Hajma Khatun, a hundred years old Rohingya, fled from Myanmar.  From the talks of the people, she heard that there was a leader named Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in Bangladesh who made the country independent and saved the people from oppression.

She told the Bangla Tribune, ‘If such a leader was born in our Rakhine state, if not the independence, but at least we could get the citizenship of Myanmar.’

Centenarian Hajma Khatun was born in the Khowarbil village of the Rakhine state. This woman claims that she is more than 105 years old. She grew up in the Rakhine state. She has two daughters and five sons. After the death of her husband Mohammad Kalu, she started to live with her son Zakir Alam's family.  This correspondent talked with Hajma Khatun in a new Rohingya slum in Dhalurmukh of Ukhiya Upazila of Cox's Bazar.

Hajma Khatun claimed that not only the liberation war of Bangladesh, she had also experienced the wars during the British period. She said, ‘During the liberation war of Bangladesh, many Hindus and Muslims fled to the Rakhine state. My Husband Mohammad Kalu gave them shelter. That time I cooked and fed the helpless people. Now I had to come to Bangladesh from my own country.’ 

In a long conversation, centenarian Hajma Khatun said, ‘I did not face any trouble in my family life. I love my country though I don’t have the citizenship of my own country.  In the Rakhine state, the situation becomes unstable occasionally but later situation calms down. But I have never seen such a terrible barbarity like this year. Burning villages one after another, shooting ordinary people and rape the women in front of all- these have become a regular casualty of the army of that country.’

This centenarian old woman said, ‘Once in 1978 I had to come to Bangladesh. That time, I had to take shelter in a Rohingya slum of Teknaf. Just one week after that, we returned to our motherland Rakhine. After that, I had not to come to Bangladesh. I did not want to leave my ancestral home. But the irony is again I had to flee from my motherland. God knows what would happen if Bangladesh would not have helped us.’

She added, ‘The next morning of the open killing of our area’s chairman Shamsul Alam by the army, we started for Bangladesh. Along with their sons, daughter, and grandchildren, more than a hundred neighbors started to reach the border of Bangladesh.’

Last 24 August a rebel group of Myanmar attacked at a police station in the Rakhine state.  In this incident, 12 police were killed and many Rohingyas were injured.  After this incident, killing civilians, rape, burning houses and many other brutalities are going on there in the name of the raid. Thousands of people are fleeing to Bangladesh daily. According to the documents of UN around 1, 64,000 people have entered to Bangladesh. However, according to local sources, this number is above 300,000.

Before this, on 9 October of last year, the same kind of attack took place in the Rakhine state. Around 87 thousand Rohingya people fled in fear at that time. After that, the international community created pressure on the Myanmar government in many ways. But without considering these, again Myanmar deployed army in the Rakhine state.