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DHAKA: As US aid cuts have forced the UN’s children agency UNICEF to suspend thousands of learning centers for Rohingya refugee children sheltering in camps in Bangladesh, a small number of community-led schools have now become their only source of education.

The Rohingya, a mostly Muslim ethnic minority, have fled from Myanmar’s Rakhine State to neighboring Bangladesh for decades to escape persecution, with more than 700,000 arriving in 2017 following a military crackdown that the UN said was a textbook case of ethnic cleansing by Myanmar.

Today, more than 1.3 million Rohingya on Bangladesh’s southeast coast are cramped inside 33 camps in Cox’s Bazar — the world’s largest refugee settlement.

The refugees, who are almost completely reliant on humanitarian aid, recently faced another blow, after the US suspended aid funding worldwide in January. Washington has been the largest donor, having contributed $300 million in 2024, or 55 percent of all foreign aid for the Rohingya.

Those and other foreign aid cuts “have worsened the already existing education crisis for 437,000 school-age children in Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh,” Human Rights Watch said in a report published this week.

It is only in schools established by the Rohingya community that some children are able to get their education now, the group said, after UNICEF-run learning centers were forced to shut due to a lack of funding.

These schools offer a small glimmer of hope for many young children in the refugee camps.

“School is important for me because it gives me knowledge, enhances my life skills, makes me think for my community, makes me a better person and makes me hopeful for a better future. As a refugee, I don’t have many opportunities, but education can open doors for me and help me build a better life,” Mohammed Shofik, a 15-year-old Rohingya boy enrolled at a community school in Cox’s Bazar, told Arab News on Friday.

His dream is to become a scientist or doctor. At school, he is learning how to experiment and use tools, as well as how to listen and observe carefully, which he thinks are helpful to achieve his goals.

“Education is the only way to reach my dream and help my community,” he said.

But only a small number of Rohingya children are able to enroll in the community-led schools, as they do not receive any charitable support, Arif Salam, a teacher in one such school in the camps, told Arab News.

“Community schools are not funded by any donors and NGOs. Our only funding source is the tuition fees received from the parents of our students. But we can’t provide services to all the children,” he said.

“Only a few students in the camps can afford the learning in the community schools. Most of the students are enrolled with the UNICEF-run learning centers. The children who are enrolled with UNICEF learning centers are now sitting idle as they have nothing to do. It will create an irreparable loss for their education.”

There are about 150 community schools across the Rohingya camps in Cox’s Bazar. Each of the schools have about 10 to 15 teachers, who provide education for 150 to 400 students.

Without government support or private donor funding, the schools charge parents monthly tuition fees ranging from around $0.50 for class one up to $6.50 for class 12, a fee that many cannot afford, as the Rohingya are not allowed to work.

“The closure of learning centers brought huge educational losses,” Salam said. “For our Rohingya children, it’s a hopeless situation.”

While the Bangladeshi government has not encouraged any informal system of education, such initiatives should be considered to address the education crisis, said Asif Munir, a renowned Bangladeshi expert on migration and refugees.

“Some kind of education is required for them because otherwise there is a possibility that the younger children, as they grow up, not just uneducated, they might be getting involved in informal work or even sort of risky work as well,” Munir warned.

“With education they can still hope for some kind of proper work where they can use their education in their life. So, in that sense, at least, the government can consider this as a good sort of coping strategy.”

HRW had also urged the Bangladeshi government to “recognize and fund community-led schools to increase their capacity,” and highlighted that recognition could help encourage donor support.

For the young Rohingya whose lives have been plagued with increasing uncertainties, going to school helps them chart a path for the future.

“My dream is to become a motivational speaker. In school, our teachers teach us good listening, delivering strong messages, storytelling, using body language, confidence-building techniques and leadership skills,” 10th-grader Rohul Amin told Arab News. “I think with all these knowledge and skills, I can achieve my dream one day.”

For Amin, school also helps him learn about his identity as a Rohingya.

“I especially focus on the history subject because history makes me understand our identity. As a Rohingya, I have no identity. I mostly try to remember our land and our identity.”

WASHINGTON: Anti-Muslim online posts targeting New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani have surged since his Democratic primary upset this week, including death threats and comments comparing his candidacy to the September 11, 2001 attacks, advocates said on Friday.

There were at least 127 violent hate-related reports mentioning Mamdani or his campaign in the day after polls closed, said CAIR Action, an arm of the Council on American Islamic Relations advocacy group, which logs such incidents.

That marks a five-fold increase over a daily average of such reports tracked earlier this month, CAIR Action said in a statement.

Overall, it noted about 6,200 online posts that mentioned some form of Islamophobic slur or hostility in that day long time-frame.

Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist and a 33-year-old state lawmaker, declared victory in Tuesday’s primary after former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo conceded defeat.

Born in Uganda to Indian parents, Mamdani would be the city’s first Muslim and Indian American mayor if he wins the November general election.

“We call on public officials of every party — including those whose allies are amplifying these smears — to unequivocally condemn Islamophobia,” said Basim Elkarra, executive director of CAIR Action.

The advocacy group said its hate monitoring system includes its own scraping and analysis of posts, online submissions by the public and notifications from law enforcement. About 62 percent of the anti-Muslim posts against Mamdani originated on X, CAIR Action said.

People close to Republican President Donald Trump, including one of his sons, are among those spreading anti-Muslim rhetoric, advocates said.

Donald Trump Jr, the president’s son, wrote on X on Wednesday that “New York City has fallen” while sharing a post that said New Yorkers had “voted for” 9/11. Also on Wednesday, Republican US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene posted an AI-generated picture of the Statue of Liberty draped in a burqa.

President Trump has pursued domestic policies that rights advocates have described as anti-Muslim, including banning travel from some predominantly Muslim or Arab countries in his first term and attempting to deport pro-Palestinian students in his current term.

The White House, which did not respond to a request for comment, has denied claims of discrimination against Muslims. Trump and his allies have said they oppose Mamdani and others due to what they call the Democrats’ “radical left” ideology.


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The New York City Police Department said earlier this month its hate crime unit was probing anti-Muslim threats against Mamdani.

Manjusha Kulkarni, co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate, which documents hate against Asian Americans, and CAIR said attacks against Mamdani mirrored those endured by other South Asian and Muslim political figures, including former Vice President Kamala Harris and Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib.

Republicans have called Mamdani antisemitic, citing his pro-Palestinian advocacy and his criticism of Israel’s military assault on Gaza after an attack by Hamas militants in October 2023.

Mamdani has condemned antisemitism and has the backing of New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who is Jewish. Lander also ran in the Democratic primary.

Rights advocates have noted rising antisemitism and Islamophobia since the start of the Israel-Gaza war, with fatal US incidents including the shooting of two Israeli embassy staff in Washington and the stabbing of a Muslim child in Illinois.

Mamdani and other Pro-Palestinian advocates, including some Jewish groups, said their criticism of Israel is wrongly conflated with antisemitism.