Rohingyas face tough Ramadan in camps
COX’S BAZAR — The 12-year-old Rohingya refugee dreamed of Ramadan back in his own village — fish to end the day’s fast, gifts from his family and relaxing beneath the trees before evening prayers at the mosque.
But for MD Hashim and others like him living in squalor in Bangladesh, the start of the holy month now serves as a bitter reminder of everything they have lost since being driven from Myanmar in an army crackdown.
“Here, we can’t afford gifts and don’t have good food... because this is not our country,” Hashim told on a barren hillside in Cox’s Bazar district.
The United Nations has described the army purge against the persecuted minority as ethnic cleansing, and thousands of Rohingya Muslims were believed to have been slaughtered in the pogrom that began last August.
Nearly 700,000 Rohingya fled the violence for Bangladesh, where they squat in bamboo and tarpaulin shacks on dirt slopes.
While they acknowledge that they were lucky to escape, now, with food and money scarce and temperatures soaring, Ramadan looms as a source of anxiety for many Rohingya.
Sitting inside a plastic tent on a blazing day, Hashim fondly recalled the simple pleasures that made Ramadan the most exciting time of year in his village.
Each night, friends and family would end the fast together with fish and meat dishes cooked just once a year for the holy month. New clothes would be offered and sprinkled with traditional perfumes called “attar” to mark the holiday, he said. “We can’t do the same here, because we don’t have money. We don’t have our own land. We can’t earn money because we are not allowed,” Hashim said. The Rohingya are barred from working and more than two dozen military checkpoints restrict them from leaving what has grown into the world’s largest refugee camp.
They rely on charities for everything from food and medicine to clothing and housing materials.