Clowns cheer up Rohingya refugee children

Bangladesh: The Rohingya boys and girls shrieked with delight as the clowns juggled hoops and somersaulted, their red-nosed antics provoking a sound rarely heard in the world’s largest refugee camp — children’s laughter.

The clowns have been providing much-needed levity in the crowded Bangladesh camps, where hundreds of thousands of traumatised Rohingya children spend long days in bleak and difficult conditions.

Mohammad Noor lives with his mother and three siblings in a makeshift shanty in the teeming Kutupalong camp, where a lack of food and water means a constant struggle to survive.

The 10-year-old fled Myanmar last month after his father was killed in brutal violence by the Army that the UN has likened to ethnic cleansing.

The impromptu circus in a dusty clearing is a welcome distraction from the horror at home. “It is hilarious. I have never seen anything like it. My friends and I were just laughing and laughing,” he said, as a quartet of painted clowns performed skits before a huge gathered crowd.

Theatre groups in Bangladesh have a record of using “drama therapy” to lift spirits in the most depressing of circumstances.