Last August, the government of Myanmar launched a brutal crackdown on the Rohingya in Rakhine State.
Some 700,000 Rohingya have fled Rakhine to Bangladesh since then.
Most of them now live in overcrowded, squalid refugee camps on the border.
Nearly every Rohingya refugee has a story that is nothing less than a nightmare.
The violence is described as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing” by the UN, which has documented allegations of widespread killings, sexual violence and other abuse.
Al Jazeera photojournalist Showkat Shafi travelled to Bangladesh to meet the Rohingya living in refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar.
He came back with 100 stunning portraits of Rohingya who bear the scars of what they went through and are surviving against all odds.
What is happening in Myanmar has spared none of the Rohingya; not the elderly, not the women, and not the children.
They all had to leave their homes and the lives they know, many leaving behind loved ones killed in the violence.
How they will rebuild their lives and what future generations have to look forward to remains a mystery as the world watches this catastrophe unfold.