It was August 2017 when the world really started to take note of Myanmar’s Rohingya people. Descendants of Arab Muslims who speak a different language to most other people in Myanmar, the Rohingya had up to that point lived mainly in the northern Rakhine state, coexisting uneasily alongside the majority Buddhist population.
But the Rohingya were reviled by many as illegal immigrants and treated by the then government as stateless people. In 2017, when violence broke out in the north of the state, security forces supported by Buddhist militia launched a “clearance operation” that forced more than 1 million Rohingya people to flee their homes and the country, actions that many onlookers saw as ethnic cleansing. Most Rohingya were driven into vast refugee camps in the Cox’s Bazar region of Bangladesh, where they have remained ever since.
The Guardian global development reporter Kaamil Ahmed has been covering the Rohingya crisis for almost a decade, making multiple trips to the region. For this week’s Big Story, Kaamil returned to Cox’s Bazar where, in two moving reports, he details how disease and illness are widespread in the ramshackle camps, and how the desperation to escape has resulted in rich business for people traffickers.
And, with Myanmar now controlled by a military junta and introducing a deeply unpopular conscription drive (as Rebecca Ratcliffe and Aung Naing Soe report), the prospect of any Rohingya people being able to return home to Rakhine state remains as distant as it did in 2017.
That’s our cover story in the Guardian Weekly this week – here are some other highlights from the magazine to look out for.
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Five essential reads in this week’s edition
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Spotlight | Death at the aid convoy
As supplies in northern Gaza dwindled, Bilal el-Essi joined hundreds of other people waiting for a rumoured delivery of food aid. He would be among scores of those who did not make it home. Aseel Mousa and Emma Graham-Harrison report
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Spotlight | For the Arctic, think rink
Every winter, villages around the Netherlands begin flooding a field with water to form a thin layer of ice. By repeating the process, a perfect outdoor skating rink is created. Senay Boztas asks if this cherished Dutch tradition could lay the groundwork for restoring Arctic sea ice
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Feature | Moving stories
Shaun Walker takes a train ride across Ukraine and into tales of two years of war. Meeting soldiers and civilians, hearing testimonies of survival and loss, his 1,400km journey spans the breadth of the country, from close to the frontline all the way to the border with the European Union
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Opinion | We need to talk about water
A 2017 report warned that irrigation would need to rise by 146% by 2050 if sufficient crops were to be grown to match the global demand for food. There is one small problem: water is already maxed out. George Monbiot wonders why water scarcity is yet to make it to the top of policymakers’ action lists
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Culture | The devil in St Vincent
Annie Clark, the critically lauded, Grammy-winning, art-rock experimentalist is back with a new album. Despite its title, All Born Screaming is a deeply romantic record. Michael Cragg hears how it came about
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What else we’ve been reading
Author Liz Jensen’s deeply personal account of how life has evolved after the unthinkable death of her son is a powerful and often poetic read. Her description of the close connection felt in life not perishing after his death was particularly moving: “The grief lies deep in me, and always will. But I have grown bigger around it. When I laughed for the first time after Raph died, I felt him cheering.”
Emily El Nusairi, Guardian Weekly deputy production editor
Ahead of this weekend’s Oscar ceremony, I’ve been following the best picture hustings, in which Guardian staff make the case for their favourite from the nominees, and I still can’t decide which would be my pick. But I will be rooting for Da’Vine Joy Randolph to take home the best actress award for her role in The Holdovers – and make another stirring acceptance speech.
Clare Horton, Guardian Weekly assistant editor
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Other highlights from the Guardian website
• Audio | Black Box: snapshot of an era as we begin to come into contact with AI
• Video | Haiti declares curfew after thousands of inmates escape jail
• Gallery | Exiled Kurdish women fighting for freedom in Iraq
• Interactive | Trump, the supreme court, and the 14th amendment
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