November 20, 2019
He never went to school
4, 2017, photo, newly arrived Rohingya Muslims with yellow plastic drums they
used to aid flotation while crossing the Naf river wait in Shah Porir Dwip to be
transferred to a refugee camp in Cox&Wholesale
automatic blowing machine39;s Bazar, Bangladesh.Nabi is now alone, one of an
estimated 40,000 unaccompanied Rohingya Muslim children living in Bangladesh.
The water was salty. He doesn’t smile and rarely maintains eye contact. In just
a week, more than three dozen boys and young men used cooking oil drums like
life rafts to swim across the mouth of the Naf River and wash up ashore in Shah
Porir Dwip, a fishing town and cattle trade spot."Please keep me in your
prayers,†he told his mother, while everyone around him wept.
I thought it was
going to be my last day.In this Nov.In just a week, more than three dozen boys
and young men used cooking oil drums like life rafts to swim across the mouth of
the Naf River . He looks down as he speaks, just a few feet from the water, and
murmurs his biggest wish:"I want my parents and peace. (Photo: AP)Just after
sundown, the group reached Shah Porir Dwip, exhausted, hungry and dehydrated.
One of his older brothers had left for Bangladesh two months ago, and they had
no idea what had happened to him. Nabi was in the middle, because he was young
and didn’t know how to swim. They arrived at the same time as a pack of cattle —
except that the cows came by boat.Eventually, though, they agreed, on the
condition that he not go alone.
So on the afternoon of Nov. It was another group
of Rohingya swimming to Bangladesh with yellow drums.Nabi and the others
strapped the cooking oil drums to their chests as floats, and stepped into the
water just as the current started to shift toward Bangladesh.The 13-year-old
Rohingya boy couldn’t swim, and had never even seen the sea before fleeing his
village in Myanmar. 4, 2017, photo, Rohingya Muslim Nabi Hussain, 13, poses for
a portrait with the yellow plastic drum he used as a flotation device while
crossing the Naf river in Shar Porir Dwip, south Cox's Bazar,
Bangladesh.Rohingya Muslims escaping the violence in their homeland of Myanmar
are now so desperate that some are trying to swim to safety in neighbouring
Bangladesh."We had a lot of suffering, so we thought drowning in the water was
a better option,†said Kamal Hussain, 18, who also swam to Bangladesh with an
oil drum.
But he clung to the empty drum and struggled across the water with it
for about 2.In this Nov. 4, 2017, photo, Rohingya Muslims carrying yellow
plastic drums they used as flotation devices walk down the Shah Porir Dwip dock
after reaching Bangladesh. But he never looked behind him. (Photo: AP)The
trouble started two months ago when Rohingya insurgents attacked Myanmar
security forces. 3, Nabi joined a group of 23 other young men, and his family
came to see him off.â€Late afternoon on the next day, authorities spotted a few
dots in the middle of the water.â€In this Nov.
He never went to school.5 miles,
all the way to Bangladesh.Nabi knows almost no one in this new country, and his
parents back in Myanmar don’t know that he is alive. Just since August, after
their homes were torched by Buddhist mobs and soldiers, more than 600,000
Rohingya have risked the trip to Bangladesh. The government denies them basic
rights, and the United Nations has called them the most persecuted minority in
the world. The last Nabi saw of his village, all the homes were on fire.Nabi’s
family fled, heading toward the coast, passing dead bodies.Nabi grew up in the
mountains of Myanmar, the fourth of nine children of a farmer who grows paan,
the betel leaf used as chewing tobacco. The men stayed in groups of three, tied
together with ropes. His legs ached. They knew the strong currents could carry
Nabi into the ocean.His parents didn’t want him to go. But when they arrived at
the coast with a flood of other Rohingya refugees, they had no money for a boat
and a smuggler. In this Nov.Every day, there was less food. So after four days,
Nabi told his parents he wanted to swim the delta to reach the thin line of land
he could see in the distance — Shah Porir Dwip."I was so scared of dying,†said
Nabi, a lanky boy in a striped polo shirt and checkered dhoti. The Myanmar
military responded with a brutal crackdown, killing men, raping women and
burning homes and property. (Photo: AP)Although Rohingya Muslims have lived in
Myanmar for decades, the country’s Buddhist majority still sees them as invaders
from Bangladesh.
Shah Porir Dwip: Nabi Hussain owes his life to a
yellow plastic oil drum. 4, 2017, photo, Rohingya Muslim Abdul Karim, 19, uses a
yellow plastic drum as a floatation device as he swims the Naf river while
crossing the Myanmar-Bangladesh border in Shah Porir Dwip, Bangladesh..Nabi
remembers swallowing water, in part because of the waves and in part to quench
his thirst
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