A young Rohingya girl protecting her baby sister from rain. They’re at the Bangladesh border.

Words fail.

(tweeted by Md. sadik khan)

You know the abusive, violent, insulting crap Kashmiris & Muslims in India get from Hindutva nationalists? That stuff using hate language & ugly caricatures that used to show up a lot on my wall too? The stuff that’s similar to KKK, Zionist, & anti-Semitic vituperations? It’s coming from Burmese nationalists now & it’s all over social media. You read it & you think you’re in the ninth circle of hell.

This mother of five survived the massacre in Tulatoli, Arakan state but her husband & a son were both killed. She said she saw with her own eyes the dead bodies of about 300 small children & 200 young women about her age. She managed to escape with four of her children with the help of her brothers. As she made her escape she saw children hiding in paddy fields. The military caught them, put them flat & drove knives into their chests & stomachs, then threw their bodies in the river. She got separated from her brothers but she & her four children made their way to Bangladesh with villagers from a neighboring town. Now she faces the perils of an impoverished widow with orphans in a country where she has no rights.

Full story by documentary filmmaker Shafiur Rahman:

https://social.shorthand.com/shafiur/uyTyLld5K3/there-is-no-rohingya-left-in-tulatoli

(Photo by Shafiur Rahman)

PS Shafiur Rahman is trying to raise funds for a documentary about the Rohingya. He has been chronicling their struggle for a while & is playing an important role now in educating about the genocide. If you would like to contribute for the film, please contact him on Twitter at Shafiur Rahman @ Shafiur

Nurul Huq, this 65-year-old man said “There are no Rohingya left in Tulatoli. I saw the shooting of my son with my own eyes & the dead bodies of two of my daughters. Five other daughters of mine remain missing.”

He is one of many that who survived the massacre at Tulatoli, Arakan state, who documentary filmmaker Shafiur Rahman interviewed after they arrived in Bangladesh. Eyewitnesses claim that all the villagers of Tulatoli were put to death.

Full article by Shafiur Rahman:

https://social.shorthand.com/shafiur/uyTyLld5K3/there-is-no-rohingya-left-in-tulatoli

(Photo by Shafiur Rahman)

Someone has challenged me for writing about Kashmir: what could I possibly know? No one knows better than me how little I understand about any single country. Even my own. Politics, economics, history, culture & the interactions of all these are immensely complex & when you go to study them, immensely daunting. But since we’re all human, there are some big-time commonalities. Of the fundamental kind.

I try not to be glib or pretentious & I work very hard to get the story straight. I’m not talking mainly to Kashmiris who don’t need my analyses & don’t want my opinions. But I do want them to know their work is paying off & they are educating people like myself in the importance & justice of their struggle. Mostly, I’m trying to unravel the basics for human rights activists who will support the Kashmiri freedom struggle if they understand what’s going on & I’m trying to collaborate with Kashmiri activists in building active solidarity. After 50 years of working at it, building solidarity & opposition to war, occupation, & genocide is something I know plenty about. I’m from the school that says “an injury to one is an injury to all.” If you don’t like it, you can lump it.

Protests in Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Vienna, the Philippines, Canada, South Africa, Kashmir, the US in solidarity with the Rohingya. This photo is Afghanistan.