Fifteen-year-old Normeen and her mother Mahfuza remember the fear and intense heat as the first flames began engulfing the inside of their home.

They were in shock when they realised the house, which their family had built less than a year ago, had been set on fire.

“We saw the flames with our own eyes,” Normeen says.

“They set one side of the house alight and then we realised what had happened we ran out of the other side.”

Through the thick smoke that billowed out of the blazing house and the sound of gunfire, Normeen, Mahfuza, who was heavily pregnant, and her five other children ran as fast as they could, leaving their home and belongings behind.

Like the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya before them, Normeen and Mahfuza and their family began a terrifying journey towards neighbouring Bangladesh, to seek refuge from the violence and civil conflict in Myanmar.

More than 688,000 Rohingya refugees have fled Myanmar’s Rakhine state since August 2017, and are now living in Cox’s Bazar, a fishing port in south Bangladesh.

Over the past six months, ChildFund has worked with partners in Bangladesh to provide emergency services and needs to more than 60,000 people, including Normeen and Mahfuza’s family, who have sought refuge in a “mega camp” in Cox’s Bazar.