He was small for his age — still a boy, really, with spiked hair and pimples speckled across his cheeks. He looked even smaller in a pair of oversize flip-flops, curling his toes so they didn't slip off.
School was never his thing. Back before his home was bulldozed and he was displaced in his own country, Mohammed Ayuf spent most of his time in the market where his family owned a grocery, frying up samosas to sell for pennies apiece.
At this camp, his days assumed a routine: wake up, pray at the mosque, return to his family's hut. Most nights he slept outdoors on the hard earth, swatting hopelessly at flies.
The 16-year-old began talking about leaving, like his older brother two years before and tens of thousands of other ethnic Rohingya Muslims who have braved a perilous sea crossing to escape crushing oppression in predominantly Buddhist Myanmar.
In phone conversations from Malaysia, his brother admonished Ayuf not to try to join him. (Courtesy of LA Times)
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