No promised land: stateless Rohingya live in fear, amid appalling conditions in refugee camps
Up to 30,000 Rohingya have abandoned their homes in Myanmar since early October following crackdown in western Rakhine state
Alam’s short life ended on Saturday in a dark, tattered tent in Bangladesh, the Rohingya child’s skeletal body succumbing to illness contracted while fleeing Myanmar where his stateless people are under attack. He was six months old.
Alam died hours after arriving at makeshift refugee camp close to Teknaf, the gateway to Cox’s Bazar, a poor, densely populated coastal area already home to more than 230,000 Rohingya refugees.
But for the Rohingya, Bangladesh is far from a promised land.
So far little or no aid has been provided for the new arrivals, with Bangladeshi authorities fearing food, medicine and shelter will encourage more to cross the border.
With her child’s body by her side, Alam’s 22-year-old mother Nur Begum describes how a Myanmar army raid that killed her husband and two other children forced her to flee Rakhine State for Bangladesh.