But, as happens in the world, we forgot Langadu. The Rangamati landslides, the flash floods, the influx of Rohingya refugees followed one after another, and in trying to cope and deal with each, the limelight shifted from the previous crises. So, six months later, it is pertinent to ask, how is the Chakma community in Langadu carrying on?

According to Bangladesh Shishu Adhikar Forum, a total of 494 children were raped in the eight months from January till August this year—among them 58 were gang-raped. According to their statistics, 37 disabled children were raped during this time, while 46 were victims of attempted rape.

Each refugee exodus looks different—in the numbers of human beings and the duration of their journey, in the acts of violence and atrocity, in the intensity of human suffering.

October 16 marks World Food Day, an annual event which this year focuses on food security, conflict, displacement and migration. To date, about a million Rohingyas have fled Rakhine State of Myanmar, over half of them since August 25 this year.

It is often said that if you want to know the truth about the world, ask a child. Perhaps, it's an unconditioned mind that lets a child see things for what they really are.

On May 18, 2008, the High Court granted citizenship to the Biharis who were brought over to Bangladesh as minors, or were born after independence. This brought an end to their statelessness, and opened up prospects of education, employment and travel to a community that had been cooped up in camps and refused repatriation.

Two parties are widely blamed for the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingyas: the Myanmar army and Aung San Suu Kyi. They stand amid the embers and ashes of torched Rohingya homes, objects of a furious global condemnation.

Driving south from Cox's Bazar along the marine drive, it is impossible not to be struck by the beauty of the sea on the right and the hills on the left. But before long a few lost and disoriented-looking faces appear until eventually the highway is lined with thousands of them.

Endless streams of Rohingyas have crossed the Naf River into Bangladesh. The deaths of children at sea stand out most vividly. Rohingyas have left behind everything they had once known in the face of the Myanmar military's brutalities against their own people.

Of the nearly half a million Rohingya refugees who've fled across the border and have sought refuge in Bangladesh, women and girls are the most at risk, sleeping under open skies, roadsides, and forest areas with little or no protection.

Don't the pundits who make the decisions know that acknowledging them as refugees will accord them rights; foremost among them is the right to return. It also obligates the international community for “burden sharing”.

The goal in genocidal rape is not simply to hurt people or to have sex. The goal is Group Destruction. Sexual violence is not simply an auxiliary tool employed to advance this goal, but given the nature of rape and sexual torture, it is the ultimate weapon.

Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi's speech last Tuesday had the potential to change the scenario of the ongoing Rohingya crisis and end the misery of the more than 400,000 refugees in Bangladesh.

Overeignty is sometimes an overused yet largely exploited concept in the world of international relations. In its truest sense, sovereignty is a fundamental term designating supreme authority over a certain polity.

As I watched President Trump deliver his speech to the UN General Assembly in New York on the morning of September 19, I couldn't help but be dismayed by the fact that he did not consider the current round of ethnic cleansing carried out by the Myanmarese military rulers egregious enough to mention it even once during his speech.

“I am at Balukhali camp in Ukhia, the situation is far, far worse than what I have seen on the media, I just talked to a woman who is 9 months pregnant, no idea where her husband is, had not one thing to eat today."

The unanim-ously adopted press statement of the UN Security Council (UNSC) condemning violence in Myanmar at the closed-door meeting on Wednesday is encouraging but unlikely to deter the Myanmar government from continuing its heinous acts of ethnic cleansing.

According to the latest UN report, nearly 400,000 Rohingya refugees have crossed over to Bangladesh. The Rohingya people, living in the Rakhine State of Myanmar, are fleeing their homes they have lived in for 200 hundred years.

“We will remain unwritten through history, no X will mark us on the map; but in books of prose and poetry, you loved me once, in a paragraph.”

While it is encouraging to know that Bangladesh has taken diplomatic initiatives to bring the ongoing Rohingya refugee crisis to the international fora, the question is whether it has devised a strategy to go forward.