Fleeing Rakhine state into death’s cold embrace

As the gunfire from automatic rifles and whoop-whoop-whoop from helicopters overhead rose to a deafening cacophony of panic and dread, 17 members of the Rohingya community in Rakhine State fled for their lives. On the shores of Bay of Bengal, they boarded a boat, hoping to find a moment of reprieve in Bangladesh. Like a raindrop which loses itself when it falls upon the ground, the hopes of the refugees were obliterated, when the boat sank in its perilous voyage. Abdullah, a Rohingya man who fled to Bangladesh on Monday, was waiting for his wife and their two-year-old son to meet him. He had last heard from them on the night of August 29, when she told him they were boarding a boat to Bangladesh after paying MMK10,000 (Burmese currency equal to roughly Tk590). He waited for hours, and hours, as worry ate away at him. Abdullah inquired about incoming boats to every middleman who helped the Rohingya escape. [arve url="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AWFTtllxrT4" /] When he heard from a boatman that the bodies of Rohingyas had been found at sea, an invisible fist drove into his chest cavity. The boat had capsized near Shah Porir Dwip in Teknaf, roughly 100km from Cox’s Bazar. Early Wednesday morning, a Bangladeshi was performing her prayers in her house in Shah Porir Dwip. After her morning prayers, she walked out of the house, and found the dead bodies of a woman and a child. They were not the only one. 500 metres south, another mother lay dead with her son. Abdullah now lives with a pain that makes the bitterness of regret seem like honey. “I should have brought them with me when I crossed the border. The army burned down our villages and killed our people. My family fled in one direction, I ran in another direction. We remained in touch till they got on the boat.” When Abdullah examined the bodies, it did not assuage his heart to find that they were not his family. He said he knows his family is dead, because they were on that very boat which capsized. His wife and child remain missing, just like his hopes and dreams. This group of refugees are among 600 Rohingyas stranded at Shah Porir Dwip. The photo was taken on August 31, 2017 Adil Shakhawat/Dhaka TribuneThe bodies of the mother-son pairs remained on the beach, draped by black polythene sheets like shrouds. As the day grew, more and more onlookers gathered, muttering to each other: “God knows how much pain they had to go through.” A woman called Shamima was cradling her own child as she whispered: “Who can tell what a mother feels when she can’t save her baby.” Rohingya refugees identified the bodies and lamented that neither the Border Guard Bangladesh nor Teknaf police were assuming responsibility for the bodies and left them on the beach, till late Wednesday. BGB 2 Battalion Commanding Officer SM Ariful Islam said Teknaf police will dispose of the bodies, right after they make a decision. Boatman Mohammad Solim told the Dhaka Tribune that many of his fellow boatmen confirmed that a boat had sunk with more than a dozen on board.

Stranded

Over 600 Rohingyas, including 187 new arrivals this week, are stranded in Shah Porir Dwip. This includes three with gunshot wounds, mothers with newborns, the sickly and the diseased. About 100 refugees are taking shelter in a small local mosque where they survive on aid from locals who bring fresh water, dry food and basic medicine. Despite their poor state, they remain confined by the BGB. The interior of the mosque reeks of disease and death. The pungent malodour of infected wounds and sores assail the nostrils of any new visitors. The Rohingya lie on mats of palm leaves. There is no special treatment for mothers, infants or the wounded. The more aged members of the community sit in a corner and weep silently, horrified at their experience. Every one of these Rohingyas escaped from villages in Southern Maungdaw. All throughout Wednesday, they gazed out across the river at the smoke rising from their villages.