KUTUPALONG, Bangladesh (AP) — Mohamed is 6 years old, Rashida is 23, Lalu is 50. All are among the survivors who swam ashore at Bangladesh’s Inani Beach after a merciless wave capsized their wooden boat during a dark night in September in the Bay of Bengal.
They were Rohingya Muslims fleeing violence in their home in Myanmar and headed to Bangladesh. But the storm was fierce, the boatman got lost, the engine broke a few miles from shore. Originally there were 80 or so passengers; only 24 survived. Malika, Yasin, Fatima.
They are survivors, but cursed with pain. Their emotional anchors – mothers, brothers, daughters – are gone, swallowed by the sea.
The Rohingya have been called the most persecuted minority in the world by the United Nations.
Abdul, Noor, Anwar.
