AIIllustration/2025
A Rohingya Refugee Visits the Zoo
Azad Mohammed
I.
Once,
I went to the zoo—
The animals were overcrowded and it was full.
It took a full day to see it all.
I was young,
It was like an early epiphany.
The zoo was also full of people wandering,
Some with families, some with friends,
Some with girlfriends, some with boyfriends,
And some alone, as I was.
There was a tiger in its pen,
Stripes matted with dirt
Who paced around,
As if to change his view of the world
Outside the cage.
Glee among the crowds,
Small children crying.
Some were angry, others were in awe.
Some imagined the caged beast as living free.
The life of the tiger,
Sold each day
For your joy.
Imagine a monster in the wild,
The men who bought it’s freedom
Grow richer.
Imagine those who let the cage crumble.
Maybe they still thought the animals would be
Sheltered and well fed
That their life could be good
Without looking out onto the world.
I visited the beast, with everyone else
But was met by heartache and sorrow.
My humble suggestion to the world:
Let the animals free.
II.
Once,
Awake in the night, unable to sleep,
I thought of my people trapped inside gates.
Checkpoints, guards, soldiers and guns
Monitoring the movements of old men
Longyis caked with dirt.
In this dream, we pace from Camp A to Camp B,
Imagining a world outside of the cage.
Journalists arrive, ask us to re-live the trauma.
They screen us for TV, win awards.
Charities take photos of crying children,
To place them on brochures, asking for donations.
Diplomats speak to us in our most formal tents
They assure us they hear us,
Then never come back.
Should the cage crumble,
They might think,
At least we were well fed
With sheets over our heads.
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Photo:Azad Mohammed/2019
Misfortune
Azad Mohammed
Around the world people use materials in defence—
umbrellas for rain. Jackets for cold.
Sunglasses for heat.
Umbrellas. Umbrellas.
In Cox’s Bazaar, no trees, no home, no stream— not like our golden Arakan.
In our golden land, the trees give shade. In Cox’s Bazaar, tarpaulin offers heat.
You can’t control tears with sweat.
Oh, weather, my question to you,
as one of many genocide survivors, is why—
why in this treeless, shadeless refugee camp, why, like the Myanmar government,
do you still set us on fire?
**********
Photo:Azad Mohammed 2019
Born for Restriction
Azad Mohammed
When my mother gave me birth
I discovered a world
Where there are restrictions
Among them, movement one is the worst
When I go to school
There is restriction
When I need to travel for survival
Restriction and restriction
Burmese security forces treat me like a terrorist
In the land where I was born
To breathe is restricted
To live life is restricted
I lost my potential in restriction
Now, here in refugee camp, Cox's Bazar
The same restriction
No Rohingya is allowed to go outside the camp
We are treated as illegal immigrants
Not like refugees
Restriction, restriction, restriction
Everywhere is restricted
Since birth, victim of restriction
When could I fly to the freedom of the sky?
*************
Photo:Azad Mohammed/2019
Born, Not Like You
Azad Mohammed
People suggested me,
I was born but it was wrong
I am not born yet
My mother gave me birth
But there are many,
died by dreaming to give their babies birth
You are right,
I can tast like you do
I can think like you do
I can write like you do
I can dream like you do
The different is,
You can fulfil your dream
I have to keep it unfinished
If a baby is born
He should access to education like you do
He should travel freely like you do
He should has safety for his life like you do
My government did not want me to be born
He has tried in many ways to kill me
Finally I become a displaced person.
************
Photo:Azad Mohammed/2019
Stateless and Vagrant
Azad Mohammed
Twenty-two months already over,
still recalling the killing,
Shooting, explosion, machetes
We often have thought of suicide
but waiting for justice instead
They made us stateless and vagrants.
You all only keeps holding meetings,
You all only keep condemning
You all only keep doing business
Yet we are being killed one after another
Enough, Enough and Enough
Enough is enough …
We no longer want to suffer.
No one is here for me
No one is here for my father
No one is here for my mother
No one is here for my siblings
No one is here for my offspring!
If a mother is raped in front of her offsprings
If a daughter is raped in front of her father
If a wife is raped in front of her husband
If a minor girl is raped in front of her parents
O' people of the world!
May I have your attention?
If such horror happens in front of you,
What would you do?
***********
Photo:Azad Mohammed/2020
Change
Azad Mohammed
Change, change--
Everything is changing.
Situations are changing
From bad to good;
Climate is changing
little by little,
Environment is changing
From season to season.
The world is changing
From day to day;
A country is changing
From good to better,
Religion can change us
From one belief to the other--
Everything is changing
But still, our situation is not changing.
No one wants to change anything for us;
Our people only change from life to death,
Many swallowed by the Naf river,
Many rest with hunger.
From citizen card to displaced card,
From country to camp,
From home to tent,
From family to being alone.
***********+
Note: The Naf River separates Myanmar from Bangladesh. It is a river one million Rohingya refugees crossed, and they wait still on its banks for a change in their lives and times.
Photo:Azad Mohammed 2019
The Woman
Azad Mohammad
The woman as a flower
The flower that is well known
People named her Rose
The Rose put on the table
And kept on the head.
A woman can be a sister, daughter, wife or mother.
Men value her dignity.
As a woman is the partner of a man.
The Rohingya women,
more shameful and confined
But brave and their nobleness
The sun that can be seen around the universe
The air that can be touched all things
around the oval shaped earth.
During the wave of violence
Myanmar Tatmadaw uses rape as a tool
And Rohingya women and girls
Driven to footpath, footpath and footpath.
**********