NEW DELHI: Mohammad Salim earns a meagre income from his small tea stall outside his ramshackle tent. Though his earnings are barely enough to feed his family, the 35-year-old says, “Despite the hardships, I’m grateful for the sense of peace and security we have here.”

‘Here’ is the congested refugee camp at

in south Delhi, where 50 Rohingya families have been staying since fleeing their hometown in Rakhine state in

around six years ago.

A looming uncertainty has now replaced the sense of security that the Rohingya had in India till now. Tough as life is in the refugee camp, what with no employment opportunities for the Rohingya Muslims, it is likely to become even tougher for them. The central government has already asked the states to obtain biometric details of the community as a means to identify them as aliens, and any hope they may have had of a semblance of normal life is a distant dream.

“We are better off here and we are able to send our children to school,” declares Saabra. “If we had continued staying in

(Myanmar), we wouldn’t have been alive today.” The 25-year-old perhaps doesn’t realise that union home minister Rajnath Singh has announced that once the Rohingya are identified across the Indian states, the government will initiate talks with Myanmar for their repatriation. In fact, UN Special Rapporteur Tendayi Achiume voiced concern on Tuesday that India will deport seven Rohingya men to the country they fled following the army crackdown on their community.

The fact that they would have to return home is a dread-filled possibility. Minaaj Mahmood, 21, mother of two, almost breaks down when she recalls the killing of her sister’s six-month-old daughter. :She was crushed to death by the military right in front of us,” she alleges. “Tell me, how can a mother get over something like this?”

Mahmood, though angst-ridden, is better off than around 40,000 other Rohingya in India. She is among the 16,500 refugees registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and settled in slum camps in different parts of the country. The rest are deemed to be illegally present in India, their fates at much higher risk than the registered refugees.

It isn’t as if being registered leads to comfort. Uncertainty looms over their future. But almost as if to say that there is no advantage in worrying about the future when their past and present are so chaotic, the Rohingya families in Kalindi Kunj try to live as normal a life as they are able to. Children, like all youngsters across the world, run and play without a care. And their parents are grateful for their cramped makeshift houses fabricated out of metal sheets and secured with tattered blankets. No one pays any attention to mosquitoes and mounds of garbage lying around.

A massive fire broke out in the camp earlier this year and reduced the campsite to ashes. “All our belongings were destroyed in the fire, including our money and our identity cards,” moans Ali Sheikh, 60, who wonders how many more times they have to start life from scratch. If they are sent back to their country, it will be one more obligation to begin anew.

Life in Delhi isn’t easy. Without the Aadhaar card, the Rohingya have no access to bank accounts or even a SIM card. “We do hold refugee cards, but what use are they if they cannot help us avail the benefits?” complains Sheikh. The UNHCR cards can prevent their

from Delhi, but amenities like education and primary healthcare are out of reach for most of the 50 families.

NGP Zakaat Foundation is providing help in the form of a patch of land to set up tented accommodation and educational assistance for children to attend a nearby government school. But with the government keen to resolve the issue with Myanmar, there is a cloud over their existence as daily wage labourers, ragpickers and micro shop owners.