Several attendees were moved to tears by the emotional stories and video presentation of Rohingya refugees at the annual BDesh dinner following maghrib prayer on Saturday, Oct. 20, 2018.
Held at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Herndon, VA, the event featured All Dulles Area Muslim Society’s Imam Mohamed and others who spoke about their recent experiences in the Rohingya camps in Bangladesh.
BDesh Foundation is a non-profit charitable organization in Northern VA committed to alleviating poverty, health and sanitation, and educational projects. The aim of the dinner was to raise funds to open six orphan care centers close to the Bangladesh Myanmar border area. Attendees could direct their donations go to various projects on the ground in these refugee camps. Through donations, BDesh and its partners are able to execute projects like providing basic education, food, healthcare, and financial assistance to orphans and women in particular.
The majority Buddhist country of Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) has been waging what many human rights groups call a genocide against their Muslim Rohingya minority, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee since the late 1970s. The killings and burning of villages accelerated over the last several years, causing a massive refugee crisis in Bangladesh. Before August of 2017 the majority of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, estimated to be about one million, lived in Rakhine State and consisted of one third of the population. The Rohingya Muslims are ethnically, religiously, and linguistically different from the majority Buddhist population.
In August of 2017 the Myanmar security forces led a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya Muslims, which included gang-raping their women, murdering men, women and children, and burning their villages and businesses. This led to the exodus that is being witnessed today. According to the United States Agency for International Development, “706,000 estimated people were displaced from Myanmar to Bangladesh since Aug. 25, 2017.” USAID states “862,900 estimated people are in need of humanitarian assistance in Myanmar as of Nov. 2017.”
Of the 706,000 who were displaced from Myanmar to Bangladesh, the UN found that 52 percent of the women surveyed were raped and more than 40 percent of the children are orphans.
Sohel Ahmed, Chief Executive Officer of BDesh, spoke at the event and stressed the need to “do whatever we can for the Rohingya refugees.” Having visited the camps twice before, he stood in front of the audience members and said “he was the Rohingya.” As people who cannot speak for themselves in the media or anywhere else, he saw it as his civic duty to speak on their behalf and be their ambassador.
Ahmed spoke about the helplessness in the eyes of the Rohingya refugees that he saw and how many that arrived at the camps in Bangladesh from Myanmar could not even afford the token that is required to get in the camps. Many had not eaten a meal since fleeing their country. Ahmed told audience members that the evening’s attendees were no different than the refugees and had the same blood running in their veins, and that they – like the Rohingya – were human beings. Their situation, according to him, was not an issue of faith, but rather a humanitarian issue. He spoke of the interfaith delegation that BDesh took to Bangladesh in March of this year, which included a Buddhist monk, a Christian pastor, and imam, and a rabbi.
Imam Magid came to the event to support the work of BDesh. During his visit to the refugee camps last year, he made a promise to come back to the United States and speak on behalf of the Rohingya people. During his time there he said he heard stories of “women being violated ten or more times, or children who lost their parents in front of their eyes.” He stood in front of the audience and spoke about not knowing what to expect during his visit to the camps. He talked about the trauma, the pain, and the suffering that he saw, and seeing his own children in the eyes of the refugee children.
Attendees at the dinner sat and listened to heart breaking stories from various speakers. Dr. Ismail Mehr, Chairman of the Islamic Medical Association of America, worked on the ground in Bangladesh’s refugee camps. He told a story of a 6-year old girl whose parents were both killed by Myanmar security forces. The girl then fled with other refugees carrying her 8-month-old brother for six days until she reached a refugee camp in Bangladesh. Other stories shared throughout the night included that of a young 5-year-old girl whose body was found floating in the river after her parents were killed. The girl was rescued, but has no surviving grandparents and is being cared for by a lady with no relation to her in the camps.
Imam Magid urged people to donate to the Rohingya Muslims and said to audience members “when we help them, we are not doing them a favor, but rather fulfilling an obligation.” He urged audience members to help so that on the Day of Judgment Allah will say to them: “you saw someone in need and you eased their difficulty, today I will ease your difficulty.”
By the end of the night the total raised in pledges and donations was $140, 860. Guest speakers and BDesh members were delighted to see the big crowd and donations collected. Ahmed, however, also noted that BDesh is just a drop in a bucket compared to bigger humanitarian relief agencies like the UN, but that BDesh was representing the Muslim side and still has a long way to go.
As the dinner came to an end, members of BDesh also thanked Hajj Mustafa from Dar-El-Salam Travel, a popular Hajj travel agency, for his ongoing support of the organization. Hajj Mustafa was supposed to speak about his experiences in Bangladesh, but could not make it to the event. After traveling to the refugee camps in Bangladesh with Imam Magid last year, Hajj Mustafa created Dar-El-Salam Foundation, a non-profit organization that is able to send volunteers to the camps annually or bi-annually through donations that cover the cost of airfare. The volunteers can be of any faith and the hope is to raise awareness of Rohingya crisis.
When asked about his hopes for BDesh Foundation’s future, Ahmed talked about taking the next step from awareness to action. He says that BDesh is not alone in relief work and they have created a great coalition. He is proud of the partnerships BDesh had made, including that with IMANA, who are administrating the medical relief work on the ground, as well the partnership with the International Interfaith Peace Corp which is handling the PR, interfaith and advocacy side of the work, as well as building government relationships. Ahmed’s hope is to launch a campaign called “Save Rohingya Now,” similar to the “Save Darfur” movement. Although he thinks that the relief work is important, he believes “that a political solution is needed, and that the political solution will come when they are able to mobilize the general people of this country.”
Imrana Umar, President and Executive Director IIPC, travelled to the refugee camps in Bangladesh and agrees with Ahmed about taking more action. He believes that more relief advocacy is needed and added “we need to put more pressure on the government of Myanmar.” Mark Brinkmoeller, also of IIPC, has been doing international work most of his life. In speaking about the media coverage of Myanmar, he says it’s a situation “that you leaves you both enraged and in tears.” His hopes are that more people will be aware of the genocide going on, speak out, and push the U.S. government to do more to help the Rohingya people.
To support BDesh in their work with Rohingya refugees and their various projects on the ground please visit: http://www.bdeshfoundation.org/
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