The Great Unrooting

Now that Maung has learned about the history of the Rohingya community, he begins working towards an escape route. He hopes to leave the refugee camp and get an education so that he can advocate for his community. But his freedom of movement is limited and educational resources are scarce. This week, host Ngofeen Mputubwele charts Maung’s journey out of the refugee camp in Bangladesh and into New...

Now that he’s arrived in Bangladesh, Maung finds himself stuck in an in-between. He’s safe from the violence he faced in his home state of Rakhine, Myanmar, but there are restrictions on his freedom of movement, limiting his education and leaving him to grapple with the history that brought his community to the world’s largest refugee camp. In this episode, host Ngofeen Mputubwele traces this hist...

When Maung and his family, his neighbors, strangers, cross the border from Myanmar into Bangladesh, they are officially refugees. But there’s no rest for the weary, and the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees escaping to Bangladesh have to build a refugee camp for themselves. As Maung helps his family assemble a temporary shelter, a sort of shadow city starts to rise up around them. Almost...

When anti-Rohingya sentiment turned into gunshots in Myanmar in 2017, 16-year-old Maung Sawyeddollah was forced to flee. But what do you do when you’re forced to leave your home? Where do you go? This week on The Great Unrooting, host Ngofeen Mputubwele asks how migrants get from here to there. What happens if you need medicine while you’re traveling or are living with disabilities that make trave...

Maung Sawyeddollah grew up in a small town in Myanmar where, for years, life felt ordinary. That was before the rumors began. Social media fueled sectarian division, communities turned against each other. Then the soldiers arrived. It was a balmy night in August 2017 when Maung first heard the sound of gunfire. His family was forced to make an impossible choice: stay in the home they love or embar...

Welcome to The Great Unrooting, a five-episode narrative podcast special season of Rights & Wrongs that explores what it means to lose home — and what it takes to start again. Anchored in the story of Maung, a Rohingya refugee now living in New York, the series traces his journey of flight, survival, and rebuilding and explores displacement at a moment when more people are forcible displaced t...