Phil Behan, Photographer
Photo by P. Behan/2012.
The photo was taken in Myanmar’s Rakhine State on assignment for UNHCR in December 2012.
What immediately struck me was this woman’s age. Her name is Rasoul and at 75 years old she was forced to flee her home due to sectarian violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine State.
After I took the photo of her I thought to myself, how does someone of this age cope with such a situation? Displacement is hard for all, but someone who has spent their whole existence living a simple village life and now they find themselves located in a hot dusty refugee camp it must be soul destroying. Imagine if you can, your own grandmother living such a fate and then perhaps you can understand how hard displacement is. Well, these women are grandmothers, they are mothers, sisters, just like ours and they do not deserve to live like this.
