Rohingya people seeking refuge in India run risk of detention and deportation 

NEW DELHI – When Rohingya siblings Irfan and Salma (names changed) fled with their mother from a burning village in Myanmar in 2016, they were just 12 and 10 years old, respectively.

On the way to neighbouring Bangladesh, they braved a rocky boat journey, aching hunger and military gunfire, as they escaped from what has been described as

a systematic campaign of persecution

and killing of the ethnic Muslim Rohingya minority in Myanmar, a predominantly Buddhist country. In Bangladesh, a tout then swindled the family of a lot of their money, promising a refugee card that never came.