‘Every night, I am killed

Every morning, I wake up again’

Poet-activist Mayyu Ali’s life has been shaped by his unrelenting resistance to the genocide of his people – the Rohingyas – one of the most oppressed Muslim minorities in the world. Since 1982, the Rohingyas have been refused citizenship, leaving them without basic rights and susceptible to exploitation. Denied a birth certificate and higher education, Ali became a voice of dissent at a young age as a poet and aid worker and, at great personal risk, as part of a covert group of activists devoted to documenting the human rights violations against the Rohingyas in Myanmar.

In 2017, widespread violence in the Rakhine State forced over 740,000 Rohingyas into refugee camps in neighbouring Bangladesh, Ali and his family among them. Undeterred by the horrific conditions there, he fought to provide accessible education, trauma counselling and creative outlets to the Rohingya youth in the camps. He also acted as an interpreter for foreign journalists and NGOs, helping them record the stories of survivors.

Ali’s outspoken criticism of the camps placed him and his family in the crosshairs of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, an armed insurgency group. Ali was forced into hiding for two years until he was finally granted asylum in Canada in 2021 where he continues to give voice to his people and their struggles. Mayyu Ali’s story is a rare, first-hand account of the gut-wrenching experience of the world’s largest stateless people – and one of history’s worst humanitarian crises.