Will I have the chance to meet them again?

I conducted interviews with Doctors Without Borders patients, including ethnic Rakhine, Rohingya, and other minority communities, to understand their challenges in accessing healthcare. My Rohingya colleague, who speaks four different languages, interpreted my questions and Htwe’s responses in English and Rakhine language.

Suddenly, I heard familiar music and Korean lyrics from somewhere inside the bamboo house. I thought to myself, “I know this song, don’t I?” It turned out that Htwe’s teenage daughter was listening to K-pop music. Although I couldn’t tell the title, it seemed to be a song I had occasionally heard in back home in Korea. When I mentioned that I’m from Korea and that I was surprised to hear the music far away from my home, the three of us burst into laughter. I had the rare experience of sitting in an IDP camp in Rakhine State—which is now listed in South Korea’s travel ban list—and listening to a Rakhine patient’s story with K-pop playing at the background, alongside my Rohingya colleague.

Looking back after one year, it was such a special day, and I cherish everything about that day—the sound of the rain, the conversation among the three of us, and the moments of shared laughter amidst the challenging camp life in the rainy season.

With the immense support from my colleagues, I spent about a month meeting and talking with many Rakhine and Rohingya patients. When I left, I never imagined that I wouldn’t be able to see them again. Unfortunately, things changed rapidly after October 2023, as multiple parties simultaneously got involved in the armed conflict that escalated into a full-scale war in no time, affecting other states, including Rakhine. According to the UN, more than three million people are currently displaced in Myanmar. The number of people in need of humanitarian aid has sharply increased in many regions. Doctors Without Borders and other humanitarian organizations had to scale down or halt their operations due to insecurity, shortages of supplies and resources, and travel restrictions. 

In Rakhine, most of the areas where Doctors Without Borders had been operating were heavily impacted by intensified conflict. In April 2024, Doctors Without Borders office in Buthidaung, including our pharmacy and medical supplies, was tragically destroyed in a fire caused by the fighting. That fateful day, we witnessed over 200 houses engulfed in flames, and thousands of people fleeing to a location near our office. The evolution has left our team in the area unable to provide essential humanitarian aid as they were uncertain about their own safety. Patients who were already relying on Doctors Without Borders mobile clinics and emergency referral services to secondary hospitals due to a lack of medical facilities now face a severe healthcare gap without minimal medical care. This includes children in need of basic medications and pregnant women requiring emergency transfers or cesarean sections, all left without any form of medical assistance.