Widow couldn't walk aloneĪmbia Khatun, a 60-year-old widow I met, struggles to walk. Soon, that number could rise into the hundreds of thousands. Over recent weeks, more than 1,100 homes have been damaged by sharp winds, affecting nearly 10,000 people. Now the tiny, sweltering dwellings they call home could be lashed by fierce rains and violent winds that are gathering in the form of the looming monsoon season and the annual threat of cyclones. They have survived the past few months on the most meagre rations. Nine months after fleeing one tragedy, they could be swept away by another. And yet, their existence here remains a precarious one. The thought of returning back to Myanmar remains a forbidding one, reviving traumatic memories of the injustices that forced them across the border. They turn to each other for support and solidarity. This is known as the 'camp of the widows'.Īmid a population of more than 800,000 people who have fled crimes against humanity committed by the Myanmar military - arson, rape, murder, torture and other horrors - these women are the most vulnerable people in these camps. They lost their husbands and, in many cases, their babies, too. Along the way, they each suffered a similar tragedy.
They fled different villages, making separate journeys.
