For two Rohingya families, crossing into Bangladesh ended a dangerous journey but began a life shaped by emergency shelter, humanitarian assistance and prolonged uncertainty.
By Ro Maung Shwe
When Hasina Begum and her family reached the Bangladesh side of the Naf River at around 7 p.m. in September 2017, they had already spent six days travelling through forests, hills and muddy paths. They had fled their home in Naingchaung Village in Maungdaw Township as military operations spread across northern Arakan.
On the Bangladeshi side, near Hansur Para, they found open agricultural land crowded with other Rohingya families. There was no shelter waiting for them, no electricity and no place to sleep except the ground.
“We survived,” Hasina recalled. “But that first night we had nothing except each other.”
Nearly nine years later, Hasina still lives with her family in Camp 2W of the Kutupalong refugee settlement. The details of that first night remain vivid: her children crying, exhausted families gathered in the darkness and adults staying awake because they did not yet know whether they had reached safety.
“We were not afraid like we had been in Myanmar,” she said. “But our hearts were broken.”
Hasina’s family was among the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya who entered Bangladesh during the 2017 military crackdown. Crossing the border protected them from the immediate violence, but it also marked their entry into a new existence governed by emergency assistance, registration procedures and camp regulations.
A Home Left Behind
Before their displacement, Hasina lived with her husband, Abu Taher, and their five children—three sons and two daughters—in Naingchaung. Abu Taher worked as a daily labourer and cultivated the family’s agricultural land, while Hasina managed the household and cared for the children.
Their bamboo-and-timber house had a corrugated metal roof and stood near the farmland that had sustained the family for years.
“Our ancestors had lived there for generations,” Hasina said. “That was our home.”
Hasina estimates that the family fled on 12 September 2017. She remembered hearing explosions as military operations intensified and learning that houses had been burned and people arrested in surrounding areas.
“The children became frightened whenever they heard the explosions,” she said. “We knew staying meant risking our lives.”
The family carried clothing, cash, jewellery, family photographs and several documents, including a household list, marriage papers and a National Verification Card. Almost everything else—the house, farmland, stored food and household possessions—was left behind.
For six days, they travelled mostly after dark to avoid military patrols. The small amount of dry food they carried was reserved for the children. The adults often went without eating, while the family collected water from ponds, tube wells and other sources along the route.
“The roads were full of people,” Hasina recalled. “There were elderly people who could barely walk, children crying and pregnant women struggling to continue.”
One of her sons injured his leg during the journey. Hasina also said that two relatives had been arrested before the family fled. Their fate remains unclear.
She remembered seeing the bodies of elderly refugees along the route.
“The situation was beyond words,” she said.
Across the Naf
After reaching Chilkhali on the Myanmar side, the family boarded a small wooden boat bound for Hansur Para in Bangladesh.
According to Hasina, boat operators were commonly demanding around 30,000 Myanmar kyat per passenger, although the amount varied. Boats designed to carry far fewer people were dangerously overloaded as families tried to cross the river.
“A boat built for ten people was carrying twenty,” she said.
Hasina also recalled seeing three boats capsize during the crossing. Rohingya Khobor could not independently verify the circumstances or casualties associated with those incidents.
Her family reached the Bangladeshi side together. They spent their first night sitting in an open field with other new arrivals. There were no mattresses, blankets or permanent shelters.
“We did not sleep,” Hasina said.
A group of religious volunteers brought drinking water, dry food and emergency cash assistance. Hasina remembered receiving 3,000 Bangladeshi taka, although she could not identify the organisation or group that provided it. Medical care was not available to the family that night.
Afterwards, they continued towards Kutupalong, where emergency shelters made from bamboo and plastic tarpaulins were being established for the rapidly growing refugee population. The family initially shared temporary accommodation with other displaced people. It offered some protection from the weather but little space or privacy.
Another Family, Another Emergency
Anamul Hasan’s first night in Bangladesh unfolded differently. While Hasina’s family slept in the open, Anamul’s family found a shared tarpaulin shelter. But rainwater entered through holes in its roof, and his seriously ill mother appeared to be fighting for her life.
Anamul, now 28, had been a Grade 10 student in Garatobil Village in Maungdaw Township. His household consisted of five family members, including his elderly mother, who had suffered from poor health before the journey.
The family fled on 4 September 2017 as military operations intensified across northern Arakan. They travelled on foot for three days, trying to help Anamul’s mother through the difficult terrain.
During the journey, she experienced a serious medical episode that the family described as a stroke. Without access to medical care, they had little choice but to continue towards the border.
“We had to keep moving because stopping meant greater danger,” Anamul said.
At the Naf River, the family first arranged a boat crossing for what Anamul recalled as 15,000 Myanmar kyat. He said the operators subsequently demanded more money, forcing the family to find another boat. They eventually paid 7,000 kyat per person to cross.
After entering Bangladesh, the family travelled to Balukhali, where local volunteers and members of the Bangladeshi public were assisting new arrivals. Anamul remembered receiving food, temporary accommodation and 3,000 Bangladeshi taka from people he believed had travelled from Dhaka to support refugees.
Their shelter, however, was poorly protected from the rain.
“Water was coming through the roof, and we were trying to protect the few belongings we had,” he said.
His mother’s condition made the night considerably more frightening.
“It was impossible to sleep,” Anamul recalled. “We were safe from the violence, but we were still fighting to survive.”
At first light, the family travelled to Kutupalong, where relatives who had arrived during the 1991–92 Rohingya displacement were living in the registered refugee camp. Those relatives provided temporary shelter and helped the family seek treatment.
According to Anamul, his mother was first taken to a health facility operated by BRAC and later received further treatment at a Médecins Sans Frontières facility. The arrival of large numbers of displaced people meant that many patients faced long queues for care.
From Emergency Assistance to Camp Life
Neither family entered a fully established reception system when they arrived. The speed and scale of the 2017 displacement initially overwhelmed existing humanitarian services. Assistance was provided through a mixture of local volunteers, Bangladeshi citizens, refugee networks, humanitarian organisations and government agencies.
Both families recalled receiving emergency food-assistance documents after their arrival. Before publication, Rohingya Khobor could not independently confirm the precise official name or issuing authority of the first cards they received. The families associated the documents with food distributions supported by the World Food Programme.
For Hasina’s family, more comprehensive documentation came later. In 2019, family members participated in the joint verification and registration exercise conducted by the Government of Bangladesh and UNHCR. Photographs and biometric information were collected, and individual identity documents were issued to eligible family members.
The registration process made access to assistance more systematic, but it also formally situated the family within the administrative structure of the camps.
The documents Hasina carried from Arakan nevertheless retained a different significance. Her household list, marriage document and family photographs were evidence of a life that existed before the camp. The registration documents received in Bangladesh served immediate practical purposes; the papers from Arakan connected the family to their former home and history.
“They are reminders that we had a home,” she said.
Anamul’s family also carried personal documents and a small amount of money from Myanmar. For him, those papers similarly represent continuity with the life that displacement interrupted.
Lives Reshaped by Displacement
In 2017, both families believed they would remain in Bangladesh only briefly.
“We thought we would go back soon,” Hasina said.
Nearly nine years later, her children have grown up in the camps. Her husband now operates a small informal business, while she continues to manage the household.
Anamul’s life has also taken a direction he could not have anticipated as a secondary-school student in Garatobil. He now works as a community health worker with Gonoshasthaya Kendra, helping other Rohingya refugees obtain health information and services.
The work connects his present life with the medical emergency his family faced during their first night in Bangladesh. Yet it does not resolve the larger uncertainty surrounding their future.
For both families, the Naf River crossing remains a dividing line. On one side were homes, farmland, relatives and lives built across generations. On the other was immediate physical safety, but also dependency on humanitarian assistance and an exile that has lasted far longer than they imagined.
Hasina remembers the first night not simply as the moment her family escaped violence, but as the moment they understood what they had lost.
Crossing into Bangladesh ended their flight from Arakan. It did not end their displacement.
