Rohingya voices: crisis, resilience, and hope

Ishrat Bibi, a 19-year-old photographer, lives in the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. In this photo she captures a quiet moment as a young Rohingya girl holds her brother. The girl looks out over the camp where she lives with her family as a refugee, thinking about where she has come from and what lies ahead, hoping for a better future. 

Ishrat began taking photographs in Myanmar after her brother gifted her a phone when she passed her matriculation. Photography is one of her passions, and she spends her days taking pictures of her surroundings, only stopping when her phone battery dies.

Ishrat is currently studying and is committed to ensuring other Rohingya children also get the chance to learn: “I have a number of goals in the long-run such as completing a master’s degree in Islamic studies, to be a good Poetess known around the world, and an excellent photographer. My biggest dream is to work on children’s education—I want to see every individual Rohingya child in school because in my community there are thousands of children who have no idea about their education."

Parmin Fatema, a writer, and poet, is originally from northern Rakhine in Myanmar. She now lives in the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh where she works as a volunteer for a humanitarian agency and attends the Asian University for Women. For her, the role of art is critical not only to her self-expression but also as a way to share the struggles and hopes of the broader Rohingya community in the camps. As she describes it: “I create art to share my feelings, my opinions, and experiences of my people, and to share what is happening to my community.” In regard to her winning essay, she states: “There are many Rohingya girls who have similar stories but cannot raise their voices. So, I did on behalf of them.

For Parmin, she sees equality and basic rights as critical to building a better future: “An individual should have the liberty to do anything that they want in their life without any discrimination and injustice. I hope for a future that will bring peace to my country. Every learner should have access to a proper education and have the freedom to pursue their own life.”

In this painting, 20-year-old Mayyu  Khan depicts a Rohingya woman and her baby as they flee the Myanmar military’s campaign of violence in August of 2017. Mayyu was born in northern Rakhine state and was among the 700,000 Rohingya who fled to Bangladesh four years ago. Like many living in the camps, he struggles to contend with the loss and trauma he has experienced. “I am a victim of many tortures and a member of the lost generation of Rohingya,” he says. “When I express my stories then they become poetry and when I sketch my stories then they become artwork. My situation has made me a poet and artist.”

You can read more about the events of August 2017 and how they link to longstanding patterns of violence and persecution of Rohingya in Myanmar in the UN’s Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar.

Twenty-eight-year-old Zia Hero Naing has become a well-known photographer in the Cox’s Bazar refugee camps, capturing powerful images of daily life and struggles in his community. In the past year, the camps have seen a sharp increase in fires. In the first six months of 2021, there were 100 separate incidents, compared to 82 fires in all of 2020. The single largest fire occurred on March 22 and left 45,000 refugees homeless as it rapidly destroyed bamboo shelters.

“Nowadays, fire incidents have become a normal fear for the Rohingya community,” says Zia. This photo captures members of the refugee community struggling to contain a blaze in July 2021. When disaster strikes, refugees are the front-line responders in the camps, as silhouetted in this photograph. Fires, flooding, and landslides are just some of the hazards Rohingya face living in the camps in Cox’s Bazar. The COVID-19 pandemic has come to represent another serious threat, particularly in the densely populated camps, where physical distancing is often impossible.

To see more of Zia’s photography, you can follow him on Twitter at @hero_zia.

Ro Anamul Hasan is a 24-year-old poet from Maungdaw, Rakhine State, in Myanmar. His writing examines his family’s as well as his own experiences amidst horrific violence in Myanmar, a place where his uncles were arbitrarily arrested and tortured and from where he was forced to flee. Rohingya in Myanmar face severe discrimination and after Ro Anamul passed his matriculation, he was barred from attending university because of his identity. He became a voracious reader and felt compelled to start writing poetry as a way to express his frustration at the injustices he and other Rohingya were experiencing. Once in Bangladesh, Ro Anamul had the chance to attend writing workshops and he has continued to hone his craft.

Through his poetry he sheds light on what it means to live as a “refugee”, highlighting the humanity and daily struggles that are so often masked by such a label. When asked why he writes, Ro Anamul responded: “poetry is like raising my voice to the world from my obscure world.”

Mohammed Zonaid is a 25-year-old photographer, videographer, and teacher living in the refugee camps of Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. He works at Omar’s Film School, a refugee-led initiative based in Kutupalong camp. The school’s mission is to promote health, hope, and heritage by training Rohingya youth in photography and videography.

This video features 17-year-old Raihan, a young artist living in the camps.

As described by Mohammed Zonaid: “We live in the world’s largest refugee settlement—among the one million Rohingyas there many different life stories. We want to bring out some of the courageous and inspiring stories of the Rohingya refugees to let the world know more about our community. Like Raihan, we each have talents.”

To see more about Omar’s Film School projects, follow them on Facebook or Twitter.

In this photograph, Abdullah captures the profile of one of his neighbors, a young Rohingya girl who is wearing ‘Thanakah’ on her cheeks, a paste made from ground bark. Thanaka has been used in Myanmar for an estimated 2,000 years and continues to be used to this day. It’s a tradition that’s visible across different ethnic groups in the country, including Rohingya, across cities and villages, and across different genders and ages. It helps keep skin cool and protected from the sun and many apply it using different patterns and designs.

Abdullah is a twenty-six-year-old Rohingya refugee, photographer, and poet living in the world’s largest refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. He states, “For me, a better future is living a life without fear in mind, having all the human rights, and being able to proudly say that I am a Rohingya. I hope to return to my home, to be free, and to see my community develop.”

In this photo, Abdullah captures another neighbor. “This Rohingya boy is playing with a balloon made from a plastic bag and delivering the cutest smile, proving that children should have space for happiness by playing.”

To see more of Abdullah’s photographs, you can follow him on Twitter at @Abdulla30424503.

Twenty-four-year-old folklorist Mohammed Rezuwan has lived in the Cox’s Bazar refugee camps since fleeing Myanmar in 2017. For the past two years, he has traveled throughout the community, speaking to refugees from across Arakan (also known as Rakhine State) in order to collect and preserve Rohingya language folk tales.

“Folktales are common among the Rohingya of Arakan. In particular, elderly people used to tell these folktales to children to teach them morals and lessons,” he says. “I have always been interested in studying and researching the culture of the Rohingya people, and in particular the folk stories that have been passed down for centuries. I have been unable to find them in any book that records them". Mohammed is working with Rohingya illustrator Mayyu Khan and editor Alex Ebsary to compile a book of these stories before they vanish from memory.

“We Rohingya people have our own culture, tradition, folk songs, folk tales, and folk music. Unfortunately, due to persecution, the written Rohingya language has been lost; as a result of the genocide against us, today we are on the brink of losing our rich cultural heritage as well.”

To read more Rohingya Folktales and pre-order the collection visit: https://rohingyafolktales.com/

In these photographs, nineteen-year-old poet and photographer Azimul Hasson captures scenes from a devastating fire in the Cox’s Bazar refugee camps. On March 22, flames ripped through the camp, destroying 11,000 shelters and leaving 45,000 people displaced. In the photograph entitled “Rooftops,” Azimul captures a shot of refugee men standing atop a bamboo and tarpaulin shelter watching the blaze, while in the second photo, entitled “Aftermath of the Fire” he shows the scene of devastation.

Art is essential to Azimul. “Writing poetry is my passion. It allows me to enter a world where I find no injustice, discrimination, or division of religion,” he says. “Photography is my dream. I work as a photographer for my Rohingya people. It is important because there are many things journalists miss—but I live in the camps and am myself a refugee, so I can capture the daily reality of my community. Through my photos, the world can be updated about the situation in the refugee camps.

Azimul Hasson is a Media Fellow with Fortify Rights. To see more of his compelling photography, you can follow him on Instagram at @azimulhass.

Rohingya people love football,” says MD Aiyas, who lives in one of the sprawling Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. He is passionate about football and has been fascinated with the Olympics ever since a teacher told him about the games when he was a schoolboy in Myanmar. “The Olympic Games are the best-known sporting event in the world. Refugees joined the Tokyo 2021 Refugee Olympic Team. They dream of joining football sports teams internationally one day.”

Football is played across the camps, with children often creating their own balls out of plastic bags and string. Despite the constraints, the talents and commitment of these young players are impossible to ignore.

MD Aiyas is a Community Outreach Member of ActionAid Bangladesh’s Community-Based Protection Project, which is carried out in partnership with UNHCR. The project provides art supplies and training in the Cox’s Bazar camps.

Umme Salma is an 18-year-old photographer living in the Cox’s Bazar refugee camps. In this photograph, she captures two neighbors through the window of their bamboo and tarpaulin shelter. The COVID-19 pandemic has further limited educational opportunities for the half-million Rohingya children living in the camps. Learning centers have been closed since March 2020.“I am a Rohingya girl who takes photographs,” Umme says. “Since childhood, I have wanted to be a professional journalist, but I can not due to lack of education and opportunity. My ambition is to help our community raise their voices to the world through storytelling and pictures.”