Prize-winning photos by Rohingya: Unseen life in the world's largest refugee camp

Since 2017 nearly a million Rohingya people have been displaced from their homes in Myanmar, fleeing a wave of anti-Muslim persecution and violence in the predominantly Buddhist country. The vast majority have ended up in neighboring Bangladesh in what has become the world's largest refugee settlement. Life in the makeshift communities around Cox's Bazar district is a harsh one: Natural disasters, disease and hunger are constant threats. And yet, for those whom the United Nations has called "the world's most persecuted minority," there are also weddings and children's games and street food.

Life in the camp emerges in rich and sometimes heartbreaking detail in the photographs of four young Rohingya people: Abdullah Habib, Sahat Zia Hero, Shahida Win and Mohammed Salim Khan. They were honored this month as the Asia-Pacific regional winners of the Nansen Refugee Award, which recognizes "outstanding work helping refugees, internally displaced or stateless people."

"The photographs show a kind of daily life that you need to see to believe and begin to understand," says Kevin Keen, spokesperson for UNHCR, the U.N. refugee agency that gives the award.