‘Every night, I am killed
Every morning, I wake up again’
Poet-activist Mayyu Ali’s life has been shaped by his unrelenting resistance to the genocide of his people – the Rohingyas – one of the most oppressed Muslim minorities in the world. Since 1982, the Rohingyas have been refused citizenship, leaving them without basic rights and susceptible to exploitation. Denied a birth certificate and higher education, Ali became a voice of dissent at a young age as a poet and aid worker and, at great personal risk, as part of a covert group of activists devoted to documenting the human rights violations against the Rohingyas in Myanmar.
In 2017, widespread violence in the Rakhine State forced over 740,000 Rohingyas into refugee camps in neighbouring Bangladesh, Ali and his family among them. Undeterred by the horrific conditions there, he fought to provide accessible education, trauma counselling and creative outlets to the Rohingya youth in the camps. He also acted as an interpreter for foreign journalists and NGOs, helping them record the stories of survivors.
Ali’s outspoken criticism of the camps placed him and his family in the crosshairs of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, an armed insurgency group. Ali was forced into hiding for two years until he was finally granted asylum in Canada in 2021 where he continues to give voice to his people and their struggles. Mayyu Ali’s story is a rare, first-hand account of the gut-wrenching experience of the world’s largest stateless people – and one of history’s worst humanitarian crises.
Poet-activist Mayyu Ali has been campaigning for years to denounce the genocide of his community, the Rohingyas. While living in the refugee camps of Bangladesh, he opened several schools for Rohingya youth and children. He has participated in several award-winning documentaries by BBC, and others, and works with NGOs. In 2019, he cofounded The Art Garden Rohingya, a Rohingya art and poetry project. He has also published two books in English, Exodus and The White Elephant. In 2024, he graduated with a Master of Arts in Global Governance from University of Waterloo. Currently, he serves as a Director of Rohingya Language Preservation Project of Community Rebuilding Centre, seeking to preserve Rohingya language and culture which are at high risks of extinction in the face of genocide in Myanmar and displacement in Bangladesh and other southeast Asian countries.
Emilie Lopes is a French reporter. She has collaborated with numerous newspapers such as Le Figaro, ELLE and L’Obs.
Siba Barkataki is an assistant professor at the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. Her areas of specialization include Francophone Literature, Indian Indenture Studies and Memory Studies. In 2010, she received the prestigious Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship and in 2015, she was awarded a UGC postdoctoral fellowship for her research in the field of Indian Indenture Studies.
