The jail conditions are not good, relatives cannot even visit ... they just want to be free and shift somewhere where life is better," the person added.

The protesters want to be handed over to UNHCR and resettled in a third country, the person said, adding that they have written letters to the Assam government seeking their intervention in the last few months.

"They are demanding they be released," said Ravi Kota, Assam's most senior bureaucrat, adding that the state government has sent prison and interior ministry officials to the camp to "understand their issues" and submit a report.

"Not all were detained under a single court order, so we are trying to find out what are these orders, what are the charges, and what the legal status is," he said.

Reuters was not immediately able to establish for how long the refugees were initially ordered to stay in the camp.

UNHCR said in a statement there are 676 Rohingya refugees in immigration detention across India and 608 of them have no ongoing court cases or sentences pending.

“Consistent with international law and standards, UNHCR takes the position that the detention of asylum seekers should be an exceptional measure of last resort,” it said. It added that UNHCR is ready to work with New Delhi to address the situation of all asylum seekers and refugees in detention.

The Rohingya suffered from poor healthcare facilities, a lack of water and inhumane treatment in the camp, said Rohingya Human Rights Initiative (R4R), a rights group. "Our people fled genocide and persecution, only to be imprisoned in a country where they sought refuge," R4R chief Sabre Kyaw Min said.

The Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK also urged New Delhi to release the refugees, saying their detention was a "grave injustice".

(Reporting by Tora Agarwala in Guwahati and Sudipto Ganguly in Mumbai; Editing by YP Rajesh and William Maclean)