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More than 140,000 minority Rohingya Muslims have been forced to live in camps, where disease and despair have taken root. Abdul Kadir, 65, who has a severe stomach ailment and malnutrition, is cared for by his wife in one of the camps.James Nachtwey for TIME
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Relatives weep at the funeral of a woman who died at 35 of a stomach disease; she left five children behind.James Nachtwey for TIME
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A mourner weeps as she sits by an internee's coffin. The Rohingya lack medical care since most NGOs are now barred from the camps.James Nachtwey for TIME
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Two men are seen mourning at the funeral of a woman who died from stomach disease.James Nachtwey for TIME
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Internees in one camp operate brick kilns to earn money. Adults are paid about $2 a day; children, half that amount.James Nachtwey for TIME
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Thek Kay Pyin, 7, is among the Rohingya Muslims interned in Rakhine state, on the northwest coast of Burma. He is seen here working at a brick kiln where he earns $1 a day.James Nachtwey for TIME
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Children working at a brick kiln where they earn $1 a day.James Nachtwey for TIME
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Workers at a brick kiln are seen tossing bricks.James Nachtwey for TIME
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At the camp, mourners are seen at a funeral for a 16-year-old girl who drank poison.James Nachtwey for TIME
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Suffering in the camps continues unabated.James Nachtwey for TIME
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Children learning the Quran at a madrassa in one of the camps.James Nachtwey for TIME
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A child suffering from malnutrition in one of the camps is held by its mother.James Nachtwey for TIME
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At a government-run hospital in Da Paing, a mother watches over her 45-year-old son Abdul Salam, who suffers from diabetes.James Nachtwey for TIME
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A child suffering from stomach worms with her mother at a pharmacy waiting for treatment. The owner of the pharmacy is neither a doctor nor a pharmacist but does his best to help people. International NGOs such as Doctors Without Borders have been expelled from the camp by the government, leading to a soaring crisis in health care.James Nachtwey for TIME
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Malnutrition among the camps' children is commonplace. In June a top U.N. aid official who traveled to Rakhine said she had never before “witnessed [such] a level of human suffering.James Nachtwey for TIME
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Fishermen tend their nets before going out into the Bay of Bengal to fish, one of the main sources of food and livelihood for the Rohingya.James Nachtwey for TIME
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A blind beggar on railway tracks between two IDP camps.James Nachtwey for TIME
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A boy using an umbrella as a sun shield jumps across a drainage canal behind a row of latrines at Baw Du Pha camp.James Nachtwey for TIME
For decades, TIME contract photographer James Nachtwey has used his camera to give form to the invisible. Yet in a world filled with persecuted people hidden in isolated corners of the globe, the Rohingya stand out. A Muslim minority from western Burma, the 1.3 million-strong Rohingya have been denied the most basic of human rights: citizenship. Their sense of self has been lost.
Since sectarian tensions erupted in 2012, roughly 140,000 Rohingya have been herded into camps by the Burmese government, which has allowed a virulent Buddhist nationalist movement to germinate. Last year, Nachtwey spent time in these Rohingya ghettos, where conditions were among the worst he had witnessed — and this from a photographer who has worked in refugee camps in Africa and the Middle East.
With limitations on their lives increasing with each month — in May, Burmese President Thein Sein signed a population-control law that could be used to restrict the number of children Rohingya bear — Rohingya have been boarding rickety boats in hopes of eventually landing in Malaysia, a Muslim-majority nation where they take menial jobs. Over the last year or so, around 90,000 Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants, who also hope for better economic prospects, have embarked on perilous journeys that take them across the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea to the jungles of Thailand and Malaysia. Often, the price agreed upon for the feat of human-smuggling rises once the migrants stumble into the jungle encampments. Unless family members pay up, the Rohingya and Bangladeshis face possible starvation, disease and even execution by the traffickers.
With Thailand and Malaysia finally cracking down on the trade, the human-smuggling trawlers — slave ships, really — have turned into floating prisons, as the normal trade routes are disrupted and captains abandon their boats. Thousands may still be stuck at sea. Meanwhile, on land, authorities have found more than 150 graves of suspected migrants, near abandoned jungle camps. Police and government officials have been detained for their part in the trafficking trade.
In May, Nachtwey traveled to three countries — Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia — to document the plight of Asia’s newest boat people. In Malaysia, he trekked through jungle to observe bodies being pulled out of the earth, near encampments with bamboo cages used to confine migrants. At a temporary refugee camp in Indonesia’s Aceh province, he captured an equally affecting scene: Rohingya who had spent more than three months at sea, starving and forced to drink their own urine, patiently lined up just a day after they had come ashore. One by one, they stood in front of an Indonesian photographer, who documented their names, ages and addresses — Burma was listed as their country of origin — on a whiteboard. Long unable to claim any real identity, the Rohingya were finally being given a chance at self-expression. As always, Nachtwey was there to bear witness.
Hannah Beech is TIME’s East Asia Bureau Chief and traveled with Nachtwey to report on the plight of the Rohingya.
James Nachtwey is a TIME contract photographer, documenting wars, conflicts and critical social issues.
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