‘We are not wanted anywhere’: Rohingya face fierce new wave of hostility in Malaysia

Not long ago, Malaysia’s then-prime minister urged his country to protect Rohingya Muslims – a stateless minority that has fled violence and discrimination in Myanmar for decades.

“We must defend them, not just because they are of the same faith, but [because] they are humans, their lives have value,” Najib Razak said in 2017.

Nine years on, a fierce new wave of hostility against the Rohingya is sweeping the nation.

So much so that “going to school has become a dangerous thing,” says Irhan, a Rohingya refugee, who founded a school in northern Malaysia for children from his community aged six to 15. We have changed his name to protect his identity.

Because Rohingya children are barred from Malaysian public schools, they often attend unlicensed, community-run “learning centres”, which are now especially vulnerable.

Irhan’s school was raided last month, when eight uniformed police officers stormed inside, took photographs of the students and ordered some of them to go home.

“The students are just here to learn. Now their families are afraid,” he says.

A school in Selangor in the west suspended classes for a month and reopened at the end of July with new instructions: students must not wear their uniforms to school and must go straight home after class, without lingering or hanging out in groups.

“We’re keeping a low profile to protect our students from getting attacked,” says Farooq, a Rohingya teacher.

Crackdowns are haphazard and often spurred by public sentiment. The uncertainty and fear have forced some schools to close in recent months. In some parts of the country, Rohingya have also been evicted from villages they’d been living in for years. Some local residents told Malaysian media that allowing them to remain could lead to “social problems”.

After they were evicted from a fishing village near Penang, some120 refugees sought shelter outside the UN’s refugee agency in the capital Kuala Lumpur – and were temporarily detained. More than half of them were children.

All of this has left a community that has long felt beleagured looking over its shoulder again.

“In the early years, the Malaysians were our friends. They cared for our children. But it’s changed,” Irhan says.

“I would leave if I could, but where else can I go? We are not wanted anywhere.”