EXODUS / Rohingya in Bangladesh

Another genocide of our time, with many witness, but few concrete international actions to stop the violence. Rohingya’s exodus goes on, under the indifference of the rest of the world.

Rohingya are a Muslim minority living in north Rakhine region, a small state of Myanmar which lies along the border with Bangladesh. The darker skin and the different religion of Rohingya, in a Buddhist country, are used by military of Myanmar to justify their aims: but these are only part of what explains this forced displacement, larger than other earlier expulsions of Rohingya (in 1978 and 1991). Rohingya were denied citizenship of Myanmar by a law enacted by its military government, so reducing their status to that of a stateless group.They were denied the right to own land or property” and exposed them also to forced labour and routine violence, as rape and killings.

In Myanmar, the military have been grabbing vast stretches of land from small holders without compensation. Soldiers wants the complete control of entire country’s land for new forms of economies, mining, timber, geothermal energy. There is indeed a project with China, in Rakhine state, to develop a port and a large industrial zone.

The area where Rohingya refugees from Myanmar cross the border to enter in Bangladesh is the Cox’s Bazar district, one of the poorest and underdeveloped of the country.

Since october 2016, more than 850.000 people arrived in Bangladesh: just during the 17thOctober 2017, 15.000 Rohingya crossed border arriving at rice fields of Palangkhali. Exhausted, after ten days escaping between jungles and mountains with hot Sun or cold rainstorm, they waited their turn in the mud, under control of Bangladesh’s Army, to receive food and medicine on small tongues of sand in the ricefields. After few days they went to stay inside the huge refugee camps of Thangkhali and Balokhali.

Erberto Zaniis an italian freelance photographer, journalist and photo books designer, based in Basel – Switzerland since 2016.

After he spended several years as photographer for advertisement sector (1998-2004), he worked as journalist and photographer for the newspaper Gazzetta di Parma (2004-2007) and as editor in chief for some italian magazines.

Freelance since 2008, most of his works are now focused on documentary-humanitarian themes.

He works for companies, magazines and No Profit Organizations, for photographs and editorial projects.

Member of Italian Order of Journalistsince 2007, he cooperates also with REX Features Agency (2015 - until today).

+41786717129

+393291547624

erbertozani@gmail.com

[www.erbertozani.com](http://www.erbertozani.com/)