Visible and Invisible Scars
Showife and Mohammadul, Rohingya brothers, survived terror and now struggle to move forward.
The memory keeps coming back. What they did to us, and the faces of my brothers. I don’t feel at peace.
“Showife! Come outside. We won’t do anything to you,” a military commander shouted as his soldiers surrounded the Hassan family compound.
The family had been eating breakfast when the military trucks pulled up.
“Showife, come out, we can see you! We won’t harm you!” yelled the commander. He had been harassing the family’s oldest son for months.
Showife made a decision that he believed would save his family. If they couldn’t find him, they would leave. With that thought, Showife secured the lock on the front door and ran upstairs.
By hiding, he was sure he would divert the men with guns who were after him. Instead, the soldiers barged inside the home. As a helpless Showife listened from the attic, they attacked his female relatives. They dragged his male family members outside, including his teenage brother Mohammadul.
Before the Violence
For Showife and Mohammadul, life was a daily search for freedom in a community that felt more and more under siege.
Both young men excelled in school before the authorities made it impossible for them to continue their studies. But the brothers persevered. Showife purchased a motorcycle that he turned into a taxi service. Mohammadul opened up a little shop, selling vegetables and gas. They lived at home with a large extended family. They attended mosque regularly and socialized with their friends from school.
But things kept getting worse. Before long, there was a 6 p.m. curfew, preventing attendance at evening prayers. Next, authorities shut down the mosques. At least several times a week, soldiers ordered Showife to hand over his motorcycle. They forced him to pay for the full tank of gas they would use.
“We could not make our livelihood or live our lives peacefully,” Showife said.
In June 2017, military trucks rolled into their village of Maung Nu. Soldiers confiscated kitchen knives and machetes. They even tore down wooden-fence posts that surrounded family homes for privacy. Even with the curfew, no lights could be turned on after 6 p.m., not even to cook a meal.
Later, the military returned. This time, the soldiers tied pieces of red cloth around several mango trees in front of Rohingya homes and near a mosque.
Showife’s mother watched from a window as a soldier tied the cloth around the tree in front of their home. “They’re eyeing this place,” she said. “I worry what they’ll do here.”
August 27, 2017
Nose pressed against dirt, his arms touching men to his right and to his left, Mohammadul could only guess at what was happening around him.
He heard an officer make a phone call. The officer paused, turned to the nearby soldiers and gave the order. “Get started!”
Soldiers dragged Mohammadul out of the compound. They forced him into a seated position with his two male relatives on either side. Before they could process what was happening, soldiers shot each man.
“We fell to the ground. My brothers dropped dead on the spot. I woke up from being unconscious, and opened my eyes to only meet with the eyes of a soldier who was watching. He came and shot me right in the chest once more.”
Mohammadul faded away again.
Foyas, 30, pictured here holding his daughter, was a relative of Mohammadul. He and another male relative were tied up next to Mohammadul and killed during the massacre of Maung Nu. Photo: Greg Constantine
Leaving a Loved One Behind
From the attic, Showife could hear screams and gunfire. He peeked through a hole in the wall and looked down on the street below. He recognized the arms and the legs of men and boys he knew now being hauled toward military trucks. A few were barely alive, but many were dead. Some had been decapitated. The soldiers counted “1, 2, 3...” as they heaved the bodies into the trucks. Overwhelmed, Showife passed out.
When he woke up he heard yelling outside the home, and someone was calling his name. “Showife!”
It was Mohammadul.
Mohammadul called out again, yelling and knocking on the door. “Showife!”
Showife found his younger brother on the ground. At first, he believed Mohammadul’s injuries must be minor. But a bloody shadow formed around Mohammadul’s broken body, and he began to scream. He was coughing up blood. Mohammadul’s screams rocked the walls even as Showife tried to calm him. Showife was terrified the yelling would alert the soldiers. Mohammadul only howled louder.
Unable to move him or get any medical attention, his family assumed he wouldn’t live much longer. They decided he couldn’t survive a trip to reach safety. They calmed him and tried to make him comfortable.
The next morning before dawn, Showife climbed over the furniture that barricaded the door, and fled towards Bangladesh. His surviving family members followed shortly after—and left Mohammadul behind.
The Aftermath
Showife made it to the river bank outside of Maung Nu. As he boarded a boat, he felt wrenched with guilt from leaving Mohammadul to die. He reunited with his mother across the river in another village.
Just as they started the trip toward Bangladesh, Showife’s mobile phone rang. It was a boat driver, saying his brother had just crawled to the river from Maung Nu. The driver brought Mohammadul across the river. Showife rushed over and saw men carrying him. He was still suffering but, miraculously, holding on.
Showife and his brother-in-law lifted Mohammadul onto their backs and began to walk. Fourteen days later, they arrived in Bangladesh and got Mohammadul to a hospital. He remained in treatment for nearly two months.
Today, Mohammadul’s body has healed, but everything else has changed.
“If I could just work,” he says, his voice trailing off.
Showife alone must now provide for his extended family. But it’s not his younger brother’s inability to work that haunts him. It’s the lasting impact on his mind. This has affected his personality. “He used to be so bright that he would remember exactly what you had told him a year earlier,” he says.
“The military had persecuted us for a long time, and we never had hard proof to show,”; Showife adds. “Mohammadul is now living proof of the beatings and murders they inflicted on us.”
Photos: Greg Constantine
TK: relatedContent