Yusuf, now 15, is one of hundreds of thousands of mostly Muslim ethnic Rohingya who escaped into Bangladesh after the Myanmar military launched a brutal offensive five years ago on Thursday.
That hope seems more distant than ever since the military coup in Myanmar last year, and last month authorities finally allowed Unicef to scale up its schools programme to cover 130,000 children. The Rohingya have long been seen as reviled foreigners by some in Myanmar, a largely Buddhist country whose government is being accused in the UN’s top court of trying to wipe out the people, but Yusuf embraces the song, seeing it as a symbol of defiance.
Repatriation could only happen “when safe and sustainable conditions exist in Myanmar”, visiting UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said.