REGINA AND CHRISTOPHER CATRAMBONE (MILLIONARIE COUPLE) WHO SAVING ROHINGYA IN THE SEA PART-1

5/31/2018 The Rohingya are a people without a home - Christopher Catrambone's Blog
http://www.christophercatrambone.com/the-rohingya-are-a-people-without-a-nation/ 1/3

THE ROHINGYA ARE A PEOPLE WITHOUT A
HOME
The Rohingya are a people without a home. Though 1.2 million Rohingya live in
Myanmar, and have for generations, the government of Myanmar does not
recognise their status as citizens. As Muslim people in a Buddhist- run country
they nd themselves without a country, even though post World War dealmakers
promised them a homeland inside what is now Bangladesh. Today the government
considers them ‘Bengalis,’ historic immigrants who never moved an inch from what
was India. To make life miserable, they are deliberately withheld passports, denied
access to medical treatment and education. The Rohingya who have lived in
Myanmar for centuries are singled out for numerous outrageous restrictions
including their movements, who they can marry, how many children they can have
and even where they can and cannot live.
Last year 25,000 Rohingya escaped the squalor of the settlement camps to nd
better lives in Malaysia. They ee by sea, ideally on a 10-day journey on open
water that can sometime take months. Not everyone makes it. While some
estimate the mortality rate is 2%, or 500 people, MOAS research shows that the
number may be as high as 10%. That’s 2,500 people missing or dying at sea every
year.
In early March, MOAS will launch its South East Asian Mission to Track Rohingya
Refugees. Based in international waters near Malaysia and Thailand, the team will
use long-distance drones to measure movements of ships that may be carrying
migrants. All data collected will be shared through our on-board data gathering
and cultural liaison, the Bangkok-based Fortify Rights, as well as the Malta-based
NGO Migrant Report, a news organisation that focuses on migration issues. It
will use Schiebel S-100 Camcopters (drones) to measure movements of ships that
may be transporting refugees or migrants. In meetings between MOAS principals
and various local and national government authorities, it was agreed that
preventing loss of life at sea was a high priority.
If we nd a vessel in distress, MOAS search and rescue professionals will respond,
whilst strictly following maritime laws and coordinating with appropriate
government bodies.
The goal of the mission is to generate a better understanding of the movements by
the Rohingya people. By providing rst-hand data on movement, we hope to spark

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active discussion about the conditions and treatment of Rohingya. Knowing
migration patterns could help streamline future rescue efforts.
Helping us crunch the numbers will be security, medical, linguistics, migration and
aviation experts.
After four weeks at sea, we’ll evaluate and review the mission.
We’ll be aboard Phoenix, the ship that launched the MOAS Mediterranean mission,
once again heading into uncharted waters.
TAGS: Andaman Sea, Myanmar, Rohingya, Rohingya Refugees

5/31/2018 The millionaire who rescues migrants at sea | Giles Tremlett | News | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/jul/08/millionaire-who-rescues-migrants-at-sea 1/16

The millionaire who rescues migrants at sea
Giles Tremlett
Appalled by migrant deaths in the Mediterranean, Chris Catrambone bought
a boat and launched his own rescue mission. But as he discovered, there are
pitfalls to going it alone
Wed 8 Jul 2015 07.15 BST
I
n late June 2013, Christopher Catrambone, a garrulous 31-year-old
American entrepreneur who had spent almost a decade travelling the
world to build a multimillion-dollar company, decided to take a break.
Tangiers Group, which Catrambone runs with his Italian wife Regina,
provides insurance in conﬂict zones – to US military subcontractors,
NGO workers, journalists and missionaries, among others. The business,

rooted in such war-wrecked countries as Iraq and Afghanistan, was
flourishing. But that summer, Catrambone decided, the company could take
care of itself for three weeks.
Catrambone and Regina, along with Regina’s teenage daughter Maria Luisa,
set off from their home on the Mediterranean island of Malta, aboard a
glistening white 24-metre chartered motor yacht with Burmese teak decking
and varnished Tanganyika walnut joinery. As they motored out of Valetta’s
spectacular Grand Harbour – past the Che Guevara 2, a sleek 30-metre super-
yacht that belonged to the family of the deposed Libyan dictator Muammar
Gaddafi – a Maltese armed forces veteran, Marco Cauchi, was at the wheel,
and an old friend of Catrambone’s, the Texan chef Simon Templer, was there
to cook and have a holiday. “I love going out on these yearly cruises with my
family,” Catrambone said. “We can’t escape each other and get on our
iPhones.”
Malta, one of the European Union’s most southerly points, was an ideal
starting place for a three-week cruise to Tunisia and along the coast of Sicily,
not far from Calabria, the southern toe of Italy. This is where Catrambone met
Regina nine years ago. He had gone to search for his family roots in the place
his great-grandfather left for America in the early 19th century, and ended up
living down the road from Regina’s mother.
On 7 July, they sailed away from Lampedusa, a small Italian island south-west
of Malta that lies even closer to North Africa. A business meeting in Tunisia
prevented them staying to see Pope Francis celebrate a mass on the island,
devoted to the migrants who made the dangerous crossing to southern
Europe from Libya in cheap inflatable motorboats and rickety fishing vessels.
Some 500 had drowned en route in 2012 alone. Pope Francis lambasted the
rich world for its indifference to other people’s suffering: “It doesn’t affect us.
It doesn’t interest us. It’s not our business.”
As they headed south, Regina spotted a beige winter jacket bobbing in the
water. Cauchi, who had once run Malta’s maritime search and rescue
operations, told her it may have come from a sunken migrant boat. Such
tragedies were not new, and only a few months later, the pope’s warnings
would be confirmed yet again, when 380 refugees – many from Syria and
Eritrea – drowned over the course of only eight days, most within a quarter-
mile of Lampedusa. Migrant deaths became an obsessive topic of conversation
on the yacht, and Catrambone, typically, found himself looking for a solution.

“It makes you think like: ‘Wow! Look at me out here cruising on my boat, at
the same time people are out there dying,” he said. “So our heaven is their
hell, right? Our paradise is their hell.”
Catrambone’s business includes, he says, both caring for “heroic” wounded
conflict-zone workers (including multiple amputees) and being part of the
“financial arm of war”. He is coy about his worth, but Bloomberg reports he
made his first $10m by the age of 30. His company covers everything from
healthcare to emergency evacuations to kidnapping, while Catrambone styles
himself “a humanitarian, entrepreneur and adventurer”. Friends describe him
as a compulsive, energetic and tenacious producer of ideas and solutions, who
enjoys the drama and challenge of working in some of the world’s toughest
spots. A former Roman Catholic altar boy in Lake Charles, Louisiana,
Catrambone once considered becoming a priest. Growing up, he tracked
natural disasters, coups and the movements of his oil engineer father on a
large world map pinned to his bedroom wall. After graduating from a local
university, McNeese State, at the age of 20, he was hired and trained by a
company that investigated insurance claims. By 26, he had worked as a
private eye, a political campaign manager for a Louisiana court official, as an
aide in Congress, and as the co-owner of a Cajun riverboat bar serving high-
octane bloody marys, jambalaya and gumbo in the US Virgin Islands.
On the yacht, Cauchi – an amiable, stocky, sun-weathered 48-year-old – told
Catrambone stories of rescues. Bodies fished out of the sea can haunt you.
Martin Xuereb – a former brigadier who had been Cauchi’s boss as head of
Malta’s armed services, and would later work with the Catrambones – still
recalls watching a body bag being unzipped on a patrol boat several years ago.
‘I rescue people for money in my other job. I know
what to do’ … Chris Catrambone and his wife, Regina,
who run Moas together. Photograph: Jason Florio

“It was this child, maybe seven or eight, with his fists clenched next to his face
and his eyes wide open,” he told me. But what could one individual, or one
wealthy family, do? Money buys many things, but can it stop people drowning
in their hundreds and thousands?
By the end of the cruise, Catrambone had decided to set up his own search
and rescue operation. “I said: ‘Chris, this cannot be done. This is impossible’,”
Cauchi recalled. “But he kept persisting.” As Catrambone saw it, he was
already in the business of saving lives in conflict zones: “I rescue people for
money in my other job,” he told me. “I know what to do.” His Tangiers Group
is privately owned, making it hard to check his claim that it gives “the best
medical treatment in the world”; he brushed off questions regarding a few old
complaints I had found on the internet from employees of US defence
contractors about his company’s investigative methods, citing confidentiality.
But there is certainly nothing phoney about Catrambone’s passion for saving
migrants. He, too, once lost a home in a natural disaster, when Hurricane
Katrina devastated New Orleans’ Ninth Ward in 2005, flooding the building
beside the St Charles Avenue tram line where both he and Templer lived. (The
two men used their compensation money to open the Cajun riverboat bar, but
Catrambone still laments the disappearance of the bohemian, racially mixed
lifestyle he once enjoyed in his old neighbourhood.)
Catrambone saw the migrants as either desperate, entrepreneurial, or both –
not too different from his own great-grandfather. He also knew many of the
places they were escaping from. “Every major economy has had their hands in
Africa, and they have had their hands in the Middle East as well,” he told me.
“Our policies have an equal and opposite reaction. You go in. And now they
come in.” But Catrambone is not interested in politics or advocacy. For him,
the problem is saving lives, based on a simple and typically candid analysis.
“If you are against saving lives at sea then you are a bigot and you don’t even
belong in our community. If you allow your neighbour to die in your backyard,
then you are responsible for that death.”
* * *
On a warm afternoon in June 2014, Cauchi steered a 40-metre, steel-hulled
boat called Phoenix out of Portsmouth, Virginia, for his first ever Atlantic
crossing. Built in 1973 to pull trawler nets off the coast of Canada, it had been
chartered as a US military training vessel, but for the previous 18 months it

had been laid up and colonised by rats. (Someone had left food in the ship’s
freezers.) The vessel needed a major overhaul, which would be finished off in
Malta. Catrambone was on board for the rough crossing: as Atlantic gales
stirred up the ocean, the Phoenix proved how tough it was, even surviving a
collision with an unidentified object that took a chunk out of its propeller.
Catrambone was determined to start rescuing people in 2014 and had set a
hectic repair schedule. “It cost a crazy amount of money,” said Cauchi. The
boat was bought and repaired, for a total of $5.2m, by the Tangiers Group (and
still sits on the company’s books) but would be operated by a foundation
Catrambone named Migrant Offshore Aid Station (Moas). He hired Martin
Xuereb as director in February 2014, after cold calling to invite him for coffee.
“I am not in the habit of meeting for coffee with someone I don’t know,”
Xuereb, now 47, told me, but he and Catrambone ended up talking for five
hours. “I wasn’t expecting him to be so young. What hits you straight away is
his vision, his perseverance and his determination.” No volunteers had done
anything similar since 1979, when a group of Germans chartered a freighter
named Cap Anamur to rescue migrants fleeing Vietnam. An attempt by the
same group to rescue 37 people off Italy in 2003 ended with crew members
put on trial for facilitating illegal entry into the country; they were found not
guilty, and the migrants were deported.
As he attempted to raise funds for Moas, Catrambone found donors sceptical.
The Italian navy had launched the Mare Nostrum operation, at a cost of €9m
per month, after the October 2013 shipwrecks, to pick up migrants as they left
Libyan waters. (“Italians are frickin’ heroes, man,” Catrambone told me.) This,
at least, made it unlikely that Catrambone would be prosecuted for doing the
same. Still, no NGO had become involved at sea, and many European
governments complained rescue operations were a “pull factor” that would
increase both migration attempts and deaths. Setting up Moas was not cheap,
with monthly operating costs of up to €600,000. Two rigid-hulled inflatable
speedboats with twin 70-horsepower engines were bought to ferry migrants
to the Phoenix. Catrambone hired an experienced search and rescue crew as
well as leasing two helicopter drones and their operators from the Austrian
company Schiebel. He was determined to get out to sea, however, and Regina
agreed that they could cover the 10-week operation in 2014 with a further
$2.3m of their own money.

With Catrambone on board, the Phoenix left on its first mission late in August
2014, heading for international waters close to Libya. The migrant crisis was
continuing to intensify. That year, mostly during the migration “high season”
that runs from March to October, 100,000 people squeezed into the
overcrowded vessels that pushed off almost daily from the shores of Libya; at
least 3,419 died en route.
Moas was planning to act under the instructions of the Maritime Rescue
Coordination Centre (MRCC) in Rome, which covers the zone crossed by
migrant boats from Libya and can order any vessel to undertake a rescue.
Given how well suited to the task the Phoenix was, it was inevitable that
MRCC would eventually ask it to help. Cauchi was a recognised search and
rescue expert, and the Phoenix’s 1.2-metre freeboard (the space from the
waterline to the open deck) made it a far safer vessel to scramble on to than
the lumbering tankers and cargo carriers that sometimes lower long rope
ladders to already exhausted migrants, some of whom are pregnant or too
young to even walk. A doctor was on board and the vessel was equipped to
look after 400 people.
The first call came through after four days, on 30 August. The Moas team
quickly found itself involved in the simultaneous rescue of two migrant boats,
including a wooden fishing vessel with 350 people – many of them families
from Syria – that was slowly sinking. By the end of the rescue, water was
flooding onto the main deck of the fishing boat, and many of the migrants
were in the sea. So many small children were rescued that the Phoenix almost
ran out of baby formula. “That was a shock for most of the crew,” Catrambone
recalled. “We were a bit overwhelmed with the thought that this was really
Moas rescuers throw bottles of water to refugees in a
rubber raft near Malta in August 2014. Photograph:
DPA/Corbis

happening. These children and mothers were at the hands of the sea, at the
hands of death.”
The Phoenix rescued 1,462 people in 10 weeks and helped a further 1,500
onto Italian navy vessels. (There were also lulls when the crew fished for
bluefin tuna.) The Phoenix operates in international waters that start just 12
nautical miles from the shores of Libya – now one of the world’s most violent
places, where two separate governments have only tenuous control over their
territories. An American consultant hired to advise on security fretted that the
ship’s unarmed crew was too close to Libyan waters, but Catrambone decided
he was overreacting – after long periods working in Iraq and Afghanistan (and
a narrow brush with death during a missile strike in Israel), Catrambone felt
he knew how to calibrate risk; the success of his own business, he says, is
based in part on the tendency of others to exaggerate danger. “We are not
afraid to go where others are [afraid],” he told me. “We don’t need a military
convoy to take us.”
While Catrambone joined the speedboat crew on rescue missions, Regina and
her daughter Maria Luisa helped care for the migrants when they arrived on
the Phoenix. One night Maria Luisa found herself talking to a fellow 18-year-
old – a cultured, English-speaking Syrian girl named Rasha, who was
travelling on her own after both her parents were killed. “I looked at her and I
looked at me, and I said: ‘What if I was Rasha? What if I had to see people
being killed by snipers every day, seeing my parents killed right before my
eyes?’ I would want to leave,” she explained. “She was so brave. She travels,
she gets on a boat. And she says: ‘Either I am going to make it, or I am going to
die trying.’” The more the rescues went on, and the more stories they heard,
the deeper the family and crew found themselves bound to the mission. “You
might not get on the Phoenix as a humanitarian,” Catrambone said. “But you
are one when you get off.”
* * *
In October, a few days after their final mission of 2014, I met Catrambone at a
small restaurant in Malta. He appeared on a Vespa scooter, looking distinctly
unlike a millionaire. (There are expensive cars in his driveway, I later found,
but he is still taken to the airport in a tiny old Peugeot 106 by a retired Maltese
taxi driver named Charlie.) In the photographs I had seen, Catrambone
sported a spiv’s moustache, though he was starting to add what would
become a thick, tightly curled beard. Passionate, single-minded, and slightly

unnerved by the press attention Moas had just begun to receive, Catrambone
talked up his business but was disarmingly modest. (“He says he is the
thinker, and I am the doer,” Regina told me later. “Everything that we have
done together has been successful,” he added.) He larded his conversation
with colourful Louisiana slang, which he then apologised for. He delivered
riffs about the millennial generation being tired of huge corporations, excess
and greed. He worried that capitalism had lost its soul by eliminating trust.
“Wealth can be very short-term,” he said. “We are not trying to be crusaders.
We’re just being humans, keeping hold of our dignity.”
At the time, Catrambone was worried that the “pull factor” lobbyists had won
the argument over European migrant policy. Italy, under pressure from the
rest of Europe, had announced the end of Mare Nostrum. Yet the pressures
pushing people out of places such as Syria and Eritrea had not disappeared,
while Libya remained a perfect operating base for smugglers. When the winter
winds settled in the spring, and the sea calmed, migrants would set out once
more, he told me; on fine days, that would mean more than a thousand people
in numerous boats. The Phoenix, with space for just 400, was set to be the
only dedicated rescue vessel.
It took the Mediterranean’s worst modern marine disaster, and some 850
deaths, to finally discredit the “pull factor” theory. On 18 April, as the
Catrambones were preparing Phoenix to sail again in May, a large Portuguese
cargo boat called the King Jacob was sent to rescue a smaller, steel-hulled
cargo vessel carrying up to 900 migrants about 17 miles off Libya. The King
Jacob stopped 100 metres from the marooned boat, whose captain – believed
to be a Tunisian – manoeuvred clumsily in the dark, ramming the Portuguese
boat. The migrant vessel rapidly sank, taking those below decks with it and
tipping the rest into the black night sea. Only 28 people survived. The two
dozen corpses pulled from the sea were sent to Malta, where on 23 April, the
Catrambones sat at an interfaith funeral before rows of dark wooden caskets,
and a single white child’s coffin marked “Body No 132”. Within days, a few
wilted flowers on an anonymous common grave at the Addolorata cemetery
were the only sign that the dead had ever existed.
A few days later, I sat with Catrambone on the quay in Marsa, Malta as the
Phoenix was loaded for its first mission of this year. Individual bags of
emergency rations and basic clothing were being prepared by their new
partners from the Dutch branch of Doctors without Borders, who would care

for the migrants on board. One cardboard box was marked “body bags”.
Catrambone was angry about the King Jacob tragedy, but it had shamed
Europe’s politicians and he was hopeful that something was changing. Naval
vessels, including the Royal Navy’s HMS Bulwark, were on their way. He had
even heard Jean-Marie Le Pen, the rabidly anti-immigrant founder of France’s
Front National, praise the Phoenix’s work. Some still disagreed. “We will only
encourage more and more people to set sail in upturned bath-tubs and
patched-up lilos,” Rod Liddle wrote in the Spectator a few weeks later.
“Among them will be maniacal jihadis and assorted criminals, all expecting to
be rescued by the countries which, in some cases, they wish to destroy.”
Catrambone fretted that Moas was overstretching family resources – both time
and money – and, with only €1m pledged, he could not understand why there
had been so few donations from rich individuals, especially in the Middle
East. “It is mostly Muslims who are coming, and there should be help from
these rich Arab people that are sitting there, that don’t know what to do,” he
said. But separating politics from rescuing migrants is tough: after
announcing they would join the Phoenix this year, Doctors Without Borders in
Holland lost some of its donors, who were apparently happy to help mitigate
damage from war, famine, or Ebola, but did not want their money spent on
rescuing people heading for Europe.
* * *
By the time I stepped on board the Phoenix to join a week’s mission on 14
June, it looked like 2015 was set to be another record-breaking year for
Mediterranean migration. We sailed out past the ancient forts overlooking
Valletta’s Grand Harbour and into a two to three-metre swell that pushed the
short, sharp Mediterranean waves above the height of a man. It was hard to
imagine any migrant boat daring to launch in such conditions. But several
days of bad weather, when the smugglers rest, were coming to an end.
That same evening, as we were heading south towards Africa, Robel Buzuneh
and Misgina Tsigay sat in a warehouse, in what they believed was the Libyan
navy’s dockyard in Misrata – a space shared by two smuggling gangs. Like
them, most of the 620 people there were Eritreans ﬂeeing a 20-year-old
dictatorship known for torture, extrajudicial killings, and forced military
service. Buzuneh, a 27-year-old former business student, and Tsigay, 30, were
both deserters and, for diﬀerent reasons, traumatised by the trip. Buzuneh
thought he would die in the desert after having been abandoned by his

traffickers and running out of food and water. Tsigay had witnessed two of his
party, and three Libyan drivers, being shot by an Egyptian border patrol. In
the warehouse they ate a monotonous diet of pasta, while men with guns
watched over them.
As the Phoenix’s reinforced steel bow ploughed through the swell towards the
Libyan coast, the Eritreans were shepherded into groups of 50 to 100 and put
into motor skiffs that carried them through the dark towards two fishing boats
that, to their dismay, were both very old and very small. “We did not know the
captain and did not know what the boat would be like,” Buzuneh said. The
Libyans distributed them around the boat, trying to keep it even. Buzuneh
ended up stuffed – his knees against his ears – in a space below deck that was
just over a metre high.
Further along the coast, Bakory Jobe, a 20-year-old from Gambia, in west
Africa, was part of a group of 109 who took turns carrying a large inflatable
boat with a Libyan smuggler sat atop, “like on a throne”. Fifty minutes after
setting out from a forest clearing where several hundred sub-Saharan Africans
were gathered, they reached the sea and pushed off in the packed rubber
vessel, heading for international waters where they expected to be rescued.
“My legs were trembling and I was praying the whole night,” Jobe said.
Both boats yawed and rolled in the swell. In Buzuneh’s overstuffed fishing
boat, people vomited over each other. Heat from bodies packed tightly
together and from the engine added to the fear, thirst and claustrophobia.
“Everyone was very frightened,” said Buzuneh. “They told us we would be
rescued in six hours … After 11 hours we were very scared. With this small
boat it is impossible to go for a long period of time, or for a long distance.”
The next morning, below deck on the fishing boat, Buzuneh had a small
satellite phone thrust into his hands. The smugglers’ men on the boat had
called MRCC Rome, and ordered him, as one of the few English speakers, to
transmit their coordinates. Soon a call came through to the Phoenix, directing
it to find the boat, which was 30 nautical miles away. Catrambone’s team had
already launched a camcopter drone, which now headed towards the location
Buzuneh had specified, and soon the drone was close enough to make out a
blue fishing boat packed with people, doing the characteristic drunken zig‑zag
of a small boat struggling to maintain a steady course in a big sea. “They just
move like ants out there, being pummelled by the waves,” Catrambone told
me later. With the position and direction of the boat established by the drone,

the Phoenix set out to intercept it. Soon a small yellow dot appeared on the
radar screen; Cauchi peered through his binoculars to see the blue hull appear
on the horizon. The boat sat low in the water, a sign that it was bearing the
weight of hundreds of people.
Cauchi directed the rescue operation from the bridge of the Phoenix, which
stopped about a mile away from the overladen fishing boat. He ordered the
speedboat lowered and it soon sped off with three crewmen, a doctor and a
huge sack of life jackets on board. “Every time we are sent to an operation, I
think sooner or later I will have a heart attack, because you are always
thinking what will go wrong,” Cauchi said. “It needs to be done carefully.” The
speedboat approached from the back, to prevent people lurching to one side
and capsizing their boat.
They were ordered to sit down and to allow the women and children off first.
A group of teenage girls, alternately smiling nervously and grimacing with
fear, were lowered onto the speedboat. The Phoenix’s deep hull acted as a
barrier, calming the waves on the lee side, where the girls were pulled aboard.
On a second run, smaller children appeared, as young as three, dwarfed by
their orange life jackets and clinging to their mothers. A smooth routine
followed: the speedboat went back and forth, carrying 15 people at a time.
The fishing boat rose slowly in the water as it was emptied, though the upper
deck kept filling as the cramped human cargo below deck crept out of the
narrow, square hatches.
I joined the speedboat crew as they bumped across the open sea to pick up
another group of migrants. When I clambered onto the fishing boat after the
last men left, it occurred to me that an armed smuggler might be hiding below
deck, waiting to sail the boat back to Libya. But nobody was there.
(Catrambone later told me he had once experienced the same sensation, and
ended up hollering through the hatch, telling anyone still there to come out or
face his wrath.) Water was pooling beside the still-throbbing Hyundai engine.
Both decks were a mess of water bottles, discarded scarves and shoes, half-
eaten packs of cheese triangles and little drawstring bags with pictures of
Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo. Plastic bags and other rubbish floated
around the stinking lower deck. A small plastic bag can easily block the pump.
“If the bilge pump stops, you are done,” said Cauchi. The smugglers had also
put in new unpainted wooden struts to ensure the upper deck did not give
way under the weight of 150 people. Empty boats are valuable, and during a

recent rescue, three Tunisian fishing boats approached while Catrambone was
helping get the last men off. “They were signalling for us to come over and
talk,” Catrambone recalled. “Our thought was that either they wanted to
kidnap us or take the boat. It’s better not to talk to them.”
Back on the Phoenix, one girl, her trousers covered in vomit, collapsed as soon
as she got on board. Mostly there was quiet relief as energy snacks, water
bottles, blue towels, woollen socks and thin white, wind-blocking protective
overalls were handed out. After a few minutes of stunned silence the small
children, miraculously, began playing.
* * *
Later in the day, when 106 survivors from Jobe’s inflatable boat were
transferred onto the Phoenix from a rescue boat chartered by the Belgian
branch of Doctors Without Borders, it became clear how successful our first
rescue had been. On Jobe’s boat, which had called the MRCC on a satellite
phone that morning, the rescue effort had gone badly wrong: three people
drowned at the last moment, and as air leaked out of the inflatable boat, he
had watched a panic break out as five or six people fought to grab the rope
ladder lowered to them. Unable to swim, he decided to sit still, but more than
a dozen people fell into the sea. Another Gambian, Abubacarr Gibba, aged 27,
fought to get onto the ladder, fell in the water, climbed out and then fell back
in. “I can’t swim. I always said I was like a big stone,” he said. But the sea
refused to drag him down and when he broke surface a second time and began
vomiting gasoline-tanged sea water, a friend urged him to reach a life jacket
that had been hurled into the water. “I managed to swim, which I had never
done in my whole life.” The inflatable boat, he thought, would not have lasted
another hour.
For the next 48 hours, a small sample of 21st-century African migrants to
Europe – with the addition of a few Bangladeshis – lived squashed together on
the Phoenix’s two outside stern decks, telling their stories. For some, the sea
had been a minor hardship compared to what happened before. “Libya is hell
for black people,” said Jobe, who still had wounds on his knee from a beating.
On his first day in Libya, 40 of his group were kidnapped by armed men who
robbed them. “They shot a friend in the leg,” he said. Buzuneh and the other
Eritreans had each paid $4,000 to travel via Khartoum, in Sudan. “I didn’t
think it would be this difficult,” he said. “People think Europe is heaven.”

The teenage girls remained quiet about their ordeal. Jobe knew why. “Every
night Libyans come with their guns and take three or four of our women,” he
said. “If you cry he will beat you. Then maybe after he will give you one
packet of biscuits.” On deck a couple of teenage girls – no older than 15 – saw
Maria Luisa as a confidant. “Men not good,” one explained, pointing at her
own body. After two summers of regular missions and taking professional
seafarer’s exams, Maria Luisa has matured beyond her years and learned to
hide her own horror at the stories she hears. “Sometimes it is too
overwhelming, and you just want to say: ‘I can’t believe they are really doing
this to you.’ But you can’t say this because they need to talk, and they need to
be heard.”
The Phoenix’s upper deck was packed. Men trod on each other, argued briefly
over the tiny spaces available to stretch out, and continued to vomit. Mostly,
though, they slept, ate the freeze-dried Adventure Food vegetable hotpot that
had been heated up with boiling water, and wondered about the future. “I
don’t know what will happen tomorrow,” said Gibba “But we think we will feel
safe in Europe.” Some wanted to go to Britain, because they knew the
language. “It will be easier, because we in Gambia were colonised by
England,” reasoned one man with a brother in Leicester. Others wanted to go
to Germany, or Switzerland, or simply did not care.
After the second night, they awoke to see the low coastline of Sicily before the
Phoenix entered the harbour at Augusta. A dizzying array of Italian
organisations waited on a cargo dock beside a mountain of scrap metal. The
migrants stepped down the gangplank to touch European soil and walked on
to a tented processing camp with doctors, fold-out beds, food and tents
Teenage girls, possibly from Eritrea, who were rescued
by the Pheonix off the coast of Libya. Photograph: Tom
Silverstone

proudly bearing the name of Italy’s “Ministero Dell’Interno”. UNHCR officials
were ready to help process asylum petitions, which Eritreans can expect to
have accepted. They were moved on to permanent camps by the morning,
though many flee these immediately, knowing that EU rules mean that if they
were to be fingerprinted by Italian police, other European countries could
send them back there. Further along the coast, Eithne, an Irish naval service
patrol boat, was delivering a similar number of people. Another thousand
migrants had made it to Europe in a single, not very remarkable, day.
* * *
We sailed back to Malta through rough sea, the white-tops occasionally
dumping their froth on the deck, while Cauchi stared out of a window and
marvelled at how stable the boat remained. By the time we docked in Malta
again, the European Union had adopted a more aggressive stance, agreeing to
establish a €12m military operation to sink boats used by smugglers.
Catrambone likens military and law enforcement attempts to stop migration
to the war on drugs. The problem will not go away, he says, until there are no
users. “It just don’t look like there’s any fricking chance of any alternative
happening right now,” he said. “There is no easy answer. That is why I am
saying you really have to focus in on saving people’s lives first.”
Catrambone says he would close Moas’s Mediterranean operation if Europe
had something better to offer, but that does not seem likely to happen soon.
He once told me that he could have replaced the whole Mare Nostrum
operation with something similar for a third of the cost, and he continues to
think in ever bigger terms. He would like to have $10m a year to charter a new
boat, a 45-knot Australian-built catamaran ferry named HSV-2 Swift, which is
two and half times the size of the Phoenix. It could make the trip from the
rescue zone to Sicily in just five or six hours. That may seem fantastical - but it
is no more so than the idea of MOAS seemed less than a year ago. Catrambone
did not rule out the possibility that Moas would operate elsewhere – a similar
migrant tragedy, after all, is occurring off Myanmar, as the Muslim Rohingya
minority flees persecution.
All that will require more money. While we were out at sea, a fundraising drive
by the activist organisation Avaaz reached $500,000, slightly less than a
month’s costs. Moas will now just about cover running costs from donations
this year, though the Catrambones continue to plug holes. Catrambone knows
one of his problems is that, unlike many other wealthy individuals, he is at the

action end of the philanthropy chain. Most set up foundations to ﬁnance
political advocacy or donate to existing NGOs, many of which have large
memberships. He and Regina are wary of Moas being seen as an eccentric
millionaire’s hobby, making it harder to raise money and awareness. “We are
not bored, we are not old, we have a lot to do,” said Regina, who has
increasingly turned her attention away from their business and towards Moas.
And with a large, well-organised NGO like Doctors without Borders sending its
own boats this year, there is now an element of competition for raising funds.
Cooperation, Catrambone says, is the future. Catrambone has also thought of
seeking funding from the merchant marine industry, which loses money
every time a cargo vessel or oil tanker is ordered to a rescue.
Whatever the future holds, nothing can change the fact that the Catrambones
– initially self-ﬁnanced, freelance operators – have set both a precedent and,
having never lost a life, a standard. Those who care about migrants drowning,
Catrambone insists, no longer have to wait for governments to act. They can
turn, instead, to Moas or other NGOs. He had already told me that if the family
business ever went down, he and Regina would have no regrets about
spending so much time and money on Moas. “A lot of people say: ‘Oh, look at
the millionaires! They’ve spent a lot of money’,” he said. “I’ve invested my life
into this and my family has invested our savings. This is important for us and
we believe in it. And you know what, if I am poor one day and I’m out in the
street, well so be it. But we did this. And we are proud of it. I will never take
anything back.”
Since you’re here …
… we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading the Guardian than
ever but advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. And unlike
many news organisations, we haven’t put up a paywall – we want to keep our
journalism as open as we can. So you can see why we need to ask for your
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make a contribution so others with less means still have access to information.
Thomasine, Sweden
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features

5/31/2018 The millionaires who rescue people at sea - BBC News
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-28953237 1/23
ADV
29 August 2014
Magazine
The millionaires who rescue people at sea
By Mario Cacciottolo
BBC News, Malta
A philanthropist couple have launched what they say is the world's first privately
funded vessel to help migrants in trouble at sea. But can one ship really help the
thousands of people who try to cross the Mediterranean each year?
Last summer, Regina Catrambone and her husband Chris were on board a yacht cruising
around the Mediterranean - but the idyllic holiday scene was interrupted when they spotted
something in the sea.
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"My husband and I were on the deck and we saw a winter jacket floating in the water, like a
ghost," says Regina.
They asked the captain how it ended up there. "His face became very dark and he said
probably the person who was wearing it is not with us any more. That started to trigger our
attention."
They realised it had probably belonged to one of the thousands of migrants who try to cross
the Mediterranean to reach Europe - 1,889 have died in these waters since the start of the
year, 1,600 of them since the beginning of June, according to the UN Refugee Agency
UNHCR.
The defining moment for the couple came soon after, when they saw Pope Francis on
television, calling on entrepreneurs to help those in need.
"We looked at each other, me and my husband, and we said: 'Let's do something.' From this
moment came the idea of buying a boat and doing something in the Mediterranean, where
people are dying every day."
By October, when the Catrambones heard how more than 360 migrants had drowned near
the Italian island of Lampedusa, they were determined to turn their plans into action.
Since then the couple, who are in their 30s, have drawn deeply from their own pockets to fund
a highly-sophisticated ship, the Phoenix, based in Malta, where they live. It has dinghies and
two state-of-the art drones which they are using to find and help migrants trying to enter
Europe by boat, mostly from Africa.

They have named their operation Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS).
But while some ships begin life on the sea with a bottle of champagne smashed against their
hull, the Phoenix began its time as an aid station for migrant ships by having holy water
sprinkled inside it.
During a Catholic mass, held in the ship's lounge the day before the Phoenix embarked on its
first patrol on Monday, a priest told the assembled crew that they are on a mission from God.

He gave each of them a small bottle of holy water from Lourdes and gave the ship a golden
crucifix to carry out on the Mediterranean.
The service was "very important for my husband and me, and for the crew to have spiritual
support before they leave, because they will be weeks at sea so they will need God's help,"
says Regina, who is Italian.
Her husband Chris, who is from New Orleans in the US, proudly shows off the custom-made
flight deck, home to two Schiebel S-100 camcopters, or drones, which MOAS has leased.
He explains how their HD-quality, night vision and thermal imaging cameras are powerful
enough to read a piece of paper in a passenger's hand from the air.

"We are making history in many ways by being the first civilian ship to use such grand
technology. We hope that this is going to change the environment for rescue at sea. We're
innovators here. We're trying to do something that no-one else has been able to do. We've put
our money where our mouth is," he says.
When the ship comes across a migrant boat in international waters, the crew will contact the
nearest authorities. "We will communicate the position of the boat in distress to the authority
and we will wait for what they tell us to do," says Regina.
While they wait for instructions, they will use the dinghies to approach the boats, pass over
food, water and lifejackets and offer medical assistance - the Phoenix has a paramedic on
board and also has a well-equipped medical bay.

"However, in case the boat is taking water, or the number of the people [on board] is higher
than should be, we will communicate that to the authorities and we will do what needs to be
done. If we need to take people on board we can, until Malta or Italy come to take them, and
disembark them on land."
Regina and Chris will take it in turns to go to sea on the Phoenix. It may seem naive to think
such an operation can be carried out by civilians but the director of the project was, until
recently, the commander of the Armed Forces of Malta and members of the crew have
experience in the armed forces, maritime rescue and medicine.
The entire project, the couple say, has cost them "millions" with the total running costs of the
ship's initial 60-day mission being 2m euros, (£1.59m, $2.64m) which they say is the extent of
their budget.
The Catrambones have a group of companies registered in Malta, providing insurance and
services to people operating in conflict zones. They are hoping to crowd source extra funding
for MOAS, aside from their own cash, and extend it into an all-year-round operation.
The Phoenix

483 gross tonnage
39.9m by 9.4m
Built 1973
Flies under flag of Belize
Originally a fishing trawler, later used as a research vessel, then by US government for
training
Customised flight deck replaces tow bar, which can be reinstalled
16 crew members for MOAS missions, including observers
According to the UNHCR, about 19,000 migrants have arrived in Malta from Libya since
2002. Last year it was estimated that about 30% are still on the island, which has a local
population of some 417,000.
Once they are ashore tensions frequently arise, with less than charitable comments about
migrants often appearing on Maltese media websites.
No-one from the Maltese government responded to interview requests about MOAS -
migration has been a thorny issue for the local authorities, with Prime Minister Joseph Muscat
saying his country is struggling to cope with the influx. But he was forced last year to cancel
two flights repatriating migrants back to Libya by the European Court of Human Rights.

Maltese columnist Pamela Hansen says the MOAS operation will provoke mixed reactions in
Malta, with some being pleased that lives are to be saved, but others being concerned more
migrants will arrive as a result.
"Obviously the authorities are going to be very cautious. They are worried because we do
have a problem, just as Italy has a problem. The whole of Europe is anxious about this.
"But because we perhaps are the first stage sometimes of where the migrants land, there's a
bit more apprehension.
"I don't know what the government's feeling about MOAS, but what I can tell you is there's a
lot of public opinion that is anti-illegal immigration, so maybe the authorities are being rather
cautious before they comment."
While Regina is diplomatic about MOAS's "ongoing" dialogue with the local authorities, she
does reveal the Phoenix is flying under the flag of Belize because the process of getting a
Maltese registration was "taking too long".

But she bristles at suggestions that the couple's cash should be deployed another way,
perhaps to help migrants once they disembark. "There are NGOs doing that on land, but not
at sea," she says.
She mentions Mare Nostrum, the Italian navy and coastguard's search-and-rescue
operation, launched after the October Lampedusa drownings.
Doubt had been cast upon its long-term future, and now the EU and Italy have just announced
the formation of Frontex Plus, an extension of its current border management scheme, to take
over from Mare Nostrum in November.
One migrant who did make it to Malta is 24-year-old Ibrahim Ahmed Adam, who arrived from
Somalia via Libya in May 2012. "My boat broke down on the sea, and if I had not been
rescued it would have been the last journey of my life.
"So I can understand deeply the meaning the MOAS operation has for people at sea. It's a
very good step."

5/31/2018 သန္◌းၾ ကယ ေ◌ဌး ဇနီးေ◌မာင္◌ႏ◌ွံ ကပၸလီပင ယင္◌း ◌ိဟင်ာဒကၡသည္ေ◌ တ ကယင္◌ႏ◌◌ိင္ေ◌ရးႀကိ ဳးပမ္◌း
https://burmese.voanews.com/a/the-millionarie-couple-saving-rohingya-refugees-in-the-sea/4417304.html?ltflags=mailer 1/2
ျမန္မာ
သန္းၾကြယ္ သူေဌး ဇနီးေမာင္ႏွံ ကပၸလီပင္လယ္ တြင္း ရုိဟင္ဂ်ာဒုကၡသည္ ေတြ
ကယ္ တင္ႏုိင္ေရးႀကိဳးပမ္း
31 ေမ၊ 2018
ေဒၚခင္မ်ဳိးသက္
ေျမထဲပင္လယ္ ျပင္ထဲက ေထာင္နဲ႔ခ်ီတဲ့ ေလွစီးေျပး ဒုကၡသည္ ေတြရဲ့ အသက္ ကို ႏွစ္ေပါင္းမ် ားစြာ ကယ္ တင္ခဲ့တဲ့
Regina နဲ႔ Christopher Catrambone သန္းၾကြယ္ သူေဌး ဇနီးေမာင္ႏွံဟာ အခု ကပၸလီပင္လယ္ ျပင္ထဲမွာ ေရာက္ ေ
နၿပီး ေလွစီးေျပးရိုဟင္ဂ် ာေတြကို ကယ္ တင္ဖို႔ ႀကိဳးစားေနပါတယ္ ။ ဒီအေၾကာင္း ေဒၚခင္မ် ိဳးသက္ ကေျပာျပေပးမွာပါ။
ဆင္းရဲတြင္းနက္ မႈေတြနဲ႔ စစ္ေဘးဒုကၡေတြေၾကာင္း တႏွစ္တႏွစ္ကို သိန္းနဲ႔ခ်ီၿပီး ဥေရာပကိုထြက္ ေျပးေနၾကတာ ျဖစ္ၿပီး
IOM ႏိုင္ငံတကာေရႊ႕ေျပာင္းအေျခခ်သူမ် ားအဖြဲ႔ရဲ့ စာရင္းေတြအရ အေၾကာင္းအမ် ိဳးမ် ိဳးေၾကာင့္ ဥေရာပႏိုင္ငံေတြမွာ
အေျခခ်ဖို႔ ေျမထဲပင္လယ္ ကို ေက် ာ္ ျဖတ္ ထြက္ ေျပးရင္း ပင္လယ္ ျပင္ထဲ အသက္ ဆံုးခဲ့ရ သူေပါင္းဟာ သကၠရာဇ္ ၂၀၀၀
ကေန ခုအခ်ိန္အထိဆို ၃ေသာင္း ၃ ေထာင္ေက် ာ္ ရွိေနတာပါ။
ဒီဒုကၡသည္ ေတြကို ကူညီေနတဲ့ အဖြဲ႔ေတြထဲမွာ အေမရိကန္ျပည္ ေထာင္စု Louisiana ျပည္ နယ္ သား အသက္ ၃၆ ႏွစ္
အရြယ္ မီလွ် ံနာသူေဌးႀကီး Christopher Catrambone နဲ႔ ဇနီးျဖစ္သူ အီတာလီႏိုင္ငံသူ Regina တို႔ရဲ့ ေရႊ႕ေျပာင္းသူ
မ် ား ကမ္းလြန္ကူညီကယ္ ဆယ္ ေရး ဌာန MOAS က ကယ္ ဆယ္ ေပးႏိုင္ခဲ့သူက ၄ ေသာင္းေလာက္ ရွိပါတယ္ ။ ဒီအ
ဖြဲ႔ကို သူတို႔ဟာ ၂၀၁၃ မွာ ထူေထာင္ခဲ့ၿပီး ပင္လယ္ ျပင္တြင္း ဒုကၡေရာက္ ေနသူေတြကို မီတာ ၄၀ အရွည္ ရွိတဲ့
Phoenix လို႔ နံမယ္ ေပးထားတဲ့ သေဘၤာနဲ႔ ကူညီကယ္ ဆယ္ ေရးေတြ လုပ္ခဲ့တာပါ။ သူတို႔ ဇနီးေမာင္ႏွံဟာ အီရတ္ နဲ႔
အာဖဂန္လို စစ္ေဘးဒဏ္ သင့္တဲ့ ႏုိင္ငံေတြမွာ သြားေရာက္ တာဝန္ထမ္းေဆာင္ ေနၾကသူေတြကို အသက္ အာမခံေရာ
င္းတဲ့ Tangiers Group အာမခံလုပ္ငန္း ကေန သန္းၾကြယ္ သူေဌး ျဖစ္လာတာပါ။
အခုေတာ့ အဖြဲ႔သား ၁၅ ေယာက္ ပါတဲ့ သူတို႔ရဲ့ MOAS အဖြဲ႔ဟာ ကပၸလီပင္လယ္ ထဲမွာ ေရာက္ ေနတာ ျဖစ္ၿပီး ျမန္မာႏုိ
င္ငံကေန ထြက္ ေျပးလာတဲ့ ဒုကၡေရာက္ ေနတဲ့ ေလွစီးေျပးရိုဟင္ဂ် ာေတြကို ကယ္ တင္ဖို႔ လုပ္ေနၾကတာ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္ ။
သူတုိ႔ဟာ ကမ္းမျမင္တဲ့ ပင္လယ္ ျပင္ထဲ ခေနာ္ ခနဲ႔ ေလွေတြနဲ႔ ထြက္ ေျပးလာမယ့္ ဒုကၡသည္ ေတြကို ေန႔ေရာညပါ မျပ
တ္ လိုက္ လံ လိုက္ လံရွာေဖြေနတယ္ လို႔ Regina Catrambone က France 24 သတင္းဌာနကို ေျပာပါတယ္ ။
"ဒီမွာ ဘယ္ သူမွ မရွိပါဘူး။ ဒီပင္လယ္ ျပင္ထဲမွာ ဒုကၡေရာက္ ေနတဲ့ သူေတြကို ရွာေဖြမယ့္ NGO တဖြဲ႔မွ မရွိပါဘူး။ ဒု
ကၡေရာက္ ေနတဲ့ ရိုဟင္ဂ် ာေတြကို ရွာေဖြဖို႔ က် မတို႔ ဒီကိုေရာက္ ေနတာပါ။"
သူတို႔ဟာ အခုအခါမွာ ထိုင္းႏိုင္ငံကမ္းလြန္ေဒသထဲမွာ ေရာက္ ေနတာျဖစ္ပါတယ္ ။ ၿပီးခဲ့တဲ့ လတုန္းကပဲ ေလွစီးေျပးရို
ဟင္ဂ် ာ အေယာက္ တရာေက် ာ္ ဟာ ေလွ ၃ စီးနဲ႔ ထိုင္းကမ္းေျခကို ေရာက္ လာခဲ့တယ္ လို႔ ထိုင္းေရတပ္က အတည္ ျ
ပဳေျပာၾကားခဲ့ပါတယ္ ။ ဒါေပမယ့္ သူတို႔ဟာ ေလွစီးေျပး ဒုကၡသည္ ေတြကို လက္ မခံခဲ့ပဲ အႏၱရာယ္ ႀကီးတဲ့ ပင္လယ္ ျပင္
ထဲ ျပန္လႊတ္ ခဲ့တယ္ လုိ႔ Christopher Catrambone ကေျပာပါတယ္ ။

5/31/2018 သန္◌းၾ ကယ ေ◌ဌး ဇနီးေ◌မာင္◌ႏ◌ွံ ကပၸလီပင ယင္◌း ◌ိဟင်ာဒကၡသည္ေ◌ တ ကယင္◌ႏ◌◌ိင္ေ◌ရးႀကိ ဳးပမ္◌း
https://burmese.voanews.com/a/the-millionarie-couple-saving-rohingya-refugees-in-the-sea/4417304.html?ltflags=mailer 2/2
"ထိုင္းအာဏာပိုင္ေတြဟာ သူတို႔ ရွာေဖြကယ္ ဆယ္ ေရး လုပ္ႏုိင္တဲ့ ေဒသထဲမွာ ေလွစီးေျပး ဒုကၡသည္ ေတြရဲ့ ေလွေတြ
ကို ဖမ္းမိခဲ့ပါတယ္ ။ အဲဒီေနာက္ မွာ သူတုိ႔ကို ေရနဲ႔ အစားအစာေတြ ေပးၿပီး သူတုိ႔သြားခ်င္တဲ့ မေလးရွားႏိုင္ငံကို သြားဖို႔
ပင္လယ္ ျပင္ထဲကို ျပန္ထြက္ ခြင့္ ေပးခဲ့ပါတယ္ ။ ဒါဟာ ထိုင္းေတြရဲ့ လုပ္ရိုးလုပ္စဥ္ ႏိုင္ငံေရးစံနစ္ပါ။ ဒီစံနစ္အရ ဒုကၡသ
ည္ ေတြကို ပင္လယ္ ျပင္ထဲ ျပန္လႊတ္ ေလ့ ရွိပါတယ္ ။"
ထို္ င္းအစိုးရဟာ သူ႔ႏိုင္ငံ ေရျပင္ပိုင္နက္ ေဒသတြင္းမွာ ရိုဟင္ဂ် ာေတြကိုေရာ ကူညီကယ္ ဆယ္ တဲ့ အဖြဲ႔ေတြလာေရာက္
တာ ကိုပါ မလိုလား ပါဘူး။ သူတို႔ရဲ့ Pheonix သေဘၤာ ထုိင္းေရျပင္ထဲ ေရာက္ တာနဲ႔ စစ္ေရယာဥ္ေတြအနားက လုိက္
လာသလို စစ္ေလယာဥ္ကလည္ း သေဘၤာေပၚက ကပ္ၿပီး မၾကာမၾကာ ပ် ံသန္းသတိေပးေလ့ ရွိတာပါ။
"သူတုိ႔ရဲ့ Pheonix ကို ကမ္းလြန္ေဒသမွာ ေက် ာက္ ခ်ခြင့္မေပးသလို ထိုင္းကမ္းေျခကိုလည္ း ကပ္ခြင့္မေပးခဲ့ပါဘူး။ ဒါ့
အျပင္ ထုိင္းအာဏာပိုင္ေတြက သူတို႔ကို ျပန္ႏွင္ထုတ္ တယ္ လို႔လည္ း ေျပာပါတယ္ ။"
သူတို႔အဖြဲ႔ဟာ ေျမထဲပင္လယ္ ထဲမွာ ကူညီကယ္ ဆယ္ ေရးေတြ လုပ္တုန္းကလည္ း အခုလိုပဲ ေဒသ အာဏာပိုင္ေတြနဲ႔
မၾကာမၾကာ ရင္ဆိုင္ခဲ့ရတာပါ။ သူတို႔ရဲ့ ပစၥည္ းေတြ သိမ္းယူတာအထိ ျဖစ္ခဲ့ပါတယ္ ။ ဒါေပမယ့္ သူတို႔ကေတာ့ သူတို႔ရဲ့
ကယ္ ဆယ္ ေရး လုပ္ငန္းေတြကို လက္ ေလွ် ာ့ မွာ မဟုတ္ ဖူးလို႔ ေျပာပါတယ္ ။
ထိုင္းႏိုင္ငံနဲ႔ စာရင္ မူစလင္အမ် ားစုရွိရာ မေလးရွားႏုိင္ငံက ေလွစီးေျပးလာတဲ့ ရိုဟင္ဂ် ာေတြကို လက္ ခံတဲ့ အေနထား
မွာ ရွိပါတယ္ ။ လြန္ခဲ့တဲ့ ႏွစ္ေတြအတြင္း မေလးရွားႏိုင္ငံ လန္ကာဗီ ကၽြန္းကို ေရာက္ လာတဲ့ ေလွစီးေျပး ရိုဟင္ဂ် ာဒုကၡ
သည္ က တေထာင္ေလာက္ ရွိေနတာပါ။
သူတို႔အဖြဲ႔ဟာ ၂၀၁၆ ခုထဲမွာလည္ း အသက္ ကယ္ သေဘၤာ M.Y. Phoenix နဲ႔ တာေဝးသြားႏုိင္တဲ့ ဒရံုးယာဥ္ ၂ စီးကို
သံုးၿပီး ေလွစီးေျပး ဒုကၡသည္ ေတြကို ကယ္ ဆယ္ ဖို႔ ႀကိဳးစားခဲ့ဘူးၿပီး လူေတြ ပင္လယ္ ထဲမွာ ေသတာမ် ိဳး မျဖစ္သင့္ဘူး
လို႔ MOAS ဒါရိုက္ တာ Martin Xuereb က VOA ကို ေျပာၾကားခဲ့ပါတယ္ ။

5/31/2018 Risky Business with Chris Catrambone - Christopher Catrambone's Blog
http://www.christophercatrambone.com/risky-business-with-chris-catrambone/ 1/2
RISKY BUSINESS WITH CHRIS CATRAMBONE
Starting your own busy can be risky. For some businesses, the danger can be both scal
and physical. How do entrepreneurs measure risk?
In 2006 American-born Chris Catrambone moved his growing con ict zone claims
management company, Tangiers International, from the US to Italy. We sat down with
Chris recently, to talk about taking risks as an entrepreneur.
You mentioned that moving your company to Italy was riskier than spending a week in
Afghanistan.
How, when and why did you decide to move Italy from the US? What was risky about it?
I decided to move in Fall 2006, after I started to understand that if my business
was overseas in Afghanistan, I needed to be closer to the activities of the business.
It was risky because I was leaving my comfort zone, English speakers, already
established facilities like banks, utilities, shipping service. I was throwing all that
comfort and accessibility away to move my business to a country which I had never
worked in, but had visited as a tourist. All for the sake of growth: if I was closer to
my business, I could grow it. The risk was I could blow all my excess capital on
setting up in a foreign land and fall on my face.
And Afghanistan?
I visited Afghanistan for the rst time in 2006 as well. Afghanistan was risky
because of bombs and terrible insurgency. However, being a risk man, I knew my
chances were less than 1%. I had a better chance of dying riding my Vespa in Italy.
What are some risky situations you faced? How did you handle them?
Professional failure, bankruptcy, language issues, limited knowledge of local
government, minimal local connections, injury, death. All these were risks.
Professional failure: for Italy, I had to remain focused and dedicated. I couldn’t get
too caught up in the relaxed lifestyle of southern Italy. My job was to continue to
be that entrepreneur that I set out to be, and not get dissuaded by temptation.
Discipline!
Bankruptcy: always a risk, at one point in Italy, my bank account dropped to 30
dollars. But I had saw it coming and had upped my sales game and business-
positioning months before That was a close call though Foresight and preparation

5/31/2018 Risky Business with Chris Catrambone - Christopher Catrambone's Blog
http://www.christophercatrambone.com/risky-business-with-chris-catrambone/ 2/2
positioning months before. That was a close call though. Foresight and preparation
saved me.
Language issues and local matters are always an issue, but easily overcome by
attracting the right people around you who bridge the local gap. Recruitment and
human connections are very important in this business.
Injury and Death: as a criminologist, one of my favourite theories was that older
people are less victimised simply because they don’t go out at night when crime is
happening. The same applies in this case. Just don’t take the chance unless you
absolutely have to.
You have to take a leap, but it can be mitigated with proper planning.
I did risk safety a few times, and not necessarily for work, but for fun. A midnight
run through the Salang Pass to see the Milky Way was probably not one of my best
choices but it ended up being one of my most memorable moments. Sometimes
you just have to risk it.
Do you still keep a notebook with you? If so, what goes into it?
I always keep a notebook and I wrote my ideas and thoughts, sometimes even
poetry. I enjoy to look back and see how I’ve grown as a human being.
Has looking back through your old notebooks inspired you to try new projects?
Yes. Sometimes ideas are not feasible at the moment for a variety of reasons, such
as time to dedicate, resources or even a geopolitical matter. But sometimes rogue
ideas have perfect timing. Sometimes I ask myself what the hell was I thinking.
Tangiers International continued to expand its worldwide claims and assistance services
and now operates a network of more than 80 eld agents, 40,000 specialised medical
providers and services in 192 countries.
Chris keeps implementing new projects. In 2013 he started the Migrant Offshore Aid
Station, (MOAS) a non-pro t Malta-based registered foundation dedicated to preventing
loss of life to refugees and migrants in distress at sea. To date, the organisation has
rescued nearly 14,000 people.
TAGS: Risky Business

5/31/2018 Rohingya Repatriation Survey | Xchange
http://xchange.org/rohingya-repatriation-survey/ 1/44
R E P O R T S , L A T E S T , S P O T L I G H T
Rohingya Repatriation
Survey
M A Y 2 3 , 2 0 1 8 | B Y X C H A N G E F O U N D A T I O N
INTRODUCTION
More than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims have ed across the border from My
making the ongoing Rohingya refugee crisis the fastest-growing refugee
have long faced persecution by the state and have been forcibly exp
engendering a reputation as one of “the most persecuted minorities in t
under a 1982 law, neither Myanmar nor Bangladesh recognises them as
“I’m a Rohingya and I want to show the world that I’m a Rohingya.”
36-year-old Rohingya woman
“

, y g g
themselves to be ‘indigenous’ peoples of Myanmar. The most recent ma
Bangladesh followed a Myanmar military “crackdown” in response to Rohi
August 25 last year, which the government claims killed nine police o ce
wave of attacks by Rohingya militants, in October 2016; the Myanmar milita
over the border in search of safety by February 2017 . Following the Augus
forced to ee Myanmar, the result of a campaign of state-led violence
Rohingya population within Myanmar itself.
In late 2017, Xchange established a presence on the ground in Cox’s Ba
epicentre of the refugee settlement area. Through our extensive research,
and other mass atrocities that had been carried out in Rakhine State by th
civilians from the majority Rakhine ethnic group.[1] We have collected data
ground ever since.
Soon after the expulsions of Rohingyas from Rakhine State began
governments agreed to begin a two-year process to return over 770,000 in
that had ed Rakhine State since October 2016. The rst 1,200 returnees
anticipation of the rst Rohingya repatriations, the Myanmar government h
temporary camp close to the border in Rakhine.[6] On 22 January 2018, ho
a torrent of criticism that such returns were deeply premature, as refug
seeking safety in Bangladesh.[7]
In April 2018, a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed by UN
established a framework of cooperation between the UNHCR and Bangla
returns of refugees in line with international standards”.[8] A tripartite de
UNHCR is still in progress, making the future of the Rohingya refugees living
The prospect of returning to Myanmar has been a central theme running th
Rohingya Survey we conducted in 2017 showed that 78% of respondent
welfare and/or political situation improved, 16% would not under a
unconditionally


unconditionally.
However, many respondents shared their concerns regarding repatriat
conducted in January and February of 2018, a small number of responden
return to Myanmar because of the traumas they had experienced there.[10]
Most importantly, this recent repatriation deal failed to consult the Rohing
may face upon their return or include guarantees for the provision of ba
religion, freedom of movement, and right to employment, among other
situation upon return no different in practice from the persecution they had
hands to voice opposition, a number of Rohingya refugees from Balukhal
Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar, Ms. Yanghee Lee, lis
to Myanmar. Seven of these conditions were listed as non-negotiable pre
repatriation in any form.[12]
In this survey, Xchange seeks to understand a critical component of this tra
the Rohingya understand about the proposed repatriation processes, and
as a community. This report builds upon Xchange’s three previous Ro
September-October 2017, and January-February 2018; it considers the vi
who arrived after 25 August 2017, across 12 refugee camps in Cox’s B
repatriation (or refoulement) to Myanmar.
During April-May 2018 we collected over 1,700 testimonies from Rohingya
is what we found.
“I am very happy after arriving in Bangladesh. When I remember the incidents that o
20-year-old Rohingya man
“

Inside Unchiprang refugee camp – © MOAS.eu/
CONTEXT
Rohingya Muslims are the largest Muslim community in Myanmar and f
language and culture.[13] Rohingya Muslims -and other Muslim ethnic g
from the government as well as marginalization from the general popul
immigrants” from neighbouring Bangladesh despite considering themselve
their roots back centuries into the territory which now forms Myanmar. As a
protracted displacement, discrimination, limited access to education an
marriage, birth registration, health services and freedom of movement. Th
in recent years, particularly after attacks on their homes and properties i
hundreds of thousands internally and the ‘hardening’ of an extant Apartheid
State.[14]

The majority of Rohingya Muslims live in the northern areas of Rakhine Sta
in Maungdaw, Buthidaung, and Rathedaung townships. Rakhine State is o
and suffers from chronic poverty, poor infrastructure, limited access to
compounded (and created) by decades of government neglect..[15] Thoug
in the state have been subjected to government oppression post-independ
Rakhine’s Muslim populations have been singled out for particular abuse,
them ‘illegal immigrants’ undeserving of basic rights or dignity.[16]
Rohingya Erasure: In the 2014 census – the rst census conducted in Myanmar since 1983 – the governm
to do this, which meant they were not included in the nal census.
The Bangladesh Government has historically provided shelter and huma
Myanmar, with considerable assistance from international humanitarian
refugees reside in Cox’s Bazar district, a popular Bangladeshi tourist desti
for being home to ‘the longest natural beach in the world’ and one of the mo
It is also one of Bangladesh’s poorest districts, suffering from chronic fo
levels, as well as poverty levels above the national average.[18]
Prior to the recent in ux of more than 700,000 Rohingya refugees, Banglad
Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar. This population arrived in Bangladesh a
Rohingya by the Myanmar military, the most signi cant of which occurred in
In 1978, army brutality in Rakhine State as part of “Operation Nagami
immigrants, ultimately forced more than 200,000 Rohingya out of the c
government, quickly overwhelmed by the in ux, requested a repatriation a
refugees were initially reluctant to return, more returned as the camp condit
to the extent that the Rohingya faced starvation.[21] Many individuals and
resident in Bangladesh to this day. In 1982, the Myanmar government ma
citizenship laws, which served to de facto exclude the Rohingya from cit
world’s single largest stateless population.

In 1991, after another wave of attacks by the military, approximately
Bangladesh.[22] The increasing number of Rohingya refugees led Banglad
UNHCR to provide assistance to the refugees.[23] A Memorandum of Und
up between the Bangladeshi and Myanmar governments which resulted in
more than 200,000 Rohingyas who could prove their origins in Myanmar. T
the process when evidence emerged of Rohingyas being coerced to ret
refoulement that is against international law. In 1993, the UNHCR once agai
MOU with the Bangladesh Government. [24] However, approximately 30,0
give the required evidence of their previous residence in Myanmar. As a
UNHCR and permitted to stay in Kutupalong and Nayapara camps, two “o
District. [25]
The right of return is enshrined in various human rights conventions,[26] but has not been a prominent fea
not be returned outlined in the 1951 Refugee Convention, which speaks in negative terms of ‘refoulement,’
repatriation, however, is one of UNHCR’s main functions as outlined in the organisation’s Statute.[27]The U
lawful and voluntary.[28]
Violence in Rakhine State has been particularly piqued since 2012, with
villages, and mass displacement.[29] These clashes are widely believed to
the security forces and government, as well as ethnic Rakhine Buddhist
2016, Rohingya men, allegedly from the insurgent group, Harakah al-Yaqi
border posts in Maungdaw and Rathedaung townships in Rakhine State
military responded with a brutal crackdown in a major operation that resu
resulting in the ight of 87,000 Rohingyas to Bangladesh. The most recen
Rohingya, that started on 25 August 2017, was, the government claimed
same group, rebranded as the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), tha
posts and an army base, killing 11 members of the Myanmar security force
ARSA: The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), formerly called the Faith Movement or Harakah Al Yaq
R khi St t M Th C t l C itt f C t T i f M d l d th ARSA t

Rakhine State, Myanmar. The Central Committee for Counter-Terrorism of Myanmar declared the ARSA a t
stating its main purpose as defending the rights of Rohingyas.
The Bangladeshi authorities view the recent in ux of Rohingyas as a tem
and safe return” to Myanmar. The government is therefore reluctant to iden
the nomenclature “forcefully displaced people from Myanmar” (FDMNs). T
as refugees means that Bangladesh hopes to limit its responsibility for t
existence in the refugee camps across the district, which are little more th
participate fully in family life, nor integrate into local Bangladeshi commun
they face cramped living conditions, limited WASH facilities, restricted l
multiple protection issues.[33]
Bangladesh and Myanmar are not signatories to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention and its 1967 protocol. H
per customary international law.[34]
The new repatriation agreement between the Bangladesh and Myanmar g
that mirror the 1990s repatriation deal. The Rohingya must agree to repa
provide proof or previous residence in Rakhine State through providing M
This is an impossible burden of proof for most to achieve, as in 2016 an
razed to the ground, destroying most of the Rohingya residents’ worldly p
many cases, with the clothes on their backs.[36] There are also no guaran
their home villages, many of which have been destroyed in any case: the co
vast “transit camps” may in fact be the creation of permanent infrastructu
fact, return.[37] The Myanmar government has a poor record in this regard.
homes in 2012 remain in supposedly “temporary” camps in central Rakhine
housed due to previous outbreaks of violence have complained of squalid
almost total restrictions on their movement, access to health care, a
how voluntary whatever repatriation process agreed on between the two co

Rohingya refugees installing drainage systems in Kutupalong refugee
METHODOLOGY & RESEARCH IMPLEMENTATION
Building on previous research, the objective of this project was to collec
understanding of potential repatriation to Myanmar, from a wide range of ad
Bangladesh after the August 25th military operation in northern Rakhine Sta
qualitative methodologies to address the following primary research objectiv
Demographics
Quality of life in Bangladesh
Views on, and knowledge of, repatriation
Attitudes towards repatriation and willingness to return to Myanmar

Data Collection
Over a three-week period (15 April-6 May 2018), Xchange conducted a cro
across 12 o cial and uno cial refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.
The data collection team consisted of four enumerators, two men and tw
and uent in the Rohingya language. The enumerators administered
application at two o cially registered camps (RC), and 10 other uno cial s
Kutupalong RC and its expansion (including Lambashiya and Madhur
Balukhali MS and its expansion
Thangkhali-Burma Para and Mainnerghona
Hakimpara
Bagghona-Potibonia
Jamtoli
Chakmarkul
Shamlapur
Unchiprang
Leda
Nayapara RC and its expansion
Jadimura

Each enumerator interviewed an average of 19 people per day while maint
the Xchange research team and guidance from MOAS operational staff on t
1,823 interviews; 1,703 were deemed relevant for further analysis.
The survey design was based on Xchange’s previous reports, literature re
days prior to the o cial data collection period, the enumerators conducted
Kutupalong RC. Minor changes were made to the questionnaire to facilitate
any potential response bias.
To establish a high level of rapport between interviewers and interviewees
unbiased as possible, female enumerators interviewed only women.[40]
predetermined number of women (64 in total) in Kutupalong RC, Balukha
responsible for interviewing all male respondents. At the end of each w
uploaded to an online platform for review by the coordination team and to m
All surveys were conducted in person in a secluded area to ensure privacy. T
to all respondents and verbal consent was ensured before proceeding with

to all respondents and verbal consent was ensured before proceeding with
The research instrument[41] included closed-ended (yes/no), open-ended,
ended questions yielded similar responses, so it was considered app
quantitatively and qualitatively. In the nal section of the survey, responden
on their thoughts about repatriation.
Target Population and Sampling
The research for this project employed a strati ed random sampling tech
estimated to be 317,706 adults (over 18 years old), ‘new Rohingyas’ (tho
events of 25 August 2017), currently resident in refugee camps in Cox’s B
through simple calculations[42] based on the newest data provided by the
collection preparation.[43] The data provided by UNHCR gave the research
by refugee camp of residence and gender, reducing opportunities for sele
applied after the strati cation of the entire population, the sample accu
Moreover, each subgroup within the population received appropriate
subpopulation was either over- or underrepresented in the results.
Therefore, the sample of 1,703 respondents can be considered broadly rep
population residing in refugee camps across Cox’s Bazar district. With a sa
on a 95% con dence level, the margin of sampling error stands at 2.37.
Limitations
Sampling
As the borders of the expansion zones of the two largest camps in the are
maps, the whole area of Kutupalong-Balukhali was roughly divided in half d
Even though the enumerators made every effort to select respondents r
heads of households, as enumerators went from door to door increasing th
be approached before interviewing others Furthermore due to random se

be approached before interviewing others. Furthermore, due to random se
in correspondence with the gender-age group distribution of the total Rohin
Validity and Reliability
Challenges in validity and reliability were moderated by employing extens
analysis of the uploaded surveys, and holding weekly online meetings to d
solve any di culties that had arisen during the process.
The enumerators, as Rohingya refugees themselves and uent in Rohin
respondents. However, the questions and the responses were translated fr
to English respectively by each enumerator on the spot. This might
negatively in uenced the accuracy of some responses, despite the good co
Representativeness
The results are generalisable for the whole adult ‘new Rohingya’ population
each camp considered separate from the others. One should be cautious a
a certain camp or a certain subgroup of individuals across the sample as
were undertaken, meaning that some of the results might be outcomes of p

Rohingya refugees weaving shelters out of bamboo in Unchiprang refug
KEY FINDINGS
Demographics
The Xchange team interviewed a total of 1,703 adult ethnic Rohingyas who
District in Bangladesh after the events of 25 August 2017.
Date of arrival: 97% arrived between 25 August and 31 December 2017; 3%

Gender: 763 were men (45%); 940 were women (55%)
Age: Respondents’ ages ranged between 18–120, with a median of 40 an
group represented in the survey are 35-39-year-olds. Women were mostly
were mostly between the ages of 35 and 54. In the youngest and oldest ag
were more represented than men.

Place of Origin: As expected, the majority (65%) of respondents came from
armed forces in Northern Rakhine State: 65% from Maungdaw, 26% from
from Sittwe (Akyab), the Rakhine State capital, and one person claimed to
largest city and former capital.
Marital Status & Children: 83% of respondents were married; 4% were
Divorced. 78% of the respondents stated that they have children in Banglad

Household size: 79% of the sample were heads of households. Only 2.3% l
than half of the respondents (54%) live in cramped conditions, in household
Life in Myanmar
Education
Only one in three (34%) respondents received an education in Myanmar.
bachelor’s degree. Two held Master’s degrees. One in ve (20.6%) had re
Certi cate. One in ve (21.8%) received education in madrasas.
Rohingyas residing in Rakhine State have limited access to education; prim
are among the lowest in the country; secondary education is nearly non-e
including mobility restrictions, sub-par school facilities, high levels of pove
of parents to pay school fees.[45] These factors have only worsened since t

Employment
Waves of inter-communal violence in Rakhine State in 2012 divided comm
as well as any trade across the border with Bangladesh. Discrimination ag
in very low employment among the Rohingya population. In addition to this,
nd employment outside of their immediate surroundings.[46]
As expected, most respondents (87%) were not previously employed in Mya
job. Of those respondents:
17% worked for an NGO (unspeci ed job excluding teachers),
14% were teachers (NGO/Madrasa/School),
12% worked at a shop,
12% worked at a company or had their own business,
6% were farmers,
5% worked at a mosque or madrasa,
5% did housework (e.g. maid),
5% worked in the health industry (i.e. doctor, midwife, pharmacist, nurs
4% worked at a restaurant,
3% were drivers,
the rest (17%) did various other jobs (e.g. secretary, clerk, sherman, s
Despite this, 49% of our respondents stated that they had at least one sk
farming, driving, grocery business, etc.).

66% of the female respondents were skilled in tailoring, sewing, and/o
had IT knowledge.
23% of male respondents were farmers, and an additional 32% could c
made shing nets, or ran a business selling sh.
Life in Bangladesh
Overall, 98.65% of adult Rohingyas in our sample felt welcome in Banglad
Nayapara, Potibonia/Baghonna, and Shamlapur felt unwelcome in Bang

y p , / g , p g
welcome, the majority (eight individuals or 35%) live in Kutupalong.
This feeling of being welcome in Bangladesh could be due to a number
reception of the Rohingya eeing from Myanmar, the provision of huma
international organisations, and the overall feeling of security compared to t
Feelings of safety
During the day:
99.41% of respondents stated that they feel safe during the day in the refug
The remaining ten respondents who did not feel safe during the day describ
the summer season (hot weather that causes discomfort in cramped cond
of the ten people that claimed to not feel safe were men.
During the night:
95.89% felt safe during the night in the refugee camp. Of those who did
individuals who did not feel safe speci ed the following reasons:
wild animals, particularly elephants
potential robbery
“murderers”
human tra ckers
Interestingly, 41% (33) of the people interviewed in Leda camp did not fee
and wild animal attacks at any time. This may be explained by tragic event
including camp res.[47] Deaths from elephant trampling are also commo
through the forest.[48] A few people mentioned fearing to sleep at night, as
“We are facing different kinds of problems here, like robbery. We can’t sleep here pe
night. How could we sleep?”
“

Integration into the camps and host communities
79.57% of the respondents stated that they had made new Rohingya f
Bangladesh.
91% of male respondents stated they had made new Rohingya friends com
that men in the camps are more likely to be outside their household and in s

16% (273 people) stated they had made at least one Bangladeshi friend. N
had made Bangladeshi friends. Anecdotal evidence indicates women are m
Bangladeshi neighbours or hosts.
92.78% of all respondents stated that there is a strong sense of community
100% of respondents from Chakmarkul
98% of respondents from Thangkhali
96% of respondents from Nayapara
Notably, 11.75% (43) of the interviewees from Kutupalong did not feel a stro
due to the camp’s large size, which accommodates over half of the Rohingy
Provision of everyday needs
66% of all respondents did not feel they were able to provide essentials
households. This could be due to limited resources in the camps, the need
provisions and a lack of livelihood opportunities

provisions, and a lack of livelihood opportunities.
Livelihoods & Employment
90% of the respondents were not engaged in any employment. Of the 168
were satis ed with their job. This is likely to be because Rohingyas struggle
the lack of recognition as refugees by the Bangladeshi government, yet a
have unful lled household needs. This was also recognized in our previ
respondents were surviving by selling food and non-food items, as well as
the camps.[50]
Of those who were looking for a job, 41% would be happy to have any kind
to work for an (I)NGO/charity. This demonstrates the strong desire for an
common types of contracting within the camps (contracted to work for hum

Di culties living in Bangladesh
When respondents were asked to choose the three most di cult aspects o
family, 70% of the respondents stated ‘health issues’. This is indicative of bo
healthcare available in Myanmar,[51] as well as the possible consequences
of Rohingya injured before coming to Bangladesh.[52]
Providing the family with adequate food, water, and shelter was reported a
corroborates data from earlier survey questions on family provisions.
“In Bangladesh We are not getting enough food, water, and shelter. Every month we
our houses. It’s di cult to pay the money; we don’t have any way to make money. So
“

44% mentioned that raising children is one of the most di cult things for
this issue were women. These responses could be due to the previous trau
educational and recreational facilities – particularly for children over primar
in cramped camp conditions.[53]
Only 6.5% claimed to nd nothing di cult about life in Bangladesh. Of those
p y y; y y y
problem before repatriating us without safety.”

Knowledge and Perceptions of Repatriation
Overall knowledge of repatriation

When respondents were asked about their knowledge of the repatria
Myanmar, only 51.6% had heard about it; 57% of male respondents and 48%

In Jamtoli, Jadimura, Baghonna/Potibonia, Shamlapur, Thangkhali, and Nay
without knowledge than with knowledge of the repatriation agreement.
Knowledge of repatriation: how?
Those respondents who knew about the agreement were asked how th
means by which respondents had heard that an agreement had been sig

ea s by c espo de ts ad ea d t at a ag ee e t ad bee s g
radio, TV). This was mostly the case for men; women relied more on word
This is likely because men have better access to media and social spac
engaged in chores around their homes.
Knowledge of repatriation: why?
When respondents were asked whether they understand why the governm
94.5% of those who had knowledge of repatriation, did not have a clear pict
The remainder (5.5%, or 48 people) were asked to give their explanation
discussed at this point in time. Here, their opinions varied. Some supported
to take care of Rohingyas due to its large population; others mentioned
propaganda, while many stated that it is a “human business” between the t
is to kill all Rohingyas.
On the other hand, some respondents were optimistic, stating that the M
repatriation because they truly want to give Rohingyas their nationality and
This could indicate possible information transfer issues from authorities an
The low comprehension gures and overwhelming lack of clarity reporte
as repatriation should be voluntary in nature and decided with full knowle
“Myanmar wants to kill us all. They have been killing us for many years. I think, they
“
“I think that the government of Myanmar has agreed to accept us as Rohingya and t
opportunities.”
“

Cooperation between governments and the current situation in Rakhine S
62% of respondents believed that the governments of Bangladesh and M
situation of the Rohingyas. Women were divided equally on this matter, wh
that the cooperation is inadequate.
74% of respondents had not received any information about the current
believed they knew the current condition in Rakhine State, compared to
respondents thought that the situation there is still the same, i.e. that the s
that mobility was still extremely restricted. Some respondents mentione
neighbours being killed. One respondent mentioned that they heard the
residents of Rakhine State that they had to accept the National Veri cation
citizenship, but may allow them increased mobility rights and access to ser

Timing
78% of respondents believed that repatriation would eventually happen i
memory of previous repatriation/refoulment processes undertaken by the
periods of time, resulted in the return of large numbers of Rohingya back to
lived through the 1978 and 1991 repatriation efforts expressed their concer
Satisfaction with information received
80% of respondents did not feel satis ed with the level of information they
process. This was mostly due to there being no information provided regar
to exercise their religious freedom back in Myanmar. The majority expresse
provided with equal rights.
“I think, they [the government and military of Myanmar] don’t think that we are also
“
“At our village in Rakhine State, people can’t move anywhere.”
“
“I’m hearing from my neighbours that Myanmar military and police are still torturing
nor receive educations.”
“
“I have been hearing about murders kept secret by Myanmar military and Myanmar p
refugee in Bangladesh three times. Every time, they – the Myanmar government – sa
returning they always start killing and looting properties of Rohingya people.”
“
“[I am not satis ed] because I heard that Myanmar wants to accept us as Bengali. W
native name as Rohingya.”
23 year old Rohingya woman
“

The respondents wanted to know more about their own rights from th
Nations, and whether they would be living in internment camps inside Myan
land again.
Justice and involvement of the international community
The respondents desired those who killed their loved ones and burn
Respondents asked for the UN Security Council to stand by them and
Myanmar be brought to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Responde
same atrocities they had already been subjected to upon their return and qu
do so considering the number of Rohingyas that had been killed already.
“In Bangladesh, all religions have equal rights. Here there are no differences betwee
rights just like in Bangladesh.”
“
“I’m not satis ed with the level of repatriation. Because Myanmar wants to keep us
“
“I’m a Rohingya girl. I think every human has the right to live in this world without fe
to call the UN to give us justice for genocide and give us our country.”
“
“I still have some relatives in Myanmar. Sometimes they call us and cry for us to sav
military and people are looting and killing them one by one.”
“
“The Myanmar military raped me when I was eeing from Myanmar to save my life. A
me. That time I became senseless. I don’t want to return to Myanmar without my ide
“

Conditions for repatriation
Overall, 97.5% of the Rohingya population would consider returning to M
however, mentioned that they would go back only if certain condition
citizenship of Myanmar with acknowledgement that they are Rohingya, fr
rights and dignity restored.
Of the respondents who considered going back to Myanmar in the future:
99% would return to the same township they were living in before the
“I could return to Myanmar, but how? Myanmar tells the Rohingya: “You are Banglad
Burmese!”. Where is our country? Please introduce us to where in the world our land
“
“If we go back again without justice, the Myanmar government will play as like footb
“

REGINA AND CHRISTOPHER CATRAMBONE (MILLIONARIE COUPLE) WHO SAVING ROHINGYA IN THE SEA PART-1

REGINA AND CHRISTOPHER CATRAMBONE (MILLIONARIE COUPLE) WHO SAVING ROHINGYA IN THE SEA PART-1

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