After three days of hard walking, a starving elderly Rohingya refugee woman takes a drink after entering the border area between Myanmar and Bangladesh. She, along with other Rohingya refugees, fled from Myanmar’s Rakhine state on 25 August 2017. Since then, over 1,000,000 Rohingya have been forced from their homes by the Myanmar Army and police, who are violently cracking down on Rohingya, a stateless ethnic Muslim minority, within the country. More than 536,000 Rohingya are now refugees, having fled Myanmar to neighbouring states, primarily Bangladesh. Myanmar’s government, which does not recognize the Rohingya as citizens or as one of the country’s 135 ethnic groups, has been accused by the United Nations of significant human rights violations against the Rohingya, including mass killings, gang rapes, infanticide and forced deportation. The Myanmar government dismisses these accusations as “exaggerations.” The international community has widely condemned Myanmar’s leader, Nobel Laureate Aung Sang Suu Kyi, for her complicity and lack of action to stop the persecution of the Rohingya people.
K M Asad is a freelance photographer based in Bangladesh. He travels to remote places to capture people in the most abject conditions in hopes that his photography can make life better for others.