SITTWE, Burma — Abu Kassim clutched his stomach and heaved forward, replaying the moment his uncle was shot dead last summer, one of scores of people who were killed as sectarian violence engulfed western Burma.
Abu Kassim, 26, and his ethnic Rohingya family have since survived on handouts in a makeshift camp on the fringe of this coastal city, unable to return home or look for work beyond military checkpoints. “There are no opportunities here for us, no hope,” he said. “We are prisoners.”
Now, he is convinced that there is only one way out: to cross the Bay of Bengal by boat to join fellow Muslims in Malaysia.Abu Kassim is far from alone. Eight months after unrest between Burma’s Arakanese Buddhists and the Rohingya minority displaced tens of thousands from their homes, tension and despair are driving greater numbers of stateless Rohingyas to tempt fate on the open sea.