Hearts and Homes in Western Myanmar

What would you take if you had to flee? In Rakhine state, western Myanmar, everyone I asked said the same thing: Family. Many saw their homes burnt down in the communal riots of June and October 2012. They were so surprised by the attacks that they herded everyone out without stopping to take a single thing.

Not everyone made it. I speak with a Rakhine teacher whose husband died in the violence in Maungdaw. She prays every day to find inner peace, but cannot face the past and has no plans to return.

A year later, many families are still feeling the fallout. I visit a Rohingya grandmother pining for her home and a daughter who went to Bangladesh for cancer treatment but is now unable to re-enter Myanmar. The old woman is left with two young grandchildren who trail her around the Sittwe camp. They live on food aid, and every day grandma walks for hours to collect manure that she uses as cooking fuel. The kids have been out of school for a year.

In a waterside village in Pauktaw, a displaced Kaman fisherman worries about his children’s education. Hailing them from the tent to meet the visitors, he is clearly very proud of his two girls and upset that they cannot attend the local school.

Every family has had to sacrifice something. In UNHCR, our shelter coordinator has not seen his wife and kids in months. He spends his days planning sites and building temporary shelters for displaced people. For a long time the kids had no idea what daddy did, except that he was gone a lot and always returned sunburnt and exhausted.

I deeply admire another colleague whose husband and children have joined her in the field. Despite her demanding workload, they try really hard to have a normal family life in this unusual setting.

There’s a local saying in Myanmar: “In time of test, family is best.” It’s been a rough year for the people of Rakhine state but they’ve managed with support from their kin.

Before I leave Sittwe, I go to a newly-completed camp for displaced people who until recently had lived in an overcrowded monastery for almost a year. A young father tells me he’s happy to have his own space again but admits: “I never thought we would end up in a camp.”

Still, he sucks it up and focuses on his new home. First he strings up a hammock for the baby. Then he and his wife weed, clean and unpack the few things they’ve acquired in the last year. Next door, a pop-up grocery store appears miraculously. Within an hour, everyone has settled in and is sitting around gossiping about the neighbours.

For the first time in a long time, this feels like a community again. It may not be a permanent home but surrounded by loved ones, it’ll do for now.

By Vivian Tan, UNHCR's senior regional public information officer in Asia, recently returned from Sittwe in western Myanmar, where up to 140,000 people remain displaced after last year's communal conflict.