'If I fight, at least I have some control over my fate'

In the world's largest refugee camp, Rohingya rebels talk to Shweta Sharma about their battle to take Myanmar back

- Shweta Sharma

It was still dark, early on a January morning in 2024, when Mohammad Ayas slipped out of the world's largest refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, and trekked deep into the forest, returning to the place he had fled in 2017. This time, however, he was not escaping the "raining bullets" that had killed his father - he was going back to train and fight against those responsible for his people's bloody exodus from Myanmar.

Ayas, a 25-year-old Rohingya refugee who teaches Burmese to children in the camps, tells The Independent that he and thousands like him are now united in their struggle against the Myanmar military and others who stand in their way of "reclaiming their motherland".

"We are ready. I am ready to die for my people. I don't care what happens to me in this fight to reclaim our motherland, our rights and our freedom in Myanmar," Ayas says.

Hundreds of Rohingya refugees like Ayas are volunteering to join armed groups, having spent years in the Kutupalong refugee camps, where more than a million members of the persecuted Muslim minority are living after fleeing Myanmar, according to refugee accounts and aid agency reports.

The Independent spoke to Rohingya refugees, as well as a man described as their commander in the Cox's Bazar camps, who said they are sneaking out for weeks or months at a time to train with weapons in Myanmar, preparing to return and fight both the military junta and any rebel groups who stand in their way.