DHAKA: When the FIFA World Cup started last week, it became one of the year’s most anticipated moments in Bangladesh’s Rohingya camps, especially for children, to whom it gives a rare connection to a world beyond the refugee settlement.
Watching matches with their favorite players and taking part in their own local tournaments, boys and girls borrow jerseys of their favorite teams from a mobile sports library, which visits refugee settlements in Cox’s Bazar.
In the morning, they return the gear to a sports center in Camp 19, where, during the World Cup month, they can also watch the matches that took place the night before.
“Children aged between 6 and 15 come to the center to watch the matches … Girls make up around one-third of the audience,” said Molla Shihab Uddin, senior coordinator at the Friendship nongovernmental organization, which runs the sports club.
“There is a viewing hall with a large television screen where we organize World Cup screenings for Rohingya children … We record all FIFA World Cup matches and screen them the following morning.”
These screenings are the earliest opportunity for them to watch the games, as local authorities have not allowed live broadcasts in the Rohingya camps, citing security concerns.
A predominantly Muslim ethnic minority, the Rohingya have lived for centuries in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state but were stripped of their citizenship in the 1980s.
Since then, many have fled to neighboring Bangladesh, with about 700,000 arriving in 2017, after a military crackdown in their native state.
Nearly 1.3 million of them are currently cramped inside 33 camps in Cox’s Bazar district, where they have limited access to education, employment or activities that could help them develop their talents and skills.
In this context of deprivation, the club in Camp 19 seeks to offer opportunities to children who want to pursue sports.
It was launched in 2021 in collaboration with the Dutch organization KLABU, which promotes sport in refugee camps around the world.
The project’s main funding came from the French football club Paris Saint-Germain.
The club currently has 1,600 Rohingya children enrolled as regular members, including 600 girls, who, besides football, can also learn cricket, volleyball, and just play.
Girls play football at a sports center in a Rohingya refugee camp in Ukhia, Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, June 2026. (Friendship NGO)
“Most of the girls visit the club at least once a week. It’s very nice to see that the girls are also coming up for sports activities in these refugee camps in remote Bangladesh,” Uddin told Arab News.
The main aim of the club is to promote the children’s mental and physical well-being through sport.
“It is a reality that Rohingya youths are living a life without hope. They are growing up without access to proper education, which increases their frustration as their repatriation is not certain either,” Uddin said.
“But they are a resilient community with a strong spirit of survival. Sport plays an important role in keeping that spirit alive.”
