The Unwanted: A Haunting Look at the Rohingya Who Escaped Ethnic Cleansing
HUMAN RIGHTS, 6 Nov 2017
Elizabeth Rubin and Paula Bronstein – The Intercept
Photo: Paula Bronstein/Getty Images
29 Oct 2017 – Stranded, stateless, unwanted, they are citizens of no country. Myanmar and Bangladesh toss their fate back and forth, even as Myanmar’s army makes one thing clear to every Rohingya they aren’t raping, murdering, burning, or shooting: “Get out and don’t come back.” So they flee from their villages until they reach the border of Rakhine state, their ostensible home in Myanmar.
When they can, they board boats to escape, some are so rickety they capsize, and many can’t swim across the river. Drowned children and young women wash up on the shores of Bangladesh. Sometimes an entire family is gone to the sea. You can see the nighttime devastation of families gathering their dead, washing their bodies, wrapping them in shrouds for burial, here in Paula Bronstein’s photographs.
This article includes graphic images that some readers may find disturbing.
Rohingya wait in line for hours as an emergency food distribution is organized by the World Food Program and Save the Children. Rice, lentils, sugar, salt, and oil are given out, Oct. 7, Kutupalong, Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.
Photo: Paula Bronstein/Getty Images
Madia Khatun, a relative, grieves next to the bodies of five children, after an overcrowded boat carrying Rohingya fleeing Myanmar capsized overnight, killing about 12 people, Oct. 9, on Shah Porir Dwip Island, Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Photo: Paula Bronstein/Getty Images
A man hits anxious Rohingya children with a cane during a humanitarian aid distribution while monsoon rains continue to batter the area causing more difficulties, Oct. 7, Thainkhali camp, Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.
Photo: Paula Bronstein/Getty Images
Most of the Rohingya amass in villages near Bangladesh waiting for the mysterious crossings. Photographers, fixers, aid agencies get whispers: the crossing is coming. Then suddenly, in the pre-dawn light, tens of thousands of Rohingya are on the move, wading through green, sodden, rice paddies, belongings cabbaged on the head, babies in arms, wounded on shoulders. “The faucet is turned on and then suddenly turned off,” says Bronstein, who photographed two of these monumental migrations, October 9 and October 16. Is there coordination between the Myanmar and Bangladeshi authorities? Is it a temporary solution? A permanent ethnic cleansing? Coordinated cleansing?
Women are seen behind a mosquito net on Sept. 29 in Kutupalong refugee camp, Bangladesh.
Photo: Paula Bronstein/Getty Images
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