Rohingya crisis though the eyes of Al Jazeera’s journalists

Next August will mark three years since more than 700,000 Rohingya fled Myanmar to escape what United Nations investigators called a “genocide” in Rakhine state.

In this award-winning video, Al Jazeera English journalists Mohammed Jamjoom, Stefanie Dekker, Showkat Shafi and Sorin Furcoi reflect on the stories they heard and the suffering they saw when they visited the camps in Bangladesh where the Rohingya sought shelter.

“It was pain and misery and trauma on a scale so large that it was almost unfathomable even for somebody who was seeing it right in front of their eyes,” Mohammed Jamjoom recalls.

The Rohingya, a majority-Muslim minority, are not recognised as an ethnic group in Myanmar, despite having lived there for generations. They have been denied citizenship and are rendered stateless.

Myanmar is facing allegations of genocide for the brutal military crackdown that began in August 2017.

Earlier this year, Myanmar was instructed by the UN’s highest court to take action to prevent genocidal violence against Rohingya citizens and to report back on its progress.

The UN has also called the Rohingya crisis a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”.

Refugees at the camp in Cox’s Bazar shared with us the stories of the dangerous and arduous journey they had to make in order to reach Bangladesh. The journey came after their villages were set on fire, the men killed and the women raped. 

Footage in the camps was shot by Shaon Sulayman and Fadi Benni.

Original reporting: Mohammed Jamjoom, Stefanie Dekker, Showkat Shafi and Sorin Furcoi.

Executive Producer: Ayse Alibeyoglu.

This report was produced and edited by Al Jazeera NewsFeed’s Katya Bohdan.

Correspondent interviews were filmed by Sorin Furcoi.