Existence
It’s taken 10 days to come here. They torched our house, looted the domestic animals, money… everything. They killed children, man and woman like animal… they rapped woman. Don’t know why they do this. We don’t have any place to stay now; there is no existence…..” – Mohammad Alam. Rohingyas are a Muslim minority in Myanmar regarded by many Myanmar Buddhists as illegal migrants from Bangladesh. They are denied citizenship in Myanmar and have been described as the world’s most persecuted minority. Since the 1970s Rohingya refugees have been coming to Bangladesh from Myanmar. In the 1990s, more than 250,000 resided in refugees’ camps in Bangladesh. In the early 2000s, all but 20,000 of them were repatriated to Myanmar, some against their will. As of December 2017, an estimated 655,000 to 700,000 Rohingya people have fled to Bangladesh since 25 August 2017, to avoid ethnic and religious persecution by Myanmar's security forces. The Myanmar military carried out mass rapes along with locals to persecute the ethnic Rohingya Muslim community, alleged Rohingya refugees who took shelter in Bangladesh. A large portion of Rohingya women aged between 13 and 45, who managed to escape Myanmar, comprised rape victims. The ethnic group Rohingya has a deep historical root in north Rakhine which is also called Arakan. The history says, the Rohingyas have been there since the 7th century when they first settled there. Rooted in century old ethno-religious divisiveness, the Rohingya crisis entails serious regional and global ramifications.
Photos and Text by Suvra Kanti Das
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- Rohingya Muslims, who spent four days in the open after crossing over from Myanmar into Bangladesh, carry their children and belongings after they were allowed to proceed towards a refugee camp, at Anjuman Para, Ukhiya, Bangladesh, October 19, 2017. More than 580,000 refugees have arrived in Bangladesh since Aug. 25, when Myanmar security forces began a scorched-earth campaign against Rohingya villages. Myanmar’s government has said it was responding to attacks by Muslim insurgents, but the United Nations and others have said the response was disproportionate. © Suvra Kanti Das
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- A newly arrived Rohingya Muslim woman wades through water carrying her son after spent two days in the open after crossing over from Myanmar into Bangladesh and tries to moving ahead towards refugee camps at at Anjuman Para, Ukhiya, Bangladesh, October 17, 2017. © Suvra Kanti Das
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- A Rohingya woman who has fled persecution in Myanmar is carried by others as they wait along the border for permission to move further towards refugee camps near Teknaf, Bangladesh. © Suvra Kanti Das
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- A sick Rohingya Muslim woman, who had made the crossing from Myanmar into Bangladesh, walks towards a makeshift hospital at Anjuman Para, Bangladesh, October 18, 2017. Thousands of Rohingya Muslims who crossed the border earlier this week are camping with no or little food and no sanitation, spending days and nights in open fields with just plastic sheets as shelters near zero point of Bangladesh-Myanmar border. © Suvra Kanti Das
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- Bangladeshi villagers cover bodies of Rohingya women and children at Shah Porir Deep, in Teknaf, Bangladesh. Three boats carrying ethnic Rohingya fleeing violence in Myanmar have capsized in Bangladesh and over two dozen bodies of women and children have been recovered. © Suvra Kanti Das
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- A Rohingya Muslim father, who had made the crossing from Myanmar into Bangladesh earlier, walks with his sick child towards a makeshift hospital at Anjuman Para, Bangladesh, October 18, 2017. Thousands of Rohingya Muslims who crossed the border earlier this week are camping with no or little food and no sanitation, spending days and nights in open fields with just plastic sheets as shelters near zero point of Bangladesh-Myanmar border. © Suvra Kanti Das
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- Bangladesh border guards have arrested boatmen accused of trying to smuggle Myanmar’s Muslim Rohingya minority illegally into Bangladesh by boat at Shah Porir Deep, in Teknaf, Bangladesh, October 3, 2017. © Suvra Kanti Das
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- Rohingya Muslim woman Nur Fatima, who crossed over from Myanmar into Bangladesh, sits on a hill with her four months old daughter Asma Bibi at Jamtoli refugee camp, Bangladesh, October 4, 2017. The United Nations’ humanitarian office said Thursday that the number of Rohingya Muslims fleeing to Bangladesh since Aug. 25 has topped 500,000. © Suvra Kanti Das
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- Rohingya boys, who crossed over from Myanmar into Bangladesh, cry as their mother admitted in a makeshift hospital at Anjuman Para, Ukhiya, Bangladesh. © Suvra Kanti Das
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- Mohammad Alam, 27, shows the burns of his two years old child Ajij Khan at Potibinia refugee camp in Ukhiya, Bangladesh. Mohammad Alam said the burns resulted from Myanmar’s armed forces torched their house. © Suvra Kanti Das
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- Newly arrived Rohingya Muslim woman sits in the rain covering herself with an umbralla at a refugee camp in Ukhiya, Bangladesh, October 19, 2017. Thousands more Rohingya Muslims are fleeing large-scale violence and persecution in Myanmar and crossing into Bangladesh, where more than half a million others are already living in squalid and overcrowded camps, according to witnesses and a drone video shot by the U.N. office for refugees. © Suvra Kanti Das
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- Newly arrived Rohingya child takes his lunch at a refugee camp in Balukhali, Ukhiya, Bangladesh. © Suvra Kanti Das
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- Newly arrived Rohingya Muslim woman Anowara Begum, 30, carries her sick child to a makeshift hospital at Balukhali refugee camp, Ukhiya, Bangladesh. © Suvra Kanti Das
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- A Rohingya Muslim woman, left, who is 9 Months Pregnant, takes rest on her husband’s lap after being detained by Bangladeshi border guards while crossing the Naf River to enter Bangladesh, on the bank of Naf River, Shah Porir Deep, in Teknaf, Bangladesh. © Suvra Kanti Das
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- Arial view of Balukhali Rohingya camp in Ukhiya, Bangladesh. © Suvra Kanti Das
