Not even a shirt to wear

Following renewed tensions on 25 August, entire villages from the Rohingya community in northern Myanmar started fleeing to neighbouring Bangladesh.

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas have since crossed the border into Bangladesh by foot and boat. Refugee camps are full and resources are stretched thin. Incoming refugees are staying in makeshift tents and urgently need shelter, food, safe drinking water, and medical care.

A month ago, Hassan, a father of eight, was living with his family in Mongdu, a town in northwest Myanmar. He managed a small grocery and clothing shop in town. Rumours of violence nearby had started to spread through the town, but it wasn’t until a gang of men stormed his town and killed a man in front of him that terror set in.

Hassan ran immediately to his children’s school to collect them and the family fled together into the nearby forest. For three days they watched in horror as their town was burned to the ground. When the attackers began to enter the forest, Hassan and his family fled again, this time for the Bangladesh border.