The Washinton Post
Story by Rebecca Tan
Photos by Turjoy Chowdhury for The Washington Post
April 7 2023
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Bordering the Bay of Bengal, Teknaf’s shoreline is littered with fishing boats, called “moon boats” because of their crescent shaped arches, dilapidated tarpaulin shacks and unfinished mud houses. .png)
In the daytime, these structures serve as resting points for fishermen or as storage for crates of shrimp and hilsa herrings. .png)
But at night, locals said, the structures become holding stations for Rohingya seeking passage out of Bangladesh.
The dalal was tall, Baher remembered, with a long beard half-covered by a face mask. When he came by the mud house, Baher told him what she’d conveyed over the phone: She didn’t have any money but she’d heard there were Rohingya men in Indonesia looking for wives, and she was sure one of them would marry one of her daughters. These future sons-in-law, she told the man, would pay for their journey. The man said all right.
But when he returned a few hours later, he said there’d been a change of plans. Baher had to pay 300,000 Bangladeshi taka, or about $2,804, right away. She couldn’t leave, he said, until she figured out a way to pay it.
The man left again. Baher waited, pacing the room. Then when it got quiet, she put her son on her hip and told her daughters to stay close. Looking at the trees shaking in the distance, she said, they ran.
LEFT: Nurul Hashim is a Rohingya refugee who works with aid groups to combat human trafficking. RIGHT: Many of those who leave know the journeys are risky, Hashim said.
Story by Rebecca Tan
Photos by Turjoy Chowdhury for The Washington Post
April 7 2023
COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh
As smugglers ordered the refugees onto a boat waiting in shallow water, Gul Baher handed her young son to a stranger while she waded toward the vessel and tried to clamber aboard. But before she did, the 6-year-old slipped out of the stranger’s arms into the sea, the boy’s family later recounted.
Baher, veiled in a black burqa, thrashed back toward him through chest-high water. In the darkness, someone pulled the boy’s frame out of the water. He was alive. But he wasn’t moving.
As smugglers ordered the refugees onto a boat waiting in shallow water, Gul Baher handed her young son to a stranger while she waded toward the vessel and tried to clamber aboard. But before she did, the 6-year-old slipped out of the stranger’s arms into the sea, the boy’s family later recounted.
Baher, veiled in a black burqa, thrashed back toward him through chest-high water. In the darkness, someone pulled the boy’s frame out of the water. He was alive. But he wasn’t moving.
Ever more Rohingya refugees are taking to the sea to escape their sprawling encampment in southeastern Bangladesh. Originally from Myanmar’s western Rakhine state, they had fled their homes in waves since the 1970s, most recently in 2017, when the Myanmar military conducted a campaign of ethnic cleansing that drove 700,000 of them into Bangladesh. Faced with worsening conditions there and the dwindling possibility of being repatriated to Myanmar, more than 3,500 Rohingya attempted often-perilous sea journeys in 2022, according to the United Nations — a fivefold increase from the year before, and the highest since 2017.
Southeast Asia
Rohingya refugees are embarking on perilous sea journeys from Bangladesh to Malaysia and Indonesia.
Some made it to family members in other parts of Southeast Asia. At least 348 died or went missing en route, according to the United Nations. Most, advocates say, disappeared into trafficking rings, forced marriages or detention centers, untraceable by aid groups and unreachable by the relatives they left behind.
Many of those who leave know the journeys are risky, said Nurul Hashim, 40, a Rohingya refugee who has been working with aid groups to combat human trafficking. But at some point, he said, they ask themselves a question that frankly, he doesn’t know how to answer: “Why wouldn’t I take a risk for my future? For the future of my children?” A disproportionate number of the refugees going on boats, Hashim noted, are mothers with their children
LEFT: Gul Baher came to Bangladesh in the early 1990s, part of an early wave of Rohingya refugees fleeing Myanmar’s persecution. RIGHT: Baher holds her son, Saiful Islam.
The departures have created a potentially explosive security problem for Southeast Asia, which has thus far been comfortable letting Bangladesh shoulder the bulk of the responsibility for the Rohingya. When refugee boats broke down last year in the middle of the Andaman Sea, neighboring countries ignored their pleas for help. And yet, Rohingya are finding their way onto their shores. At least seven boats arrived in Indonesia between November and March, U.N. agencies said, including as recently as late last month, when a boat of 180 Rohingya landed in the country’s eastern Aceh province.
Bangladeshi authorities say they’ve arrested traffickers and ramped up coast guard patrols. But the country cannot deal with the issue alone. “Whether governments like it or not, the Rohingya issue is a regional problem,” Shahriar Alam, Bangladesh’s state minister for foreign affairs, said from the capital Dhaka.
Aid workers, law enforcement officers and more than a dozen refugees whose relatives recently left on boats or who have tried themselves to leave described in interviews a thriving regional network of smugglers, called “dalals” in Bengali, who have capitalized on the desperation of the Rohingya. They promise good jobs and rich spouses, preying on women like Baher whose lives are especially constricted in the deeply conservative Rohingya community.
“It’s only natural,” said a portly Bangladeshi man who was described by those who know him as head of one of the largest smuggling operations in Cox’s Bazar. “When more people want to go,” he continued, “more people will want to take them.”
Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh
Cox's Bazar, which borders Myanmar's western Rakhine state, is home to nearly a million Rohingya refugees
Southeast Asia
Rohingya refugees are embarking on perilous sea journeys from Bangladesh to Malaysia and Indonesia.
Some made it to family members in other parts of Southeast Asia. At least 348 died or went missing en route, according to the United Nations. Most, advocates say, disappeared into trafficking rings, forced marriages or detention centers, untraceable by aid groups and unreachable by the relatives they left behind.
Many of those who leave know the journeys are risky, said Nurul Hashim, 40, a Rohingya refugee who has been working with aid groups to combat human trafficking. But at some point, he said, they ask themselves a question that frankly, he doesn’t know how to answer: “Why wouldn’t I take a risk for my future? For the future of my children?” A disproportionate number of the refugees going on boats, Hashim noted, are mothers with their children
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The departures have created a potentially explosive security problem for Southeast Asia, which has thus far been comfortable letting Bangladesh shoulder the bulk of the responsibility for the Rohingya. When refugee boats broke down last year in the middle of the Andaman Sea, neighboring countries ignored their pleas for help. And yet, Rohingya are finding their way onto their shores. At least seven boats arrived in Indonesia between November and March, U.N. agencies said, including as recently as late last month, when a boat of 180 Rohingya landed in the country’s eastern Aceh province.
Bangladeshi authorities say they’ve arrested traffickers and ramped up coast guard patrols. But the country cannot deal with the issue alone. “Whether governments like it or not, the Rohingya issue is a regional problem,” Shahriar Alam, Bangladesh’s state minister for foreign affairs, said from the capital Dhaka.
Aid workers, law enforcement officers and more than a dozen refugees whose relatives recently left on boats or who have tried themselves to leave described in interviews a thriving regional network of smugglers, called “dalals” in Bengali, who have capitalized on the desperation of the Rohingya. They promise good jobs and rich spouses, preying on women like Baher whose lives are especially constricted in the deeply conservative Rohingya community.
“It’s only natural,” said a portly Bangladeshi man who was described by those who know him as head of one of the largest smuggling operations in Cox’s Bazar. “When more people want to go,” he continued, “more people will want to take them.”
Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh
Cox's Bazar, which borders Myanmar's western Rakhine state, is home to nearly a million Rohingya refugees
THE WASHINGTON POST
A mother’s decision
Even before her son, Saiful Islam, slipped into the water, Baher said she knew it was dangerous to leave. She’d tried once before — and barely survived.
She had come to Bangladesh in the early 1990s, part of an early wave of Rohingya refugees fleeing Myanmar’s persecution. Life had never been easy, Baher said. But it became unbearable two years ago, when her husband, Mohammad Ilyas, left to find work outside the camps and never returned.
Without Ilyas’s income to supplement food rations, her children went hungry, Baher said. People started whispering about her two teenage daughters, who looked more each day like they should be married. Baher didn’t know how she was supposed to afford the dowries.
The breaking point, she said, came one night last summer, when members of Bangladesh’s Armed Police Battalion (APBn), the police force in the camps, smashed open the zinc door to her shelter in search of criminals who had disappeared into a nearby alleyway. As the men in uniform hit Baher, her neighbors recounted, they kept asking: “Where is the man of the house?” (The agency denied that it has hurt refugees while searching for suspects.)
[The Rohingya fled genocide. Now, violence stalks them as refugees.]
Several months later, when Baher got a call from Ilyas saying he’d gotten work on a fishing boat and ended up in Indonesia, she made a decision. They would leave.
In December, she found a dalal and told her children they were going to see their father. Packing them onto a motorized rickshaw, she followed the dalal’s instructions to a noisy bus station in Teknaf, a city one hour outside the camps, and then to an empty house made of mud. It was dark when they arrived, but she could hear the waves, Baher said, so she knew they were near the sea.
Even before her son, Saiful Islam, slipped into the water, Baher said she knew it was dangerous to leave. She’d tried once before — and barely survived.
She had come to Bangladesh in the early 1990s, part of an early wave of Rohingya refugees fleeing Myanmar’s persecution. Life had never been easy, Baher said. But it became unbearable two years ago, when her husband, Mohammad Ilyas, left to find work outside the camps and never returned.
Without Ilyas’s income to supplement food rations, her children went hungry, Baher said. People started whispering about her two teenage daughters, who looked more each day like they should be married. Baher didn’t know how she was supposed to afford the dowries.
The breaking point, she said, came one night last summer, when members of Bangladesh’s Armed Police Battalion (APBn), the police force in the camps, smashed open the zinc door to her shelter in search of criminals who had disappeared into a nearby alleyway. As the men in uniform hit Baher, her neighbors recounted, they kept asking: “Where is the man of the house?” (The agency denied that it has hurt refugees while searching for suspects.)
[The Rohingya fled genocide. Now, violence stalks them as refugees.]
Several months later, when Baher got a call from Ilyas saying he’d gotten work on a fishing boat and ended up in Indonesia, she made a decision. They would leave.
In December, she found a dalal and told her children they were going to see their father. Packing them onto a motorized rickshaw, she followed the dalal’s instructions to a noisy bus station in Teknaf, a city one hour outside the camps, and then to an empty house made of mud. It was dark when they arrived, but she could hear the waves, Baher said, so she knew they were near the sea.
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But at night, locals said, the structures become holding stations for Rohingya seeking passage out of Bangladesh.The dalal was tall, Baher remembered, with a long beard half-covered by a face mask. When he came by the mud house, Baher told him what she’d conveyed over the phone: She didn’t have any money but she’d heard there were Rohingya men in Indonesia looking for wives, and she was sure one of them would marry one of her daughters. These future sons-in-law, she told the man, would pay for their journey. The man said all right.
But when he returned a few hours later, he said there’d been a change of plans. Baher had to pay 300,000 Bangladeshi taka, or about $2,804, right away. She couldn’t leave, he said, until she figured out a way to pay it.
The man left again. Baher waited, pacing the room. Then when it got quiet, she put her son on her hip and told her daughters to stay close. Looking at the trees shaking in the distance, she said, they ran.
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LEFT: Nurul Hashim is a Rohingya refugee who works with aid groups to combat human trafficking. RIGHT: Many of those who leave know the journeys are risky, Hashim said.
A thriving network
Many of the smuggling networks at Cox’s Bazar are run by local Bangladeshi gangs, though they employ Rohingya agents who know how to tap into the desperation mounting inside the camp, according to Jahed, the man described as an influential dalal.
Jahed had suggested meeting reporters at a local market, not far from a banner that showed him wishing congratulations to a politician recently released from prison. Chewing on a betel nut, his teeth stained blood red, the man insisted he was a boat owner, not a smuggler. What he knew about the industry, he added, was from observation. He spoke on the condition that his full name not be published out of concern over government measures against trafficking networks.
The Rohingya agents recruited to “push” in the camp are paid between $50 to $100 for every person they’re able to get on a boat, he said. The journeys cost between $4,000 to $5,000 per person, but agents often tell refugees they can pay a portion of the fee at the start and the rest when they arrive.
[Fire rips through Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh, displacing 12,000]
Once they have money in hand, some smugglers take the refugees out to sea for a few days, then drop them off at a different shore in Teknaf, or another island in Bangladesh, pretending it’s a new country. The “legitimate” ones, Jahed said, transport the refugees in retired fishing boats that are so packed that no one can move for the entire journey. Safety precautions don’t exist. Life vests, he noted, take up space.
Many of the smuggling networks at Cox’s Bazar are run by local Bangladeshi gangs, though they employ Rohingya agents who know how to tap into the desperation mounting inside the camp, according to Jahed, the man described as an influential dalal.
Jahed had suggested meeting reporters at a local market, not far from a banner that showed him wishing congratulations to a politician recently released from prison. Chewing on a betel nut, his teeth stained blood red, the man insisted he was a boat owner, not a smuggler. What he knew about the industry, he added, was from observation. He spoke on the condition that his full name not be published out of concern over government measures against trafficking networks.
The Rohingya agents recruited to “push” in the camp are paid between $50 to $100 for every person they’re able to get on a boat, he said. The journeys cost between $4,000 to $5,000 per person, but agents often tell refugees they can pay a portion of the fee at the start and the rest when they arrive.
[Fire rips through Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh, displacing 12,000]
Once they have money in hand, some smugglers take the refugees out to sea for a few days, then drop them off at a different shore in Teknaf, or another island in Bangladesh, pretending it’s a new country. The “legitimate” ones, Jahed said, transport the refugees in retired fishing boats that are so packed that no one can move for the entire journey. Safety precautions don’t exist. Life vests, he noted, take up space.
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After escaping the mud house, Baher had run with her children back to the Teknaf bus station, where she persuaded someone to help her get back to the camp.
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They were arranging another boat to Indonesia and this time, he promised, she could pay the entire fee on arrival.
Baher told the dalal yes — she wanted to go.
On this second attempt, in January, they made it into the water but not onto the boat, she recounted.
After Saiful Islam was pulled from the sea, a smuggler placed him on the beach and by the light of the moon shook him by his shoulders until he sputtered out saltwater. Baher cradled him, murmuring softly. The boat that was set to take them to a larger fishing trawler bound for Indonesia had left. But she didn’t care, she said.
Back at the camp’s hospital, when a doctor asked what had happened to Saiful Islam, Baher, worried about being investigated by camp authorities, said she didn’t know. He’d been vomiting, she told them. He needed medicine.
Baher didn’t leave. But in the weeks that she’d tried, hundreds of other Rohingya did. The Washington Post spoke to a half-dozen.
On this second attempt, in January, they made it into the water but not onto the boat, she recounted.
After Saiful Islam was pulled from the sea, a smuggler placed him on the beach and by the light of the moon shook him by his shoulders until he sputtered out saltwater. Baher cradled him, murmuring softly. The boat that was set to take them to a larger fishing trawler bound for Indonesia had left. But she didn’t care, she said.
Back at the camp’s hospital, when a doctor asked what had happened to Saiful Islam, Baher, worried about being investigated by camp authorities, said she didn’t know. He’d been vomiting, she told them. He needed medicine.
Baher didn’t leave. But in the weeks that she’d tried, hundreds of other Rohingya did. The Washington Post spoke to a half-dozen.
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LEFT: A father of five poses for a portrait in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. He left on a boat to Myanmar where he was arrested and detained. He still wants to find a way to leave the camps. RIGHT: A barbed wire fence around a Rohingya refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar.
A father of five, terrified of the Rohingya militant groups that have overtaken the camps at night, boarded a boat back to Myanmar, where he was arrested by the military. An 18-year-old, desperate for opportunity, squeezed onto a trawler that broke down in high waters, nearly losing his life to dehydration. A young mother, widowed by Myanmar soldiers in 2017, stole away to Teknaf in the middle of the night, taking one of her daughters and leaving the other, a timid 5-year-old, behind.
[Aid dwindles for Rohingya refugees as money goes to Ukraine, other crises]
A few weeks after Baher’s second attempt at leaving, she sat in her shelter, scratching at skin underneath her burqa. She’d caught scabies, which was running rampant through the camp, and had struggled to get rid of it because she’d traded most of her soap for food. Saiful Islam came running from the alleyway, collapsing into her arms. “Mama,” he said, breathless.
The night Saiful Islam fell into the sea still haunts her, Baher said. But her husband was still a sea away and her daughters, standing somberly in the doorway, were still unmarried. Underneath her veil, Baher’s face was round, her tired eyes lined with kohl. When she was a girl, she said, she couldn’t do anything for herself. But she was a woman now, and though she couldn’t work, she could make decisions for her family. She could change their lives.
The tall, bearded man hadn’t called since the last time, Baher added. But she expected he would.
Mohammad Faruque contributed to this report.
[Aid dwindles for Rohingya refugees as money goes to Ukraine, other crises]
A few weeks after Baher’s second attempt at leaving, she sat in her shelter, scratching at skin underneath her burqa. She’d caught scabies, which was running rampant through the camp, and had struggled to get rid of it because she’d traded most of her soap for food. Saiful Islam came running from the alleyway, collapsing into her arms. “Mama,” he said, breathless.
The night Saiful Islam fell into the sea still haunts her, Baher said. But her husband was still a sea away and her daughters, standing somberly in the doorway, were still unmarried. Underneath her veil, Baher’s face was round, her tired eyes lined with kohl. When she was a girl, she said, she couldn’t do anything for herself. But she was a woman now, and though she couldn’t work, she could make decisions for her family. She could change their lives.
The tall, bearded man hadn’t called since the last time, Baher added. But she expected he would.
Mohammad Faruque contributed to this report.
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Baher holds her son and poses for a portrait inside her shelter at a refugee camp in Cox's Bazar with her two daughters, Ismotara, 17, on left, and Jannatara, 15, on right.
About this story
Editing by Alan Sipress. Photo editing by Olivier Laurent. Design and development by Allison Mann. Design editing by Joe Moore
Story by Rebecca TanRebecca Tan is the Southeast Asia Bureau Chief for the Washington Post. She was previously a reporter on the Local desk, covering government in D.C. and Maryland. She was part of the team that won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in public service for coverage of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Twitter
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