Echoes of Silence: December 7, 2022, The Night 180 Rohingya Vanished
The howls of the bitter wind seemed almost sentient, an entity of unsparing cruelty, weaving through the frail bodies of 180 Rohingya refugees aboard a fragile vessel. They were afloat amidst the treacherous waves of the Bay of Bengal, where the luminous embrace of the moon danced mockingly upon the turbulent waters.
In the disquieting darkness, Setera Begum’s voice cut through the storm. Frantic, haunting and imbued with an urgency that paints a picture more vivid than the strokes of the most melancholic of artists. “Our boat has sunk!” she cried, every syllable a testament to a reality marked by existential precarity.
Muhammed Rashid, her husband, on the receiving end of this sinister sonata of distress, was far away in Malaysia. Their voices bridged the chasm of an 11-year separation, converging amidst an unfolding nightmare. This was a tale of love rekindled amidst turmoil, of words unspoken for over a decade, now piercing the silence of the night.
The world clock, indifferent to human anguish, marked the moment. It was 10:59 p.m. on December 7, 2022. A moment frozen in the annals of time, encapsulating a tragedy that epitomizes the existential limbo of a people nobody wants.
Last year, the waters claimed the lives of at least 348 Rohingya, an epitaph scribed in the silent narratives of those lost amidst the waves. As nations turned their gaze away, a symphony of pleas for salvation, borne upon the wind, was left unheard, unanswered.
This narrative is more than an account of a tragic night; it is a memento of systemic indifference. A reminder of a world where silence is not merely the absence of sound but is emblematic of a profound neglect that has allowed tragedies, like the night of December 7, to unfold in haunting perpetuity.
The Rohingya, perennially caught between the hellfire of persecution and the deep blue sea, remain adrift. Not just upon the merciless waters of the Bay of Bengal but within the echoing silence of global fraternity.
The tolling bells of the clock as it struck 10:59 p.m. resound, a chilling refrain of the silent echoes of those vanished amidst the waves, and those forgotten within the corridors of power. It is not merely a chronicle of time but a haunting melody of the forsaken, the forgotten, the invisible; a reminder of 180 souls who ventured into the silent depths of the sea, and the echoing silence of the world that watched them vanish.
