By: RO Maung Shwe
Unchiprang Refugee Camp, Teknaf, Bangladesh – When night fell on Kyet Yoe Pyin village in northern Maungdaw, Rakhine State, in 2017, 12-year-old Mohammed Aros Kamal packed nothing. He didn’t take his schoolbooks. He didn’t carry any toys. All he took was the memory of a home now gone—consumed by fire, fear, and a brutal military campaign that drove nearly a million Rohingya from their ancestral land.
Today, Aros is 20. He lives in Unchiprang Camp-22, one of the most overcrowded and under-resourced refugee settlements in the world. He is a student, teacher, artist, and essayist, driven by a singular hope: to help his community rise from the ashes.
A Dream Interrupted
Before the violence, Aros was a fifth grader at a modest school in Maungdaw Township. His parents dreamed of seeing him become a doctor. “They hoped I would help our village, treat people, serve the community,” Aros says, his voice steady but distant.
But that future burned alongside his village.
In August 2017, the Myanmar military launched a genocidal campaign against the Rohingya population. Entire villages were torched. Families were slaughtered. Aros remembers that night vividly:
“We fled with nothing. My family lost relatives. My childhood disappeared.”
The journey to Bangladesh was a gauntlet of fear. For days, Aros and his family walked through forests and hills. They traveled only at night, hiding during daylight. There was no food. No medicine. Some of the elderly in their group collapsed. Children cried for water.
Reaching the Naf River, they found no boats. “Some helped us, others demanded money we didn’t have,” he recalls. “People drowned. We saw bodies. The water was dark and full of fear.”
Eventually, his family crossed. Cold, hungry, exhausted—they were received by kind strangers on the Bangladeshi side, who gave them food, clothes, and shelter.
A New Life Under Plastic and Bamboo
Their first home in Bangladesh was a shelter of tarpaulin and bamboo, no bigger than a small room. But in that space, Aros found something rare: safety.
“We were grateful,” he says. “For the first time in months, we weren’t running.”
He was later registered and relocated to Camp 22 in Unchiprang, where he lives to this day. The camp remains overcrowded, often underserved, and isolated. But amid the hardship, Aros rediscovered his purpose.
Today, he studies in Grade 12 at a community-led high school, built and run by fellow Rohingya refugees with limited resources and boundless resolve.
To support his education and his family, Aros also teaches Burmese under an education project with BRAC, one of the few NGOs operating in the camp.
Teaching by Day, Painting by Night
Aros doesn’t just teach grammar or vocabulary—he teaches identity, dignity, and hope. But when the classes end and the room empties, he returns to another passion: art.
“My brush is my second voice,” he says. “Through painting, I express what my people feel—the sadness, the longing, the endurance.”
He has participated in multiple essay and art competitions and received widespread recognition:
- On World Teachers’ Day, October 5, 2023, he won 1st Runner-Up in an essay competition organized by UNICEF, RRRC, BRAC, and UNHCR.
- In 2024, on World Refugee Day, he clinched 1st Place in an art competition jointly organized by UNHCR and BRAC.
- Most recently, he placed Second Runner-Up in the UNHCR World Refugee Day 2024 essay contest, themed “My Neighbor, My Friend.” The award ceremony brought him face to face with the Secretary of the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief, the RRRC, the ISCG Coordinator, and country heads from UNHCR and IOM.
“To be seen, to be heard, even briefly—it reminded me that we exist,” he says. “That we matter.”
A Voice for His Community
Aros is not an isolated case. He is one among thousands of Rohingya youth born into statelessness, raised in displacement, and denied their future. But unlike many, he has found a way to speak—and he uses every platform he can to do so.
Through his essays, Aros writes not just of loss, but of hope. Of a longing for books, classrooms, and freedom. Through his art, he paints not just sorrow, but beauty.
“Inshallah, I will continue,” he says. “Each word, each brushstroke is part of our collective memory. The world must know what we’ve endured, and how we keep surviving.”
What Comes Next
There is no clear pathway forward for youth like Aros. He has no passport. No state. No guaranteed future. And yet, he dreams.
“If I can’t be a doctor, maybe I’ll build a school. If I can’t go abroad, I’ll write from here. If I remain stateless, I will still create.”
He belongs to a generation shaped by exile but refusing to be defined by it.
In a world where the word “Rohingya” often evokes pity or politics, Aros Kamal offers something else: pride, the kind that blooms quietly in refugee camps, nurtured by resilience, creativity, and the fierce belief that education and art can still change the world.
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