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‘Citizens today, refugees tomorrow’
FROM PAGE 1
There, he is living with 10 people in a 15 by 18 square metre room.
Apart from families fleeing, Ismail got the chance to see the military facilities there. While there were huge numbers of Ukranian troops on the roads, general people were also seen roaming with heavy guns.
“The people, crammed in the city, are in a state of fear and distrust and scared of Russian spies. The special permission that I got gives me the advantage to take photographs even during curfew.”
Ismail then also witnessed a heart-warming side of the war.
“The way people are helping one another was a sight to behold. I haven’t seen so much compassion when covering other conflicts.
“I went to a school where [displaced] people stay overnight. Every morning, elderly people, especially the retired professional, come to the school to help clean up. They wash the bedsheets and other things and bring them back the next day for those staying there.”
While interviewing a family who moved to Chop from another city, he came across a teenager.
“The girl, around 14, came to me herself. She said she wants to become a journalist in the future. She said she earlier wanted to be an economist and travel the world, but witnessing the role of journalists in the war has inspired her to become one herself.”
Ismail has covered the refugee crisis at the Syria-Turkey border, in Calais on the France-England border, Mediterranean Sea crisis near the Libyan coast border to Sicily, the Central American crisis on Mexico-US border, and the Rohingya refugee crisis on Bangladesh-Myanmar border.
“The region has been in conflicts since the second world war. My takeaway from this war is the general public suffers the most and they are mostly women and children. We are seeing history repeat itself.”
What really struck him about the Russia-Ukraine war is that it’s not very different from Bangladesh’s fight for liberation in 1971 as Ukraine has been fighting to save its culture and language from Russian aggression.
“When I first visited Kyiv in 2019, young locals had told me they were going through their own decades-long renaissance period to reintroduce the glory of their culture, including music and literature, and re-establish their own cultural identity, especially since 2014.
“This war is their ‘Liberation War’. They want to get rid of the ghost of the USSR, haunting them for over 30 years.”
Ismail, who says he is a self-taught photographer, received international recognition for his photographs on the Sundarbans in 2011 and then his long-term coverage of the Rana Plaza tragedy.
He has since been working for big international media, including National Geographic Magazine, The New York Times, The Guardian, The Economist, Bloomberg, and The Washington Post.

Mali says 203

killed in military operation
AFP, Bamako
Mali’s army said Friday that it had killed 203 combatants in an operation in the centre of Sahel state, an apparent uptick in violence in the conflict-torn country.
The army said the March 23-31 military operation took place in Sahel’s Moura area -- which it termed a “terrorist fiefdom”.
Soldiers killed 203 militants, arrested 51 people and seized large quantities of weapons, according to the army’s statement.
The announcement comes as numerous social media reports in Mali this week alleged that dozens of people, including civilians, had been killed in Moura.
Reacting to the news on Saturday, the UN’s peacekeeping mission in Mali, known as Minusma, stated that it was “very concerned about the allegations of violence against civilians”.
AFP was unable to verify the army’s claimed death toll or the social media reports about civilian deaths.
Poor access to Mali’s conflict areas and a relative lack of independent information sources means that figures provided by either the government or armed groups are difficult to confirm.
An impoverished nation of around 21 million people, Mali has struggled to contain a jihadist insurgency that emerged in 2012, before spreading to neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.
Vast swathes of the country are are home to myriad rebel groups and militias, and thousands of soldiers and civilians have been killed in the conflict.
Mali’s under-equipped army has also often been accused of committing abuses during the conflict.
According to a report seen by AFP, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently warned the UN Security Council that Mali’s counter-terrorism efforts had “disastrous consequences for the civilian population”.
In its statement Friday, Mali’s army said it was guided by human rights and international law, and called for “restraint against defamatory speculations”.
The country has seen an apparent uptick in violence in recent weeks. The UN said on Friday that thousands of people fleeing fighting in Mali have arrived in Niger.
A day earlier, the peacekeeping mission Minusma said that security had “deteriorated considerably” in the border area with Burkina Faso and Niger.