Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh

Fatima, the Rohingya, tells her story

The rhythmic pitter-patter of the rain on the white tarpaulin roof is the only sound to be heard in the camp: no television, no music, no children laughing. The silence is in stark contrast to the noisy streets of Cox's Bazar, which we passed though on our way here.

The quiet is only interrupted by the sound of the muezzin's voice; his calls to prayer are broadcast over the hills and through the muddy valleys from silver-grey speakers hung from trees.

Camp 7 is located in the northeast section of Kutupalong, the world's largest refugee settlement. Officials estimate that up to 40,000 people live per square kilometre. Nobody knows the exact number of Rohingya people stranded in the coastal town on the border between Bangladesh and Myanmar, an area that was once jungle. Some reports say 1 million people live among the camps, but it could be 1.2 million or even more.

From a hilltop, you can survey the camps. Rows of huts stretch as far as the eye can see. Plastic tarps serve as roofs on structures made from bamboo; very few houses have tin roofs.

Ethnic cleansing and the aftermath

Rohingya have fled Myanmar since the 1970s. Within the space of a few months last year, more than 700,000 people from the Muslim minority fled to Bangladesh to escape the intensifying brutality and violence at home. Nobody knows how many people were murdered, but one thing is clear: it is one of the worst genocides in the recent history of South Asia.

At best makeshift: Fatima and Ali live in one of Kutupalong's illegal camps, which were built very quickly last year to accommodate the displaced people arriving in their hundreds of thousands. Although Fatima wants to return to Myanmar, the couple expect they will have no choice but to remain. Without valid documents, they are officially stateless and at the mercy of Bangladesh's government

Fatima is one of the survivors. She rubs her fingers over her teeth, picking at gums inflamed from chewing tobacco and betel leaves. The habit has helped a little at this particularly traumatic time, but it has also blackened her teeth. On some fingers, her nails are chewed down to the cuticles.

Fatima is 20 years old and has two small boys. Before she fled Myanmar, she was raped 30 to 40 times in a single night. She is unable to recall how exactly how many times or how many men there were. "I left my body there," she says, speaking with a soft voice, her gaze fixed on the trodden soil.

We sit on a carpet striped turquoise and red in the front room of Fatima's hut. Her husband, Ali, two years older than his wife, sits next to Fatima as she tells her story.