Rohingya boy who can’t swim

Nabi joined a group of 23 other young men, and his family came to see him off.

Nabi and the others strapped the cooking oil drums to their chests as floats, and stepped into the water just as the current started to shift toward Bangladesh. The men stayed in groups of three, tied together with ropes. Nabi was in the middle, because he was young and didn’t know how to swim.

Nabi remembers swallowing water, in part because of the waves and in part to quench his thirst. Just after sundown, the group reached Shah Porir Dwip, exhausted, hungry and dehydrated.

Nabi is now alone, one of an estimated 40,000 unaccompanied Rohingya Muslim children living in Bangladesh. He looks down as he speaks, just a few feet from the water, and murmurs his biggest wish: “I want my parents and peace.”