A wound may heal, but the scars and trauma last a lifetime
- Ahtaram Shin
- Mar 22
- 2 min read
By Ahtaram Shin and Ayub Khan Dkl
An eleven-year-old girl named Shehra from Hiarpara, Maungdaw Township, still struggles to speak and eat due to a deep wound beside her throat.
At the end of September 2024, around 9 a.m., the Arakan Army (AA) launched a drone strike on a house near hers. The entire family in that house died on the spot, and a piece of shrapnel from the drone struck Shehra’s neck while she was having breakfast. Her injury was severe, causing heavy bleeding on the veranda.
At that moment, there was no doctor, no pharmacy, and no hospital nearby. A local quack doctor wrapped her wound in bandages and gave first aid. Meanwhile, bombs continued to rain down, and drones kept striking houses. In the chaos, Abdul Haque, a witness to the horror, took Shehra on his shoulders, wrapped her in a blanket, and began walking through the muddy, wet ground and paddy fields, fleeing toward the border.
“It was the harshest and most traumatic experience of my life,” said Abdul Haque. “We stayed in Paranfuru for four days before crossing into Bangladesh.”
There was no health facility in the refugee camp that could remove the shrapnel from Shehra’s neck. Seeing her suffering, some Rohingya youths raised money from refugees and arranged her treatment in a private hospital in Chittagong in December 2024.
Now, Shehra still cannot speak or eat like a normal child. A burning sensation lingers in her throat, yet she cannot afford further treatment. As a young girl, her mental health has deteriorated immensely due to the trauma. The fear in her eyes tells the story of what she witnessed, the massacre, the screams of women, the rivers of Rohingya blood staining the land of Arakan.
She sits in the dim light of a makeshift shelter, holding a phone with a frozen memory, a picture of her father, Abdul Haque, trying to stop her bleeding.
“The Mogh, the so-called AA, are not human. They have no hearts in their chests,” Abdul Haque said. “They can even violate the dead, slaughter children, and massacre an unknown number of Rohingya everywhere.”
Rohingya are victims of genocide and fully deserve justice for what the Myanmar military and Aung San Suu Kyi did to us. And now, the AA has wounded us again. It is time to hold the perpetrators accountable, not collaborate with the rebels who have fueled this genocide and made us stateless at once,” said Ali Jinnah, a Rohingya social activist.
Shehra’s story is just one of countless tragedies experienced by the Rohingya. Her unhealed wounds, both physical and emotional, are a painful reminder of the relentless violence and injustice inflicted upon Rohingya. Justice is long overdue. The cycle of human rights violation and Rohingya's suffering will continue until the perpetrators are held accountable. The world must not turn away—it is time to stand with the Rohingya.