KUALA LUMPUR: Hundreds of thousands of refugees in the country are facing hardship following the enforcement of the Movement Control Order (MCO) on March 18.
Not only have they lost their jobs, with the extension of the MCO to April 14, they fear they could not pay rent, which might lead to them being evicted from their homes by their landlords.
Non-governmental organisation (NGO) Refuge for the Refugees (RFTR) founder Heidy Quah said what was even more alarming was that their living conditions did not allow them to practise social distancing.
She said up to 15 refugees were usually cramped into a small flat unit. This, she said, meant that they could not practise social distancing.
“In the past few days, we have received distress calls from the community telling us that they do not have food to feed their family,” she said yesterday.
Quah said they also did not have soap and hand sanitisers.
“Even before the Covid-19 outbreak, they did not have them. It is even more crucial now during the MCO. In terms of nutrition — even if we could give them vegetables and meat, they do not have a fridge to store them.”
She said RTFR was raising funds for the 1,000 refugee households, along with other NGOs, such as Tenaganita, Dapur Jalanan Kuala Lumpur and Liga Rakyat Demokratik.
Myanmar Ethnic Rohingya Human Rights Organisation Malaysia president Zafar Ahmad Abdul Ghani said his community had lost their source of income as most of them depended on daily wages to survive.
“Most Rohingya refugees stay at home without any means to get money to feed their family.
“Most of them are struggling to survive as they do not have any savings. When they get their salary, they will use it to pay rent and buy necessities.
“Most Rohingya have run out of food. They are struggling to pay rent.
“I can’t imagine how we are going to survive,” he said.
“We appeal to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the private sector, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the European Union, the United Kingdom and the United States government to help the affected Rohingya refugees,” he added.
A UNHCR spokesman said its hotlines received between 50 and 70 calls per day.
“Nearly half the calls are related to Covid-19, such as where and how to get screened, what the cost is, and other questions on the disease which are answered by trained staff members. Refugees are also referred to the refugee-malaysia.org information portal where information on the virus is available.
Tenaganita and UNHCR have been assisting the refugees and asylum seekers since the outbreak started.
Tenaganita executive director Glarene A. Das said ever since the start of the pandemic, Tenaganita has been disseminating the information on the symptoms of Covid-19 in several languages of migrant and refugee communities.
“We are informing and requesting the communities to go for testing and screening for Covid-19 if they have the symptoms as indicated by the Health Ministry.
“When it was found out some refugee communities participated in the (Sri Petaling) tabligh gathering, Tenaganita’s community mobilisers and volunteers encouraged, even facilitated the affected communities to go for testing and screening,” she said.
UNHCR together with its NGO partners, such as the Islamic Medical Association of Malaysia, Muslim Relief Agency, and MERCY Malaysia, are collaborating with district health officers to reach out to the refugee communities.
“UNHCR has been coordinating with the Health Ministry to ensure all refugee and asylum-seeking communities are included in the government’s national response measures, and to prevent the infection from spreading.
“The joint teams will provide information on Covid-19, arrange for the refugees to do testing if they have symptoms, as well as advise them to comply with the MCO.”
Up to the end of last month, there were 178,980 refugees and asylum-seekers registered with UNHCR in Malaysia.
A total of 154,080 are from Myanmar, while 24,900 are from Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia Syria, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Iraq and Palestine.