How does one resolve this article with the never-ending flow of requests for help that find their way to my inbox every day?
11
I am not at all surprised, I doubted many of these stories when I read them anyway. I did not believe that a baby was thrown alive into a fire. I would certainly hope that such a thing could not possibly be true, and now we know that many such stories simply were not true. Readers deserve reports to be fact-checked; if details cannot be verified, these unverified and unverifiable details should never be included in the piece.
It is well known that many asylum seekers fabricate and embellish their claims in the hope of having their claims accepted. e.g., Many adults try to pass as children so that they will be granted more benefits and family unification/chain migration rights. The abuse is phenomenal and rampant and well known.
These refugees are simply practicing their story with the media and then will try with the refugee agencies.
This is one reason why there is refugee fatigue - if you cannot trust a claimant or verify a claimant's testimonial, how could you possibly trust them to be resettled in a host country and expect them to successfully integrate and assimilate?
36
Thank you, Hannah Beech! I've been critical of the NYTimes coverage of the Rohingya crisis, including by Ms. Beech. This particular article should be Pulitzer material. People who want to really care about refugees should read it three times.
Once as a reader of news. This article is a priceless description of the way things really are in refugee and IDP camps, not just in Bangladesh but worldwide. With now 70 million displaced in the world, this is how 1% of your world lives, and it should be anything but normal. Never stop reading about it.
Once as a skeptic and student of the "first draft of history". There has never been a conflict in which everything one side said was true, and everything the other said is false, nor a war in which only one side committed war crimes. Read carefully. Finding a liar in a camp doesn't absolve charges of ethnic cleansing, nor does finding a victim prove it, charges against militaries and governments need to go to courts and information needs to be collected. Histories are told to help the side telling them, the truth is more nuanced and complicated. Always.
Once, the reader should read as if a humanitarian or a first responder. We train that you should not judge a person by the way they act in crisis -- you are seeing people at their worst. Put yourself in their shoes, and look at what they say or do from there, and then refrain from judgement and just observe to help.
The world needs more of this kind of reporting.
30
Is triage humane? Who judges whom? What life experience are they looking through to make those judgments on who is the neediest and why?
2
A number of years ago there was a terrible fire in the Bronx where several children, possibly a mother too, got killed. I suspected the two women and groups of children living there had one husband/father. Turns out that was true, and that social workers knew all along but kept quiet. The father worked, but both sets of families had to pretend to be single moms in order to receive welfare, etc. Advantage taking is one of the resentments in Europe today, as native Europeans know they will be inunduated by large, complicated families if they allow the individual men who arrived to bring out their families. Never mind the mouths to feed, which quickly multiply.
As other commenters have said, real crisis propel tag alongs who want to receive aid, and the numbers of refugees balloons with the fakers. Happened post 1948 in the Palestinian refugee camps, and of course in recent migrations from Africa and the Middle East into Europe.
During WWII, when some Jewish people hid from the Nazis, no new pregnancies occurred. In abnormal times, that is the last thing one should subject women to.
23
I've never been moved to write a commentary but this was such a nuanced and thoughtful piece I couldn't help but to. Anyone who has worked with the severely disadvantaged knows the situation that Beech is so elegantly sketches. One sees similar problems whether working in forensic mental institutes or soup kitchens and it's extremely hard to talk about without sounding thoughtless. Yet not mentioning it fails to accurately capture the situation. I wish more pieces could capture the difficulty of covering these stories with such subtlety and care.
30
One, here in the West so willingly judge the rest of the world. People, particularly in the USA feel above and entitled to have “better judgement” than people from other cultures/countries. I have done volunteer work throughout my life. Many of the poor in the USA use the same methods to get public and private benefits. Although, it seems that the documentaries and reportage regarding the rest of the world (except the USA) always are negative and condescending.
6
It is surprising that people in such miserable conditions decide to have children? One would expect that having children in those situations is perpetrating the misery
26
Aren’t you happy to have better and much more stable conditions???
4
I taught elementary school for several years. Children can tell the most convincing lies of anyone. Big eyes, innocent and sincere faces. One needs to be careful and verify what is being said. I could watch a child do something they weren't supposed to be doing, call them to my desk to talk about it, and they could just about convince me not to believe my own eyes. And if they have heard stories, or witnessed atrocities, it may be hard for them to even really distinguish fact from fiction. And they will tell the story they think the listener wants to hear, or the one that gives them the most of what they need and want. These kids have gone through hell, and they will do and say what they feel they need to do and say, especially of they have been coached.
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Muslims are both experiencing and lying about the behaviors they've perpetrated against others in this region while building almost exclusively Muslim countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan. States that, paradoxically, Muslims just had to establish, but don't want to live in. In other news: Water is wet...
31
This is an excellent article. I can’t imagine reporting on this situation.
However, I feel like the title of the article doesn’t fit what was actually in the body of a great piece of work. It’s also adding fuel to the “whataboutism” fire, which is a shame.
6
So if the United States deports the 11 to 20 million illegals living in our country, would we be labeled as war criminals? Impoverished illegal migrants can enter your country and have 5 children by a third child wife and the bad guys are the government officials who enforce immigration laws?
Because of their failure to address family planning India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan are going to face the worst human tragedies in the history of the world as millions die off from malnutrition, lack of potable water and disease. The calamity will be of their own making but not the fault of the poor victims who actually die. I don't support bringing a single person from those countries. They can save themselves if they adopt a mandatory one child policy like China implemented for 40 years. No child until you are 28 years old, married, have a job and an apartment. Strick punishment for violators. If they don't want to do it fine but it will be their child who die.
People should remember Aesop's Fable about the Grasshopper and the Ant.
25
There’s a huge unanswered but important question raised by this article.
Where is Mr Hossain from? He has two wives in Bangladesh, and later married a Myanmar girl. Without further details it seems like Mr. Hossain is Bangladeshi? That bolster the Myanmar government’s claim that at least some of the refugees are not from Myanmar. Why are Mr. Hossain and Ms Sajida in a camp for refugees if they live in Bangladesh? The little boy is not from where he said he was from. Bangladeshi?
Nothing excuses the horrifying violence we’ve been reading about, but one does get the sense that the outpouring of symapathy is being manipulated by some — as Beech clearly describes.
This article is a good start to more honest reporting. Still, it’s rife with emotionalism. I understand Beech’s human impulses but her job is to set those aside to get at the truth. I think she needs to do more digging on this story, the crisis more broadly, and she needs to come to grips with the fact that it may make her a good human being to have empathy but it makes her a bad journalist.
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I can’t believe the NYT is prioritizing a piece like this, when there are so many more important things to say about the Rohingya crisis. Desperate people are lying to get help? How is that news?? Even if it is worth talking about, the piece does nothing to move the conversation forward. I, too, wonder why the reporter made that woman cry for this.
8
I am saying this over and over again. The world is over populated. We are growing over 7 billions and plus. Unless we learn to control our population grows we will keep on hearing about expulsions and tragic refugee problems. Over running Europe or any other country is not the answer. My solution is for everyone to stay in place were they are , with each country controlling its population grows within its means. The rich countries can support the poor countries with labor related projects so that there won't be any need for voluntary export or the expelling of excess population . Countries with over abundant and growing populations should be reprimanded. We can start with Africa where European countries have some control. I could go on and on but I am sure you get the message.
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Response to D Oden. You are absolutely correct. In fact, with the exception of the wars in the Balkans in the 1990s, perhaps it is fair to say that women's fertilities (children per woman) are very high in nearly all the countries that are seeing wars and famines. One can even go further, in India the birthrates in the more chaotic northern states are higher than in the far less chaotic southern states. At the same time the responses of richer countries are changing fast with time, - within two years Germany's attitude towards refugees has changed dramatically.
I would go further than you to suggest that it is the moral responsibility of western liberals to preach and support birth control in countries where the birthrates are high. This is NOT cultural imperialism. This is something that we will be forced to do in 30-50 years. We no longer have the time to wait until women in these countries become more educated and so on. Rather than situations dictate this to us, we should embrace such a policy, which would be the compassionate thing to do.
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I wonder if this story may be reason for some to feel less guilty about not caring or not trying to help in the rohingya crisis by donations or raising awareness or requesting the interference of their government solving the crisis
4
I admire mother's who adapt and create conditions, out of nothing, to feed and care for their children. I can only imagine what I might do should my children be amid the horrors of war and starving. The one line that really should cause concern is,"An international charity, which had given financial support to the uncle, brought me to meet the girls." Aid agencies know these canned stories and stand photos well. Evidence has long demonstrated direct aid to women is the pivot required to improving the lives of children in war, poverty and peace.
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Hear hear! Give the aid to the women, and it wil benefit all. Give it to the men, and they will buy booze, gamble, marry another beautiful underage bride and beat their other wives. I would have thought that that message would have been heard by now, but apparently not.
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Any admissions or remorse from all those who wrote about such "atrocities"/massacres etc. etc. without ever going to any analysis as to how it started or why? Or as to how to prevent such menaces. None also ever talked about the issue of these younger women being forced to have so many husbands and carry on being children producing machines. There were accounts of Teen aged boys (as old as 14) being the father of more than one kids! None talked about the need to educate the members of a society, the need for responsibility, for order and a meaningful life for themselves and also ensuring the same for others who may not sbscribe to your stated violent religious dogmas!
17
I salute this reporter for taking the time to truly ponder these refugee stories, to try and determine the truth before publishing them. And I salute her for "daring" to suggest that some of the desperate people in these camps might be lying or embellishing their stories in order to gain advantage. It's all too easy to go with the dramatic tale--many of which are surely true, but others that aren't. As a former foreign correspondent for three decades, I welcome articles like this that illustrate so well that complex international and human issues cannot be reduced to black and white conclusions. Food for deep thought. Kudos to the reporter, and kudos to the NYT for publishing this kind of coverage.
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This is an important article, and acknowledges what journalists themselves rarely admit. It came the same day the AP is trumpeting it has "confirmed" five mass graves in Myanmar. That is a stretch. It got access to some unverifiable video. And while we are at it, was I the only one to have a degree a scepticism at the NYT's story a few months back about the baby being thrown into the fire? To be clear, I'm not doubting the existence of horrors, nor the need to document them. But sometimes the pull for a great story that fits the pre-existing narrative is very strong.
23
I absolutely didn't believe the story about the baby being thrown into the fire when I read the report. And I was angry with the reporter who wrote it because that totally destroyed the trustworthiness of reports about all other genuine atrocities Myanmar military had committed. However, Ms. Beech is an excellent reporter. Some reporters should have a little common sense.
15
My mother and her mother were refugees in WWII. They wound up, two women alone, in Berlin. My mom was about 18 years old or so. Bombing was underway, and somehow mom’s uncle found them and convinced them to leave. However, the Germans required papers and approval to leave. So my mother and her uncle posed as a married couple, claiming a sick baby at home in the refugee shelter. They got three passes. Was it a lie? Absolutely. Did the lie help them survive? Absolutely. M
11
You don't see a difference. Your mom was in an active war zone and their lie was to move away from bombing. These people are in their father's native country, Bangladesh. They can simply move in with his other two wives.
But you do raise an interesting question, how many other lies did your mother and uncle tell to get ahead? How many Americans did they leapfrog ahead of through lies so as to get what they thought they deserved? Are you cheating? Tax evasion? Hiring illegal immigrants? Auto insurance fraud? By my estimates in NYC, 30% of auto insurance policies have some form of fraud such as home address, number of drivers, Most home health aides and cleaning women work at least part of their day off the books.
15
I once dated a man who had been abused as a kid. At some point he admitted that he had made up some of the stories he told, yet he had really been abused. It was just that he thought that what had happened was not bad enough for anyone to care (it really was bad enough). I wonder if, among all those tales of horror and all that misery, some compounding of the stories is because the horrible comes to seem "normal" and folks think that need extra horrible in order to be believed or to get the help that they need...
29
"He had three wives..."
Sorry, I had trouble getting past that line.
Polygamy is legal and accepted in 58 countries in the world. Nearly all are Muslim majority. Guess what isn't legal in these countries - polyandry (a wife with multiple husbands).
It is just another example of how radically different the cultural norms are in these countries versus the U.S. and Europe. Again, these aren't outlier beliefs, they are widely accepted by the populations of these countries.
It is also yet another argument, albeit a secondary one, against chain migration.
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Your use of the term "chain migration" immediately shows your allegiance. It is really called "family reunion", and used to be the Republican party line.
4
It was the Republican line and that was why I was a Democrat. Historically liberals, progressives and the union movement were opposed to mass immigration because it was used by capitalists to drive down wages,
16
There is but a blur in the moral cumpass of the writer.
It's not that being scepticle is underrated, it happens but to deny the blatant facts verified by everyone who has been there or have any knowledge of the issue is quite similar to Holocaust dental.
5
Except that these are not blatant facts and almost no one without bias has been there. Did you even bother reading the article? Very few of these stories being reported can be verified in any way, and many have actually been disproven. Meanwhile little reporting is done on the realities of who the Rohingya are - people who rape and impregnate 12 year old girls, attack their Hindu neighbors, burn Buddhist villages, and rape Rakhine women. That is in fact verifiable.
25
Wrong, the writer does not deny that real horrors happened, she only points out that some of the stories are simply lies
13
Stories matter, but increasingly in our social-media saturated lives, there is more competition for compassion. The horrors that the Rohingya people are suffering are near the top of the list along with the horrors faced by Syrian refugees , Yemenis under attack, Africans trafficked into slavery, and undoubtedly others. At some point stories have to give away to some sort of action be it by civil society, business or governments. Otherwise there is nothing more than hand wringing, and the fallacy that bearing witness to the stories is enough. The journalist here questions the impact of that inquiry, well meaning but that in the cauldron of terror, can lead to lies and new violence. The NYT has been exemplary in drawing attention to the unfolding genocide. Now, focus the journalist lens instead on USAID in Myanmar, our tax-funded development arm that remains silent on the massacres; Trump, who rightly condemned what is happening, but has done little more; or other government and business interests in the regions who through boycotts and suspension of cash flow, could bring the massacres to a halt.
13
Thanks Hannah for, hopefully, starting a conversation in the Times on the issue of migrants/refugees that is sensitive, factual, and favors neither left nor right in U.S. politics.
35
Why Does it Matter? Because If we look at the war in the Balkans as an example - these "stories" become evidence and this evidence is used to convict war criminals. Convicting someone based on a fabricated story is not the way to go- in any culture - anywhere - under any circumstances.
32
What obligation do people stripped of everything have to abide by your notion of what is true or what matters?
6
Actually, because they actively seek the support of those who hold accuracy in high regard.
But truth is relative, and all that, no? I mean, truth is a Western intellectual creation; how dare we superimpose that on others?
Except when encountering those who controvert climate change. Then there's Truth, and no one is entitled to challenge it. Facts is facts, after all.
30
"notion of what is true" The truth is apparently subjective?
7
Because truth matters in a conflict. More importantly, truth matters in its solution.
You can't have double standards when, all along, the Western world have been accusing the Myanmar government of not telling the truth. (As a local, I know the truth and that's the reason why I relate to this news report. But that's a moot point.) The 'victims' ( a staus which some of them can truly claim and I sympathise with them) stand to benefit from atrocious lies at the expense of other human beings.
This is not a football game where you can side with one team and cheer them on while taking pleasure at the other team's misfortunes and reserving only vulgar language for them. This not a game being played for entertainment and egos. This is a conflict with human beings on each side and this is a conflict that cannot be allowed to fetter. Without each side sticking to truth, there will be more reason for grivances and hatred.
We need to be rational for which truth is a prerequisitive.
Thank you, New York Times for the balance.
15
There is a common root to all the problems experienced by the real victims in this story - they are controlled by violent and self-absorbed men who use religion and tribalism as a crutch, excuse and weapon. It isn't pretty but it's reality. The way to change it? Education, education, education. Educate the girls and the women, with a view to giving them economic power and reducing the control men have over them. It should be the simple matrix of all aid and charitable giving - don't give a cent without being satisfied that it will cure the underlying malady. Otherwise we just perpetuate (and sometimes create) the cycle.
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I don't think the question of the article was really answered. I'm guessing that sometimes when you are a refugee your personal/psychological/cultural problems don't get better, they get worse.
12
This is why facts are so important. The truth is the truth even when it contradicts a nice neat narrative of good guys and bad guys, heroes and villains. The Rohingya may be victims of atrocities but there may also be merit to the Buddhist claims of their illegal status, dysfunctional social mores and religious intolerance. Being a victim is not a guarantee of virtue. And there are no black and white situations, only shades of grey.
121
Your statement, "Being a victim is not a guarantee of virtue," should not erase the power imbalance inherent in a genocidal massacre, but the way that you dissolve this statement into the rather ambiguous conclusion that "there are no black and white situations" really betrays an understanding of how one-sided this violence is. No one can claim the status of virtuous purity -- but that is not wholly what is at stake here; what is at stake is thousands of whole human lives. I also do not know what evidence you are using with which to suggest that "there may also be merit to the Buddhist claims...religious intolerance," but in suggesting that these ideas have merit, you're suggesting that there is a logic in the very claims that the Myanmar military has used in their defense of their "security clearance operations." So, within this context, this is a dangerous sort of claim to make.
4
Thank you so much for writing and publishing this story. I have a similar experience, not as a journalist, but over many years working internationally as a physician and public health researcher. It is difficult to express these observations without sounding like a heartless wretch. Human beings can have complicated agendas, ways of communicating can be very different across cultures, and there is a lot of potential for misunderstanding both intentional and unintentional. I still hope that we can find better ways to identify and help people who are truly in need.
63
Incredible reporting, this is why I will always support the NYTimes.
I can't help but think it is vital that we voluntarily reduce the human population through not breeding, the conflicts arising - here and in other parts of the world - due to an inability to share scant resources and live peacefully will not end if people continue having massive families.
42
Love your sentiment and motive. But please stay away from politics.
2
Remarkable journalism as usual.
Re: your headline -- will always wonder how the crucial role that America can play, and always has played, in helping refugees, got shelved by Dems and Repubs alike -- in favor of debating the rights of Economic Immigrants. Is it because the 2nd group is here and the 1st group is not?
5
No perhaps one group is citizens, and the other is not. Citizens deserve our help first, and since we don't have surplus help foreigners will have to look elsewhere.
22
Read the record. U.S. policy on refugees was primarily a way to embarrass the USSR and its allies. We offered a safe haven to any and all threatened by monstrous "commie" terror. Their system collapsed, without a bang and barely a whimper. Why should we be expected to pick up the pieces?
11
An example of false narratives closer to home is the story of Amadou Dialio, who was killed by police as the result of mistaken identity. Mr. Dialio sought to remain in the United States by filing an application for political asylum under false pretenses, saying that he was from Mauritania and that his parents had been killed in fighting to buttress his claim that he had credible fear of going back to his country.
After a law suite Diallo's mother, Kadijatou, and his father Saikou Diallo accepted a US$3,000,000 settlement.
This was a terrible situation, but another example of "When is a Refugee Story Real, and Why Does it Matter".
42
That's true, Brooklyn is closer to home. But then, here is a reporter writing about Asia Pacific, from where differing, and often erronous, reporting is done, for perhaps political reasons. My question to you is: next time someone reports from a war zone, are you going to talk about Brooklyn again? Or perhaps Missisippi? Or anything else that has no bearing on the article you just read (did you?).
8
Wait a minute. I know we're off the topic of the article here, but are you saying that Amadou Diallo deserved 41 bullets? That whatever he may have said on an asylum application somehow justified the police killing him when -- according to the reports at the time -- he was taking his wallet out of his pocket to show his ID and it was mistaken for a gun? What possible bearing does his asylum application have on the NYPD firing 41 shots?
3
No that is not what I am saying at all. His killing was a great tragedy. His application has no bearing at all with his tragic demise. I am suggesting that even our asylum application process is being played and there are many many people here and abroad who abuse this humanitarian process as also shown in the article.
6
Deplorable behavior but completely understandable. The will to not just survive but to survive on the best terms possible is distinctly human.
We are selfish, inconsiderate and brutal beings and these qualities come to the surface in harsh conditions.
Stories abound from prisoner of war camps, WWII concentration camps, and elsewhere about people using underhanded methods to place themselves in a more favorable position for survival.
Reading accounts of these individuals might make you seethe in the safety of your home but in more lucid moments you realize that you'd probably do the same if you were in the same position.
It's human nature, which is an incredible powerful force that, if it's to be subdued, requires a unique mindset and/or years of philosophical, religious training.
42
"Rohingya Muslims are illegal immigrants from an overcrowded Bangladesh. . . There is plenty of evidence to counter this claim. Muslim roots in the region reach back generations."
That is not really counterevidence. Burma doesn't have birthright citizenship. Most of the population is descended from Bangladeshis who were relocated there when Burma was a British colony and the Burmese had no say in the matter.
59
All you can do is maintain your journalistic standards. It is not a reporter's place to judge, but report with all the usual caveats: reportedly, described by, unconfirmed report.
Being a war correspondent when the world doesn't recognize it as such is a lonely task, but you chose it to make a difference. Even if you tell tales from unreliable children, their pain is all to real.
I remember, when I was five, telling my mother what I thought she wanted to hear. Keep that in mind as you try to bring order to a chaotic condition.
Do your best; you are forgiven for the rest.
26
Way back when, I was a cub reporter in Amsterdam, one of my editors said: "There is no such thing as objectivity". He was, and is, right. A reporter may judge, and publish, because without the conviction and judgement, they're barely human. A reporter is human, not machine.
14
"Do your best; you are forgiven for the rest."
Really?
By you maybe; how about by the beaten wife......
4
It doesn't. The international community is turning mostly a blind eye to these people, the host community is under tremendous pressure and the writer is worried about a few kids who can't keep their facts straight. Never seen a report like this come out from Syria, DRC or Afghan refugees.
4
Mostly because people in the US are not interested in such when we have massive poverty and other issues related to our actual citizens. We are not in charge of anything around the world except as it benefits us at a government level. Charity is different.
10
You've never seen it, but I'd be willing to be it happens. Desperate people lie. Greedy people lie. People lie.
13
You focus on the children, but what about the man who has three wives and lied about his children, then beat one of his wives and promised to beat her again? The man who married a 12 year old? Does it matter that he lied about being a magnanimous uncle who took in multiple orphaned nieces?
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