11 May 2020 Coronavirus crisis forces the centre to cancel Ramadan fundraiser and puts the community it serves in dire straits. Chicago, Illinois – Ramadan for Chicago’s only Rohingya Culture Center is not just a time for prayer, community and service, but also a...
Read moreJan. 24, 2019 Chicago has one of the largest number of Rohingya refugees to have been resettled in the United States. More than 1,600 Rohingya are based in Chicago, having spent years in Malaysia after fleeing persecution and violence in...
Read moreNov. 4, 2017 Muslim Rohingya who escaped deadly violence and persecution in Myanmar have found new homes in the United States. Muslim Rohingya who escaped deadly violence and persecution in Myanmar have found new homes in the United States. One of the largest concentrations of...
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The journey from refugee to registered voter isn’t always an easy one. But this past October, more than a dozen Rohingya-Americans completed it when they cast their ballots for the first time in the 2020 U.S. general election. Those Rohingya Read more…
In the seven years he’s lived in America, Nasir Zakaria has hardly felt as grateful as he did Tuesday waiting at the Warren Park polling site in Rogers Park to cast his first-ever vote in his lifetime, he said. “Really Read more…
CHICAGO (RNS) — About a dozen Rohingya refugees voted for the first time Tuesday (Oct. 20) at an early voting site in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood. It wasn’t just the first time they voted as United States citizens. It was Read more…
Chicago is now home to about 2,000 Rohingya, making it the largest Rohingya population in the United States.
September 8, 2020 In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the terrible toll it’s taken on the the city of Chicago and especially on it’s black and brown residents, there’s one population whose plight has been severely exacerbated by Read more…
May. 08, 2018 Nasir Bin Zakaria was inspired by his personal experience to help fellow refugees. At 14-years-old, Nasir was forced to leave his family and flee from Myanmar. Twenty-three years later, he was granted refugee status and arrived in Read more…
May. 04, 2018 When Aisyah Salamutallah stepped off an airplane onto U.S. soil in October 2016, she was greeted with blast of cold air. “I really happy,” she recalled. After fleeing discrimination in Burma as a child, then living without Read more…
Dec. 26, 2017 Hasan Korimullah was 8, maybe 9, when he saw his mother hacked to death. The pair had been on a shopping trip near their home in Myanmar when two men jumped out of the bushes with machetes, Read more…
Dec. 11, 2017 As they flee persecution in Southeast Asia, Chicago has become home to the largest population of Rohingya Muslims in the U.S. Paris Schutz has this report.
Nov. 29, 2017 CHICAGO (WLS) — Tragic images from Myanmar are difficult to watch. They show the plight of the Rohingya people, described by ABC News as a Muslim minority in the country also known as Burma. The Rohingya were Read more…
Nov. 28, 2017 Nasir Zakaria is one of hundreds of Rohingya, a stateless Indo-Aryan people from the Rakhine State, Myanmar, who found refuge in Chicago’s North Side. After immigrating to the U.S. from Myanmar in 2013 and settling in Rogers Read more…
Oct. 18, 2017 CHICAGO, ILLINOIS – Although he hasn’t seen his home country in more than a decade, modern technology has made it easy for Abdul Jabbar Amanullah to stay in regular contact with his family in Myanmar’s remote Rakhine Read more…
SEP. 29, 2017 The phone rang, and Nasir Bin Zakaria jolted awake. It was almost 2 a.m. on Tuesday, and the 40-year-old community leader had gone to bed only an hour earlier. The streets outside his apartment in downtown Chicago Read more…
Oct. 11, 2016 A dozen primary school-aged children sit around desks taking instruction from their tutors, local college students who volunteer as English language teachers at the Rohingya Culture Center in Chicago. Zakaria, who works full-time as the director of Read more…
Sept. 20, 2016 CHICAGO (Reuters) – The resettlement of refugees from Middle Eastern countries, particularly Syria, has been the center of a heated political debate after President Barack Obama last year pledged to resettle at least 10,000 refugees from the Read more…
April. 15, 2016 For the majority of his life, Nasir Bin Zakaria was a citizen of nowhere. He was 14 when he was kidnapped by militants at a bazaar in west Myanmar. “Kalah,” they hissed at him, a racial slur Read more…
April 7, 2016 A growing number of Rohingya Muslims, who fled persecution and violence in their native Burma, have made Chicago home. The community has grown over the last several years and this Saturday they’ll open the Rohingya Culture Center. Read more…