The Shadow City - Earth’s Largest Refugee Camp

The Great Unrooting 

Episode 3: The Shadow City  

(Earth’s Largest Refugee Camp) 

a podcast mini series 

for Human Rights Watch  

by Ngofeen Mputubwele 

SCENE ONE: RECAP 

HOST  

Previously on the Great Unrooting: 

MAUNG 

 My grandmother, my grandmother, uh, told me that, uh, you got a brother. 

NGOFEEN 

They gotta keep moving. No rest for the weary, I guess. 

MAUSI 

These people have lost everything. 

NGOFEEN 

It looks like a world map. But then the shards of glass, some of them, all over the map, flash red. 

PRECIOUS 

My name is Precious. I’m from Port Harcourt. Port Harcourt, River State. Nigeria. 

NGOFEEN 

Why? Why did you make the trip? 

PRECIOUS 

If you have one shot at life, would you take it?  

MAUNG 

We just keep walking and walking, we finally reached, uh, Bangladesh. 

 HOST  

A few months ago, I met a college student named Maung. In 2017, at age 16, his life blew up. He became a migrant, then a refugee.  

He’s 24 now, living in New York City. In a country that no longer welcomes people like him. But when you listen closely, you realize his story – being a Rohingya Muslim – isn’t just about him.  

Something about his story -- losing your sense of home, feeling afraid for your life, trying to understand what social media has done to us -- is telling us about this moment in history we're living in. And yet, it’s the most hopeful story. From Human Rights Watch, this is The Great Unrooting.  

-- HRW AD -- 

SCENE TWO: ARRIVING AT THE CAMP 

MAUNG (archival video sound) 

Hi everyone. Welcome to the world's largest refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, where about 1 .1 million Rohingya refugees are living. 

HOST  

Episode 3: The Shadow City: Earth’s Largest Refugee Camp. 

When Maung and his  family, his neighbors, strangers, cross over that invisible line into Bangladesh, now that they’ve crossed a border, they are officially refugees. But they don’t walk into a refugee camp. A shadow city starts to spring up around them. 

MAUNG 

People started, uh, building their shelters, like small, small shelters, and that is how it became like the camp right now. 

HOST  

Maung is just 16, carrying a small bag. 

MAUNG 

I was not carrying that much stuff with me. I only got like a bag with me. Yeah. this, this size. Like a backpack?  

HOST  

In it, his student ID, some clothes, a phone that he uses to record what he's watched unfold: piece by piece, temporary shelter by temporary shelter, Maung is living through ... 

JOHANNES   

The largest, quickest refugee influx the world had ever seen.  

HOST  

Surpassed a few years later only by the exodus from Ukraine. That voice, by the way… that’s the former Representative for UNHCR. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. 

JOHANNES   

Hello. Yes. My name is Johannes van der Klaauw . I'm from the Netherlands.  

HOST  

He’s worked… 

JOHANNES   

...In Mali. I worked in Morocco, I worked in Iran, in Yemen,  

HOST  

And then in Bangladesh. From 2021 to 2023, he was basically the guy the United Nations designated to coordinate the humanitarian response in the refugee camp where Maung and his family arrived. The single largest concentration of refugees in one location globally. 

JOHANNES   

Yes, there were always two long-term Rohingya camps because there have always been Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh for the last 40 years. But we had no equipment and space and shelters to absorb immediately all the thousands and thousands of new arrivals. So, it was a big effort to immediately have an emergency response to organize the whole system. 

HOST  

He's just 16, Maung, but Maung, he does know this isn't how things are supposed to be. Even though he sees that people, hundreds of humanitarian workers, are trying to fill this shadow city with goodness, with tarps and food, with aid, it’s just not enough. 

MAUNG (archival) 

Actually, it is right that we are getting food, but don't forget we need to cook that food before eating. 

NADIA 

 I would say most everyone that I've interviewed in this job is, you know, there's a real sense of wanting to return home. 

HOST 

That’s Nadia Hardman. Part of the coalition of Human Rights Watch staff I have been meeting throughout this journey. Last time I called them a gaggle, and I promised to find a new collective noun each episode. A coalition is the collective noun for a group of cheetahs. And man, these Human Rights Watch workers, their analytical skills are fast. Also great at replying to emails. 

NGOFEEN 

 Yeah. I just noticed everyone, you said missing home, Nadia, and then everyone started nodding.  

BELKIS 

I think, I think part of it is, is, is longing and heartache. And then on the other side, hope. 

HOST 

That’s Belkis in Belgium. Belkis Wille. And here’s Kyle Knight in the U.S. 

KYLE 

 You know, when I interview queer trans people who are fleeing persecution or a direct attack or something, it doesn't mean they hate everything about the place that they're fleeing. They actually like a lot of things about it. They might even like their family that doesn't fully like them, right? Or their community that they live in, and they already miss it, and they already miss certain aspects of it, and they don't necessarily love where they're going either.  

MAUNG:  

I started questioning myself like, why me? And why our people going through these situations. 

SHAYNA 

Most of the people, of this 1 million people they're really stuck. 

HOST  

This is the newest member of our growing Human Rights Watch staff coalition. 

SHAYNA 

My name is Shayna Bachner and I'm a researcher in the Asia division at Human Rights Watch. 

NGOFEEN 

 What does that mean? What does a researcher do?  

SHAYNA 

I investigate human rights abuses. I mostly focus on Myanmar and the Rohingya. and then we use that documentation to push governments to change their behavior. 

HOST  

Now, I don't know if you've noticed, but Maung? He's not really the kind of kid that's gonna hang around, waiting. He ran through gunfire to retrieve his student ID, fought with classmates who thought a Rohingya student like him shouldn't get the front row seat - we usually find him real close to the action in this story... 

MAUNG/Archival video 

For example, in Camp 15, IOM... 

HOST 

Putting out videos like this one, reporting on what he sees around him–to anyone who will listen to him, 16 year old Maung: NGOs, Youtube. And what he sees - it's historic: 

SCENE THREE: LIVING IN A CAMP 

MAUNG 

The camp where I lived for the seven years is called Jamtoli Camp 15. One of the 33 camps, 33 camps. So there are, uh, 33 camps in Coxes Bazaar. 

JOHANNES VAN DER KLAU 

It was A huge camp, a cluster of camps, 1 million people, a big settlement. 

TAMANNA TIKU 

It’s almost a city. 

HOST 

That was Tamanna Tiku, an urban planner based in New York City. She did her master's thesis. at UC Berkeley on building in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, and did some research for me on building inside the Cox's Bazaar refugee camp in Bangladesh.  

If you take a look at the map, you wouldn't even see where it is. Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. It wouldn't mean anything to you. But in Maung's dorm back in New York City, when he pulls out the Map of the Unrooted, it's obvious where it is. Right next to the Indian subcontinent. The glass stacks up topographically, right at the border between Bangladesh and Myanmar and makes this enormous mountain -- a Mount Everest of glass shards. All flashing red.  

It’s impossible for one person to understand and conceptualize the vast flows of people that are walking around the world right now. So, we needed a device. Just like we need a map or a globe to envision the world. We need a map to envision the sheer numbers and flows of people. And there is no such thing and so we made it up.  

As I keep listening to Maung, the map of the Unrooted never leaves the corner of my eye. I even notice that certain topics Maung and I discuss seem to make the map change hue or color, just ever so slightly.  

MAUNG 

In the refugee camp, I never feel I, I was safe. Because when it was rain season or like winding for example, it was not safe. It was scary. 

TAMANNA TIKU 

You're on this northern end of Bay of Bengal, which is also famously one of the most [00:04:00] cyclone and typhoon prone places in the world.  

MAUNG 

And, and, uh, sometime, uh, I cannot even sleep wherein that, uh, I don't know what's going to happen with the shelter. I mean, the, the wind can destroy it easily. 

TAMANNA TIKU 

Four times more than the rain in Seattle gets six times more than an annual rain London gets, and twice more than Mumbai or Singapore. It's truly one of the wettest places on earth. What does that mean for people that have shown up in this very, uh, slope terrain next to the bay of Bengal? It means that very often there are landslides. there is flooding of course, because where is the drainage for all this water to go? 

Where is it gonna go?   

TAMANNA TIKU 

Now, add to the recipe of that cyclone, typhoon and rain. So people are extremely vulnerable and like most places in the world, the most climate vulnerable are also the most economically vulnerable in this case, also the most soci, politically vulnerable. 

JOHANNES VAN DER KLAU 

First of all, a refugee camp is in a country. And that country, the authorities are responsible.  

HOST: 

The Bangladeshi government is in charge. 

JOHANNES VAN DER KLAU 

they need to ensure that the services are in that camp, that there's protection, there's security, there's policing, there's a judiciary, 

HOST: 

So what does that mean for Maung -- as the camp gets built up? 

MAUNG 

Wired fencing. The Bangladesh authorities installed the fencings, uh, all around the camp. So people, cannot go outside of the, of the camp. There is no freedom of movement, uh, at all. 

TAMANNA TIKU 

Can I double click on what he just said for one second? 

NGOFEEN 

Yes. Of course.  

TAMANNA TIKU 

Movement. We don't think of it as a fundamental right, right. Because we have it, we have access to it. When I said to you that there is three meters between a building, even if you were the freest person, where would you go?  

MAUNG 

It's over overcrowded. It's very crowded.  

TAMANNA TIKU 

There was nowhere for you to go.  

MAUNG 

The place is very crowded.  

NGOFEEN 

I have a question. there's three of us in this room right now? Yeah. And it is crowded. 

HOST 

We’re back in Maung’s dorm room. Me, my co-producer Curtis, and Maung. And beside him, his bed with the Map of the Unrooted. 

NGOFEEN 

In a space like this, you might have six people. Yeah. So, what do you do? Do you know what I mean? Like, are you just sitting and talking? Are you like reading, like what is everyone doing in this tight of a space 

MAUNG 

So for me, I was, uh, mostly outside of my home. And two main reasons of that, one is because, I do not have internet access in my home. And the second thing, it was very warm inside the home. Because, uh, the, the roof is like very short, it just above our head. Yeah. And the sunlight is directly hitting to the 

NGOFEEN 

just above your head. Yes. And I'm taller than you, so it would be ducking down. Okay. 

MAUNG 

Yeah. So the sunlight is directly hitting the tarpaulin.  

NGOFEEN 

Okay.  

TAMANNA TIKU 

We don't… we take for granted the fact that when we look out our window, we have the sky. If there was a building, you know, three meters away from your house, you would have no access to the sky. You would've no access to air, ventilation and fresh air. 

MAUNG 

So it's extremely warm. intolerable intolerably, uh, hot intolerably warm. 

NGOFEEN 

Are you staying in the camp elsewhere And elsewhere and come to the camp every day? 

JOHANNES VAN DER KLAU  

Mostly we stay outside the camps. Why? Because the host authorities don't allow us to stay in the camps 

HOST 

Again with the authorities 

JOHANNES VAN DER KLAU  

We were allowed in these camps. All of us, all the humanitarians, even the Bangladeshi NGOs between, let's say, eight o'clock in the morning and, and, and five o'clock in the afternoon. People always say, you see all these white SUVs with all these humanitarians. hundreds of people every morning going with their cars to the camp. 

HOST 

So many people... 

JOHANNES VAN DER KLAU 

There was UNICEF, there was WFP, all the other UN agencies, plus non-governmental organizations, both international and national and local. 5-600 organizations, 

MAUNG 

In the refugee camp, Even the thing that we have is very limited. Uh, let's forget about the thing that we do not have.  

JOHANNES VAN DER KLAU  

Food is always the most expensive  

MAUNG 

very limited.  

JOHANNES VAN DER KLAU 

we had a whole system where we had built markets in the camps where every single Rohingya got the voucher for $12 a month 

Maung:  

very limited. 

JOHANNES VAN DER KLAU 

and could buy his or her food on the market produced by the host [00:09:00] community around. 

Maung:  

So everything that we have, the, the food, the healthcare, and the shelter materials, uh, and the, and the sanitation. All those things are extremely limited  

HOST 

I swear… as Maung mentions the things being limited, the feeling of desperation, I swear… I see the Map of the Unrooted flash blue. 

Maung:  

Extremely, extremely limited.  

TAMANNA TIKU 

There are, you know, around 27 to 30 people per, latrine or per, toilet bowl.  

What does that mean for, women and shame? And menstrual hygiene and young girls? It means that, you know, you are not only living in a hot and humid climate like everybody else. You're living with hot and humid climate without any access to sanitary products, 

HOST 

It’s limited access, but the point is well taken.  

TAMANNA TIKU 

which means you're living with hardened blood in your underwear. Now you don't wanna go to school, you're probably getting sick. So, you start losing the interest in doing, uh, anything else in going out of your body because, your body's working doubly as hard without any access to the dignity of life. 

MAUNG 

And everyday we are hearing about the funding cuts. 

HOST 

What if the big donors of the world cut or withdraw funding to keep camps like this going? Which is exactly what happened in 2025, when Elon Musk, Trump, and DOGE, the U.S. “Department of Government Efficiency” gutted American foreign aid. But we’re getting ahead of our story, that was after Johannes’ time in charge… 

JOHANNES VAN DER KLAU 

What if these basic essential needs will not be covered. What we have identified as prioritized, people will, will get sick. The, the children will be stunting as we say they will be because of lack of nutritious food. They will not benefit from a regular physical and mental development, so they will be disabled for life. People might die. 

HOST 

People are dying from the US government's cuts in aid. One Health Policy NGO, Health Policy Watch, estimated that since 2025 “757,314 people – the majority children – have died as a result of the funding cuts.”1 . 

JOHANNES VAN DER KLAU  

And then they, then they develop negative coping mechanisms. For instance, if there's not enough money for education, the minimum the girls will be married off very young. Child marriage is a big problem. There will be a rise in sexual and gender based violence against women, against young boys and girls, because we don't have enough money to ensure that people are safe. And many of the security incidents in camps happen at night when the humanitarians are not there. 

MAUNG:    

So in the refugee camp, people are completely dependent on humanitarian aid. When they try to build something for them, let's say if they, uh, try to have a small shop, the authorities in Bangladesh say, no, you cannot do business here. You cannot have a shop here. So there is no, um, livelihood activities that people can establish themselves.  

HOST 

As Maung says this, The Map of the Unrooted in his dorm room bed now turns desperately blue. 

Johannes van der Klaauw:  

What you then see is that people fall prey to smugglers and traffickers, and then out of despair, they leave the camps, they take a boat, an unseaworthy the boat 

Desperate, uh, actions then to take the boats, uh, or go over land through deserts or jungles and parish there, that's a real, real problem.  

HOST 

Now, at the mention of smugglers and traffickers, I realize what's happening. The Map is showing me the shards of desperate people relying on smugglers and traffickers.  

NADIA 

The deadliness of the routes, I think is more and more understood, but, just to, to really drive home, it's, you know, it's, it's, there are so many instances where things can go wrong and things do go wrong. 

HOST 

From the map I pick up the shard I pulled earlier in my conversation, in the last episode. The shard of a Nigerian man in Southern Italy. Precious Chinda. 

PRECIOUS 

It's something I did because it was the only thing I could do. 

HOST 

I ask Maung if we can pause his story. And listen to the story this shard contains. Maung eagerly says yes. He says hearing the stories of these other people, he feels less alone. So, I speak to Precious Chinda. 

NGOFEEN 

 What happened in the desert? 

PRECIOUS 

What… happened… in… the… desert? 

HOST 

Precious left Nigeria to make it to Libya, where he thought he would find work. To get from Nigeria to Libya, Precious needed to cross the Sahara Desert. The trip was guided by armed traffickers who warned Precious and people with him that if they were caught, they could be kidnapped or worse.  

PRECIOUS 

We could be killed for our parts, you understand, like kidneys, all those things.  

NGOFEEN 

For like your body parts.  

PRECIOUS 

Yes, for our body parts.  

HOST 

In Niger, at the southern edge of the Sahara, the convoy that Precious is part of is suddenly ambushed in the pitch black. Headlights turn on and a truck with armed men riding in the back starts to empty out. Some of Precious' fellow travelers panic and run off into the desert. Into nowhere, they have no idea where they are. Precious never sees them again. Precious' driver yells.  

PRECIOUS 

Two words. I will never forget those two words “Hold strong, hold strong.” 

HOST 

The driver smashes on the gas, turns on the wheel. 

PRECIOUS 

 The two tires on one side got up like this  

NGOFEEN 

Ohh 

PRECIOUS 

And we, on this other side, we were falling down. And we had to hold. 

HOST 

Tips the car, veers off into the desert. They’re chased. Chased. Chased. Until … silence.  

Driver turns off a car, tells everyone to get out, and then he drives off, and he doesn't return. Precious and the people with him. They're stuck.  

PRECIOUS 

It's just dust and sand. It's all dust and sand.  

HOST 

Precious and the 50 other people with him are on the edge of the Sahara Desert.  

PRECIOUS 

Everything is dry, dry air, dust, sand, very fine, very fine sand. Okay, we need water.  

HOST 

Stuck. Day one.  

NEW YORK - INTERVIEW 

NADIA 

People die from dehydration, um, because it's extremely hot. And one of the main kind of services that humanitarian agencies provide is to go around giving people water and dates. To sustain them on their journey. 

SAHARA - TREKKING 

HOST 

Day two. Nothing.  

NEW YORK - INTERVIEW 

NADIA 

Um, but people do die of physical exhaustion and dehydration. So they go around combing the streets with ambulances, and they'll always find someone who's kind of collapsed on the side of the road. Um, to, you know, but hopefully try and find people to give them water and dates and yen and yet, you know, there's this just whole swathes of society that just has no idea that that's really going on. I don't have any idea until I interview people. I'm like, that's just wild. 

NGOFEEN 

I think it's weird. That sort of like, I'm like, I exist in a system where I quietly don't pay attention to the fact that there are all these people whose job it is to just support the migrating people. 

NADIA 

And it's kind of weird to live in a system where, the programming to help people that are fleeing on this migration journey is, basically to provide them with these like basic necessities, I mean, it's good that they're being provided, but just that, you know, people could die from dehydration on this arduous journey. 

SAHARA - TREKKING 

PRECIOUS 

In the desert, we were all praying together.  

HOST 

Back to Precious in the Sahara. They don't even all speak the same language, but they gather together.  

PRECIOUS 

We’d have fast  

Host:  

They’d have group fasts... 

PRECIOUS 

and we’d have prayer sections. And the Christians will come, they'll pray, the Muslims will come. 

Host:  

Chistians and Muslims, praying together... 

PRECIOUS 

And they'll pray. Everybody saying, amen, you know, because at a point, you don't know what God to believe in. So whichever God can help you, whichever God can help you is welcome.  

 What gave us hope, what gave us hope was we saw goats. We saw goats. They, they were walking, they were walking freely. And they had things tied to the neck. So definitely, definitely the, we knew that,  

NGOFEEN 

You knew that people were nearby. 

PRECIOUS 

Yeah, people were nearby. Honestly, that place, that place, that place, it was nice.  

PRECIOUS 

I wouldn't say it was more like I was in I zoo. 'cause there were camels, there were donkeys. Like the more we get closer to the village, the more we see animals. We saw, saw a child driving, they ride cows. Actually, I've seen it, I've seen, I've seen it in my Macmillan textbooks that I didn't, I didn't know, you know, Macmillian? 

NGOFEEN 

Yeah, I do. 

PRECIOUS 

I haven't actually seen anybody ride a cow. So it, it was the first time I saw it. And we walked there by, by, by the time we were reaching the village, we were very, very exhausted. We were very, very exhausted. The first adults we contacted 

Twe were like, water. . . water. . . 

Ngofeen 

You’re doing the motion for water. 

PRECIOUS 

Yeah, yeah. And he sat us down. He gave us water.  

He came. He gave us water.  

HOST 

Then After five long days in the desert, Precious and the 50 others trying to survive dehydrated,  

PRECIOUS 

He came.  

HOST 

All of a sudden, they see him, the driver. One of the traffickers.  

PRECIOUS 

I was just dumbfounded and people were screaming for joy. They were shouting. People were 

NGOFEEN 

What did he say? What happened? 

PRECIOUS 

He, he said they didn't believe we were still, were still, we were still alive. See, they, they didn't believe that we were still alive.  

NEW YORK - INTERVIEW 

NADIA 

I interview people that are tortured for money along their journey. So, they are told one amount at the beginning, and then say they cross one border or one section, they're then told, actually you need to pay us more and we're gonna beat you until you find it.  

I've interviewed people that are stranded in one transit country trying to make money to, to pay for their, their next part of the journey. And the authorities know, and they'll round up, these people on the move, um, put 'em in a detention center and, the migrants won't, won't be able to, to leave until they pay a bribe to go out. And that might mean that they're forced to call their, you know, family or, or some network somewhere to, kind of, “Western Union” the amount. That's a lucrative business, and it's, it's happening on a number of different migration routes. 

SAHARA - TREKKING 

HOST 

The driver tells Precious and everyone else, we got to keep walking. The vehicle’s not here. It’s way over there. We got to keep walking.  

PRECIOUS 

We were trekking. We were trekking. I'll tell you something. You see the little bag I had already acquired, I already gotten. I threw away the bag. People were throwing away their stuff because they were beginning to faint.  

SAHARA - TREKKING 

HOST 

After the long trek, Precious and the other 50 people hop into the flatbed truck and make it to Libya. They're stopped at the border. Anyone without money is taken to jail. Precious who has a little bit on him, hidden, with others, is taken to the side and given a welcome speech.  

PRECIOUS 

The commander there gave a very funny speech. He was like, you come to Libya. People of Libya run from Libya. But you come to Libya. In Libya, people die on the streets. You will see. Welcome to hell.  

NGOFEEN 

Did you say, welcome to hell? 

PRECIOUS 

 He said it. He, he was like a speech after we had paid, you understand? He gave us a, he gave us a welcome speech.  

NEW YORK - INTERVIEW 

NADIA 

It’s this whole other world that's just kind of difficult to explain and even believe. It's just like how extreme it is.  

SAHARA - TREKKING 

PRECIOUS 

These words, uh, these are words I don't forget. “You come to Libya, people of Libya run from Libya. You will see, In Libya people die. People die on the road, die the road. Welcome to hell.” And we drove off.  

MAUNG 

 The refugee life is like, hell 

Shayna:  

I think it's stuck in a middle ground. It feels like something that's meant to be temporary but has become permanent. 

Maung: So in the camp, suffering many different challenges and difficulties. I started questioning myself like, why me? And why our people going through these situations. 

Shayna:  

And they're really stuck 

Johannes van der Klaauw:  

People, sorry for my words, are warehoused for years and become more and more desperate  

MAUNG:  

We had homes, back in my home country. We had properties, we had, everything, , ourself there in, in, in my home country. But here, the place that I'm staying is similar to a place that people in Myanmar used to keep their cattle. So why is that? 

Shayna:  

They just sort of spend their days waiting.  

There are also, There are so many kids. 

HOST 

One of those kids… 16 year old Maung. 

So what does Maung do with all this in-between? This lack of peace. He leaves his family’s tent, goes to the highest place he can find, posts up, perches, gets on his phone and starts reading. 

Maung:  

I started to learn about the history of Rohingya and the history of the situations in Myanmar as a whole. 

HOST:  

If you could only have seen him, climbing that hill day after day, his one door to the outside world. If only you had seen as he read and read, learned and learned, you would have seen a great change come over Maung.  

Sonically we hear a swirl, a murky Pandora’s box of barely discernible voices.  

A change in his affect. A change in his person. He seemed to age a month each time he finished reading. At moments he seemed to have been angry. At moments, confused. At moments, he seemed to have gone completely pale. 

What he was learning was emotionally affecting. Distressing. 

But not just to Maung. To career diplomats too. 

SHAYNA 

It's something we see with governments. Some governments just put up their hands and you know, that's not what the Rohingya need right now. And so the result is that the security council members who are concerned about the situation, have just sort of given up rather than trying to continue to push. 

MAUNG 

 So when I realized that we have been suffering all those things, then I myself felt very responsible, uh, of being a youth of this community that I really have responsibility to do something and bring some changes. 

But I had no idea what I can do and when I, what I have to do for, for my community. But the only idea that time I had was I have responsibility to do something for my community.  and if I, myself being a member of this communities not taking the step, there is no one coming to take the step for us. 

HOST 

So here’s what the 16 year old does. A year into being in Bangladesh, he’s sitting with friends in a tea shop. 

MAUNG 

 It was one day, uh, with some of my friends.  We were in a tea shop discussing about. Um, what, uh, like about the situation, like, because in all of our mind, uh, we hope something like we can return back to our home within a few months, but it was getting one year. 

So we were a little bit disappointed. We were a little bit like, um, like hopeless. We are getting like a little bit hopeless. Like what? Like it's not going to happen now. Know what, know what is the next, like those things. So, and during our conversations, there was an idea came, 

HOST 

To commemorate the first anniversary since the genocidal acts that drove them here. 

MAUNG:  

I  was asked by my friends to deliver a speech on the stage in front of, uh, like thousands and thousands of students and yo younger Rohingya people. 

[sounds of his speech in Rohingya] 

And it was first time for me, um, delivering a speech, uh, like in front of lots of like the people. I was a little bit, uh, I was a little bit nervous, but still, um, I have courage and I accepted, uh, that responsibility to deliver speech. And I delivered a speech, um, uh, during that commemoration event in 2018 and like after the events, um, I really learned something from that event. 

Like if we do something, um. We are full of ourself with commitment and with, with the goals that, uh, I mean with setting the goals that we went to reach, then we can really do that. And another thing that I realized was how powerful it is when we are together.  

HOST 

Next time, what Maung learned about his people that affected him so greatly.