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.