For Fatima, a 13-year-old girl from Myanmar’s western marshlands, the new year began with a grueling escape. She spent the first days of 2017 on the run, slogging through rice fields in the dark.
With each step, cold muck sucked at her ankles. The sky above was dark — just a dim crescent moon and a thousand pinpricks of starlight.
She was grateful for the blackness of night. At least there was no sign of armed border guards on the horizon. No distant flashlight beams scanning for intruders in the fields.
She was determined to stay alive until she reached the refugee camps in Bangladesh — a haven for Rohingya Muslims, among the world’s most tormented people.
But as Fatima trudged on, her insides burned. Just one week before, Myanmar’s army had violated her in almost every imaginable way. (Courtesy of pri.org)
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