NPR

Can You Still Have Hope When Life Seems Hopeless?

We interviewed Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and asked about their hopes for the future. We were shaken by their answers.
Some 2,000 Rohingya refugee families live in the Balukhali camp in southern Bangladesh, according to the camp's leader.

Can all hope be lost?

I used to think not.

I used to think that no matter how tough life gets for people, they always have hope to cling to – to get them through it.

Then I met some Rohingya refugees on a trip to Bangladesh last month. Reporter Michael Sullivan and I were there to report on the latest wave of the Muslim minority group to flee over the border from Buddhist-majority Myanmar.

We spoke with Rohingya living both inside and outside of the refugee camps that have taken root in southern Bangladesh. Working through interpreters, they told us the stories of how they'd fled from their homeland late last year during the latest Myanmar military crackdown against them. How their villages had been sacked and their homes burnt to the ground. How

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