‘Everywhere they go, the Rohingya are exploited’

Bangladesh, Documents, Education, Help Refugees, Human Rights, Myanmar, Refugees Issues, Religious Rights

Kaamil Ahmed, a British journalist, has covered the Rohingya crisis for eight years.

Currently a reporter at The Guardian, he has made multiple trips to Bangladesh, where an overwhelming majority of the Rohingya reside in exile, to investigate and document the livelihoods of a people considered one of the world’s most persecuted.

Rendered stateless by Myanmar in 1982, the decades-long plight of the Rohingya came to the world’s attention in 2012, when deadly violence against the group broke out in Rakhine state of this Southeast Asian country – leading to a mass exodus.

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The largest flight of the Rohingya took place five years later, when the Myanmar army killed more than 6,000 people and forced some 700,000 to cross into Bangladesh.

According to witnesses and rights groups, the military burned and razed dozens of Rohingya villages and fired indiscriminately, killing women and children – events that saw the Myanmar government accused of carrying out genocide.

Ahmed’s book, I Feel No Peace: Rohingya Fleeing Over Seas and Rivers, is an in-depth exploration of the Rohingya in exile, their exploitation, quests for justice, and the apparent failures of world bodies such as the United Nations to protect them.