Photo by Ro Arfat Kahn
In Bangladesh Rohingya refugees live in shelters intended to be temporary homes. But the shelters are not safe places to live. They are certainly not the comfortable homes so many of us in the western world enjoy.
In the words of RB Hafizu: “As Rohingya refugees, we survive with limited resources year-round—but when the rains arrive, our struggle deepens. Our shelters—made of bamboo and tarpaulin—cannot withstand strong winds or heavy rainfall. Flooding, landslides, and waterlogging become daily threats. Some families lose everything overnight. Others live in fear, watching their walls sag, their roofs drip, wondering if this will be the night everything falls apart.”
In the hot summer, the plastic and tarpaulin walls make the shelters very hot inside. Refugees have no fan or cool place to rest, and the heat makes life even harder for them every day.
They had found refuge, but in 2017 they had not planned for the camps to become a permanent home. They did not expect to be living there eight years later. They want to go back home to Myanmar.
They cried out to the world, telling their stories through photographs and writings. But the world did not hear them.
marja
Leave a Reply