Thursday, February 22, 2018

Story of Hosni Ara

Hosni Ara, a Rohingya Muslim woman from Burma, was running as fast as she could with her 5 children as the Burmese Army attacked her village in the Rakhine state of Burma in 2017. She was carrying two of her little children on her shoulders and was guiding the elder ones as much as she could. As you could imagine, she was falling behind in the process compared to the other villagers and that turned out to be fatal.

Image: Collected

She was captured by the Burmese Army along with her 5 children. The first thing that the Army did, created a huge fire. They snatched the two babies from Hosni Ara's lap and threw them in the fire. Stripped Hosni Ara naked and made her watch two of her babies screaming and burning to death, while one after the other Army officers were raping her. The eldest three children were forced to see their mother being raped.

She still hears the scream of her babies so much that she hardly cares about her rape. Even today when she tells you the story, her voice echoes the pain she felt and that pain in her voice is only comparable to multiple of labor pains.

This is not a rape scene from a B-grade movie rather it is a reality for many of the Rohingya women captured by the Burmese Army. I heard so many stories like these during my visit to Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh in February 2018. In the coming days, I want to share more of my experiences with the world. The world cannot turn a blind eye to what is happening to the Rohingyas.

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