Latest News
‘Telling our own stories’: Rohingya lives, through a camera lens
Rohingya in Bangladesh’s vast refugee camps are documenting their lives through a camera lens – capturing snapshots of daily joys or growing hardships in a prolonged crisis.
Generations of Rohingya have fled persecution in their homeland of Myanmar’s Rakhine State, including the 2017 military crackdowns that pushed 700,000 people into the crowded camps in southern Bangladesh, and which Rohingya and rights groups say amounted to genocide.
After years of having their voices filtered through visiting journalists, Rohingya are using smartphone cameras and social media to tell their own stories from inside packed settlements now home to nearly one million people.
ALSO READ THIS: BANGLADESH AUTHORITIES DEMOLISH SCORES OF ROHINGYA SHOPS
“The world does not know what is really happening in the Rohingya camps,” said photographer Mainul Islam, whose family fled Myanmar shortly before his birth in 1994. “They know some bad things have happened, but the world does not understand our world after genocide.”
Outside Bangladesh, media coverage of the refugee crisis has faded over time, especially as coronavirus lockdowns made international travel and access to the camps harder. But Islam and dozens of other Rohingya photography enthusiasts have intervened.
Mostly using smartphone cameras, they have documented life in refugee camps during the pandemic, been the first to cover unfolding disasters like floods and fires, and shared cultural stories that shed light on Rohingya lives beyond their tragedies.
Donate Now
Recent Posts
