SHAH PORIR DWIP: From a distance you can see elegantly carved wooden boats bob gently in the waters that surround this coastal town at Bangladesh’s southern tip. Across a sliver of the shimmering waters of the Bay of Bengal is Myanmar. These boats and this place can mean both hope and tragedy for the Rohingya Muslims who are desperate to escape the violence that has engulfed their lives in Myanmar’s Rakhine state. High tide or low, day or night, rough waters or calm, when they can find a boat, the Rohingya take their chance to flee to Bangladesh. More than 430,000 have left Myanmar in less than a month. Not everyone makes it.Mounds of earth in the cemeteries of this little town are the only reminders of Rohingya who drowned as their boats capsized, often just a few heartbreaking meters away from the safety of the shore. “Ten children are buried in that grave,” said Nur Islam, the imam of the town’s main mosque, pointing to a large mound covered in thorny branches to keep dogs and other animals from disrespecting the graves. “Here there are nine women buried,” he added, pointing to another large mound.A solitary pile of earth, away from the other graves, holds an infant whose body washed ashore days after the boat carrying him capsized. “They get off the boat. The water looks shallow. They don’t know how deep it is and they drown,” Islam said. “It’s very painful … such small children.” Published in Daily Times,September 25th 2017.