The Rohingya crisis seems never-ending. Even though last week Myanmar and Bangladesh reached a deal for the repatriation of 620,000 Rohingyas, many continue to flee to neighbouring countries to escape oppression and bloody violence. This has resulted in thousands of refugee camps, especially in Bangladesh, where families are living together on the bare minimum, away from all they know and had. They get their life in exchange, a sacrifice these people are ready to make.
Take twelve-year-old Nur Hafes, for instance. He lives in the Palong Khali refugee camp in southern Bangladesh and would rather be in school or playing football with friends at home in Myanmar. Instead, he has taken to finding a job to provide for his family of seven younger siblings and his mother.
Nur and his family are among the more than 600,000 Rohingyas who have fled to Bangladesh since August to escape a counter-insurgency operation by the Myanmar military after attacks on security posts by Rohingya militants. United Nations officials have described the military’s actions in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine state as “ethnic cleansing”, an accusation the Southeast Asian nation denies.
A day in Nur’s life, documented by Reuters’ photographer Adnan Abibi, throws light on the ongoing international humanitarian crisis at risk of fading away from the world’s immediate condition.
The family left their home in Tharay Kone Yoe Dan village in Rakhine’s Maungdaw township when the violence started. “The Myanmar army burnt the houses with the people inside,” said Nur’s mother, Rabia Khatun, 33, seen here washing utensils outside their shelter.
Rabia quickly gathered a few belongings – a blanket to protect her children from rain (seen here with her eight-month-old son Mohammed Zubair), identity papers and a couple of old photos – and the family fled to her parents’ village.
The next day, Nur’s mother Rabia Khatun says, the army showed up there, too. Her husband became upset and suddenly left. Rabia has not seen him since. Left with eight children, six of them younger than 10, she kept going. That evening, the family took a three-hour boat journey to Shah Porir Dwip, on the Bangladesh side of the Naf River.
Now the family relies on Nur for support. He was a huge help in Myanmar, reselling produce in their village market that his father had bought wholesale. Nur and his mother said they hope he can eventually do something similar in Bangladesh, although Nur also still talks about school and football.
With the whole family living in cramped quarters and his mother needing help to feed his siblings, the youngest two of whom suffer malnourishment, a normal child’s life is not in his immediate future. “I know he is young, but he understands his responsibilities. He doesn’t behave like a child any more,” Rabia said.
(With Inputs from Reuters)
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