Silent Genocide

Over 600,000 Myanmar refugees have fled to neighboring Bangladesh escaping armed groups who have been raping, killing and torturing the minority Rohingya ethnic group. I have made two trips to the worlds largest refugee camps over the past six months. The first trip was in November with Every Mother Counts, who is supporting their local partner Hope Foundation, to provide health services for pregnant women and children. In January I returned with CARE Int. to document the ongoing work they are doing in the areas of shelter, water sanitation and hygiene (WASH), protection, nutrition SRH, site management and GVB interventions. Six months since the crisis began much of the world has forgotten the plight on this minority group and the perilous situation these refugees are now facing. All images were made in Block B of the camp, and this series focuses on the women and girls of Block B. This qualitative journalistic approach to story gathering is designed to put a human face to a story much of the world has forgotten. I am grateful and humbled that each of these subjects was kind enough to grant me their time and story. In return I attempted to make images that reveled their dignity and tenacity in the midst of mind numbing tragedy. I want viewers to see each of these individuals as people, no different than their neighbors or friends. Rather than photographing the subjects as an exotic other, I hoped to show them in a beautiful dignified light, a reflection and acknowledgment of them as people and not simply numeric refugees.