Finding a way to escape
Two thousand Rohingya mass on Myanmar coast to join exodus to Bangladesh.
TEKnaF: He trekked to Bangladesh as part of an exodus of a half million people from Myanmar, the largest refugee crisis to hit Asia in decades. But after climbing out of a boat on a creek, Mohamed Rafiq could go no further.
He collapsed onto a muddy spit of land cradling his wife in his lap – a limp figure so exhausted and so hungry she could no longer walk or even raise her wrists.
The couple had no food, no money, no idea what to do next. Their two traumatised children huddled close beside them, unsure what to make of the country they had arrived in just hours earlier, in the middle of the night.
Rafiq said their third child, an eight-month-old boy, had been left behind. Buddhist mobs in Myanmar burned the child to death, he said, after setting their village ablaze while security forces stood idly by – part of a systematic purge of ethnic Rohingya Muslims from Buddhist-majority Myanmar that the United Nations has condemned as “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing”.
Five weeks after the mass exodus began on Aug 25, the United Nations says the total number of arrivals in Bangladesh has now topped 501,000.
And still, they keep coming. “We don’t ever want to go back,” a stunned Rafiq said, describing his family’s ordeal as Bangladeshi volunteers stuffed a small wad of cash into his hand and gave their children biscuits.
Another man offered a bottle of water, and Rafiq poured some into his wife’s mouth as she lay in his arms, staring blankly at the sky.
“This is not our home. It is not our country,” Rafiq said.
“But at least, we feel safe here.” Not all those who have fled over the last few desperate weeks have survived.
The International Organisation for Migration said more than 60 refugees were confirmed dead or missing and presumed dead after one vessel capsized on rough seas in the area on Thursday.
The crisis began when a Rohingya insurgent group launched attacks with rifles and machetes on a series of security posts in Myanmar on Aug 25, prompting the military to launch a brutal round of “clearance operations” in response. Those fleeing have described indiscriminate attacks by security forces and Buddhist mobs, including monks, as well as killings and rapes.
On Friday, dramatic scenes played out over and over as hordes of Rohingya who had crossed into Bangladesh overnight tried to make their way further inland.
They trudged out of boats and through mud that in some places was knee-deep.
Men carried babies and old women on their backs. Everyone was exhausted.
“Some of these people haven’t eaten or slept in days. They’re so weak, they can’t even walk,” said Mohamed Ismail, a Bangladeshi volunteer who travelled here from the city of Chittagong.
“I’ve never seen anything like it. They have nothing. It’s painful to watch,” he said, turning away, overcome with emotion.
“Bangladesh is not rich, but we have to help.”
Karim Elguindi, who heads the UN World Food Program office in Cox’s Bazar, described the scene on Friday as “distressing”.
“There’s are more and more peo- ple coming and there’s not enough space in the existing camps” to accommodate them, said Elguindi, who was touring the area after hearing a new influx was underway.
For Rafiq, now that he and his family are in Bangladesh, a far more uncertain chapter of their lives has begun.
“We don’t know where we will go,” Rafiq said forlornly, as a long line of families trudged single file towards the town of Teknaf, where authorities were assessing the new arrivals and trucking them to camps further north.
“We have nothing. We don’t know what we will do.” — AP