Rashid is only 10 years old, but his little shoulders carry a heavy responsibility -

he has to take care of his six-year-old sister Rashida.

They are among about 1,400 Rohingya children who have arrived
in Bangladesh near the Myanmar border without their parents, who were either
killed or are missing in the wake of a brutal military crackdown in western
Rakhine State.

Rashid is mourning the loss of his parents - father Zahid Hossain and mother
Ramija Khatun, who, he says, were killed by the Myanmar military.

The Rohingya accuse the Myanmar army, with a history of committing atrocities
against the ethnic community, of using an attack by a Rohingya armed group as
a pretext to force the community out of Myanmar.

The Child Friendly Space (CFS) at Kutupalong refugee camp in Cox's Bazar was
abuzz with activity. More than 60 children were busy colouring, drawing and
playing with toys.

Rashid was quiet and his feeble voice was often drowned out by the sound of
tambourines enthusiastically played by the children.

He lived with his parents and six siblings in Shikderpara village in Maungdaw
until August 25, when the army attacked his home as part of its campaign that
included mass killings and burning swaths of Rohingya villages - an act seen by
the United Nations as "textbook ethnic cleansing".

"It was Friday. I grabbed my sister's hand and ran towards the nearby hill. After
the army departed, I came back to find my parents dead," he said.
He had little time to mourn in his village. He found his neighbours near the hill
and tagged along with them for the rest of the journey.

"I walked for three nights to reach the Bangladesh border. I crossed the Naf river
to enter Bangladesh a day before Eid on September 1," he said.

Rashid has no clue about the whereabouts of his other siblings. "I heard that all
my brothers and sister were killed."

The distraught boy stays with his neighbours, who, he says, have been kind to
him, as well as his sister.

The CFS centres, supported by UNICEF in collaboration with local aid agencies,
have become a sanctuary for children in trauma, with many of them too young to
even understand the enormity of the tragedy.

"When he [Rashid] came on the first day, every few minutes he would come to
me and say his parents are dead," said Faria Selim, communication specialist at
UNICEF Bangladesh.

"He has eased up a bit in the past few days after he started to come here," she
said.

Rashid says he had dropped out from his school in Myanmar, but he likes the
CFS, which opens six days a week.

Selim informs that there are 42 CFSs in Ukhia and Teknaf, places hosting almost
all of the 429,000 Rohingya refugees, who have arrived since August 25.

"Here there is no chance of being attacked. No one is keeping an eye on us.

Everybody is free to do anything," Rashid told Al Jazeera.
He wants to be a teacher so that in the future he could teach other Rohingya
children.