Meet Ismail and Ansarullah—Two Brothers
Ismail is 8, his brother Ansarullah, 7, two of Gani Meah and Julekha Begum’s three children. Suman is their daughter. They come from Mondru village in Merullah, Myanmar, a happy family of means.
On 27 August 2017, the Myanmar army enters the village at night. They slaughter Gani before his family’s eyes. Julekha hides the children in their grandmother’s home. The army comes. They sneak away beneath the army’s very watch, flee for days to the River Naf, the border of Bangladesh. It runs deep and strong.
Muslim riverboat men are there. They will carry them to safety. For money. The family has nothing but their clothes. The boatmen see Julekah’s gold necklace. They will ferry them for the necklace, her last possession in the world.
The family enters Bangladesh in the chaos of twenty thousand scrambling new refugees. A human deluge sweeps Suman and Ansarullah from their mother. They are lost.
In a miracle, she finds both four days later in the bamboo and plastic melee of Balukhali Camp 2 in Ukhia, Cox’s Bazaar.
They were happy last week, in plenty, festive with the promise of Eid. By Eid Day, they are orphan refugees in a bare mud camp, stilled beneath a tarp. They have lived little of life but beheld its savage enormity. To no future do their downcast eyes look.