Rohingyas and their Right to Return

Attended a panel discussion on Displacement, Security and Gender in South Asia. What Paula Bannerjee, one of the panelists shared is perhaps one of the most deep and striking realities of the Rohingya refugee crisis. She empasized that the greatest right of a refugee is the right to return, the right to be nostalgic about their homes.It is this right that has been snatched away from the Rohingyas. For them, home is always associated with terror, persecution and fear. Home is associated with the violence that they have witnessed, the harassment that they have gone through, the hundreds of rapes and murders they have seen before their eyes. What has been snatched away from them, is the dignity of calling a place home. What has been snatched away from them is nostalgia and memory of love.