Enchanted stopover in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, one of the largest beaches in the world

In images, in picturesCox’s Bazar is the name of a huge beach south of Dhaka where Bangladeshis come to spend peaceful days with friends or family. The photographer Ismail Ferdous has returned to wander around the places of his childhood to offer another look at his country, which has been hard hit by climate change.

A calm sea, pastel colors. Men and women dressed as in the city. Ismail Ferdous beach has something unreal, enchanted, with characters frozen in their happiness. The outfits of the lifeguards match their high chair and their parasol, a young boy with the features of an angel straddles his mount, barefoot in his stirrups. Even the fishermen, handsome ephebes, laugh in front of their white net. There are barely two police officers, posted in front of the sea, masks under their chins, scanning the horizon, to bring the reality of the Covid-19 pandemic back to reality.

“As soon as we talk about Bangladesh in the Western media, the first things that come to everyone’s mind are climate change, rising waters and floods, then the garment industry, the Rohingya refugees , poverty and all the sad stories. »Ismail Ferdous

Bangladeshi photographer Ismail Ferdous, who lives in New York, returned between December 2020 and February 2022 to Bangladesh to capture, under the winter light, the atmosphere of the beach of his childhood. It is located in Cox’s Bazar, 400 kilometers south of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, on the border with Burma. It is this city that is home to the largest refugee camp in the world. A million Rohingya, a Muslim minority ethnic group, have crowded there since they fled massively from Burma in 2017, persecuted by the regime.

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But, for the Bangladeshis, Cox’s Bazar is above all 139 kilometers of sand, the warm water of the Bay of Bengal, without sharks, the favorite destination of all social classes. We come here with family, friends, rarely to swim and certainly not in a bathing suit, but to stroll, collect shells, gallop in the waves, bury ourselves in the sand, scan the clouds lying on deckchairs or relax. try parasailing.

“As soon as we talk about Bangladesh in the Western media, the first things that come to everyone’s mind are climate change, rising waters and floods, then the garment industry, the Rohingya refugees , poverty and all the sad stories, explains the photographer. We rarely see pictures of people in a peaceful or serene environment. »

One of the most vulnerable countries

He himself documented the dramatic events that helped shape the image of the country: the collapse, on April 24, 2013, in Dhaka, of the Rana Plazza clothing workshops, which had caused the death of more than 1,100 workers, the refugee crisis, the already visible effects of climate change.

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