Rohingya Community: The Tragic Story of Sobika

I met Sobika, a young Rohingya lady aged 21. She witnessed a horrific incident in her life during her long, struggling journey to safety in Bangladesh. She lost almost everything in her life during the gruesome exodus.

“I was living peacefully in Myanmar with my family. I have had my husband, father, mother, brother and my relatives in Myanmar. Suddenly the military entered into our village and started shooting at us. Everyone was running in different directions. I was running holding my only son and my husband was running near me but the military caught him,” Sobika was explaining how they were fleeing Myanmar. “I tried to stop and be with my husband but my father holds my hand and kept running,” she added.

Sobika started weeping and kept saying, “After some time the military snatched my father away and shot him in front of me. I was obfuscated and couldn’t think what I should do. I took shelter into a jungle with the help of another family who was fleeing like us. Later, I came to know that the military had killed my husband, mother, and brother.”

“I’ve lost everyone, how could I live only with my son! How could I feed him, how could I educate him,” Sobika fell into tears. That was really a brutal episode in her life which is hard to imagine if we don’t witness it.

I tried to know more about her situation and she started explaining, “I’m passing through hardship. I have no money, no job with which I can earn and take care of my son properly. I’m just depending on the ration which isn’t sufficient for me. Sometimes, it becomes challenging for me to arrange three meals a day.”

The sensual eyes and soft look of her child allure everyone. “Just take a look, this is how I’m arranging clothes for my only son,” she burst into tears showing me her child. She made a shirt and a short pant for her child by cutting a towel which was a tearjerker.

“I’m drowning into despair by thinking how I can protect my son from the cold during this winter as I don’t have any warm clothes even a blanket,” she said having a deep frustration in her eyes.

Sobika doesn’t know how she will be coping through this destitution, what will be the future of her child. What I can see in her eyes is an intense apprehension and it might be something she is always recalling what she has had in her early life in Myanmar.