Rohingya women refugees from India

In the last four years, in an effort to “purify” the nation, these Buddhist supremacists have been committing rape, arson, murder and land confiscation on a massive scale. Till date an estimated 140,000 Rohingyas have been displaced from Myanmar. Some found second-class residency in Malaysia, Thailand Bangladesh, India living at a risk of another expulsion.
Different socio economic factors that have brought close to 36,000 Rohingyas Muslims to India. These are the stories of Rohingya women who continue to survive the complexities of the  sectarian divide in South Asia.

“Mumtaz Begum practices black magic. Else which kind of girl survive a dead family, a runaway husband and still paint her nails red,” warns Mehrunissa, a 60 year old woman from Kariyani pond camp of Rohingya settlement in Jammu, a north Indian district with a large Rohingya refugee settlement. 

“I know all about groundnuts, betelnut, coconut. We used to grow them in our farms back home. But walnut, I saw it for the first time only in India,” says Mariam Bibi, a sixteen year old worker as she pauses to think.

When Bilkis Jaan, 60, fled from her village, Bohmu Para in Maungdaw district, in June 2013, Ghona, her 12 year old, brown and black furred bitch cried to death.