Rohingya Football Club refugee team seek to raise awareness of suffering through soccer
Each member of the 35-strong squad has a heartbreaking story to tell but their sporting goal is to compete in the Minorities World Cup
Mohammed Faruk wanted to meet in an area of Kuala Lumpur where locals rarely venture and where visitors are warned to stay away.
The 24-year-old insisted. He wanted to eat at the Myanmar restaurant near the Kota Raya complex, where thousands of migrant workers – some legal, some not so – gather every day for a variety of reasons – some legal, some not so.
Malaysians consider the place unsafe. But Faruk felt at home there. Indeed, he is safer in a Myanmar eatery in Kuala Lumpur than he would be almost 2,700 kilometres away in the actual country, where his fellow Rohingya are being persecuted by government forces and Myanmese who want to rid the land of people like him.
But Faruk is on a mission – to promote the cause of Rohingya people through soccer.
Faruk, who came to Malaysia as a refugee five years ago, is secretary of Kuala Lumpur-based Rohingya FC, who train regularly and have ambitions of playing in the ConIFA World Minorities Cup.
“But we haven’t trained in a while,” said Faruk. “With what’s happening in Rohang (Rahkine) state now, we don’t think it’s right that we should be playing football.