Early on, I met and photographed Hafej Ahmad, 35, as he crawled through muddy puddles of monsoon rain in the overflow area of Balukhali refugee camp. Because of a birth defect, he was unable to walk. He wore worn-out flip-flops on his hands, dragging himself through the mud while he searched for a space on the hillside to build a shelter for his wife and four children — out of bamboo poles and plastic sheeting that he had purchased from a nearby market.

He had arrived the night before, after eight days crawling from his village in Myanmar to cross into Bangladesh with his family.

On an island near the southern tip of Bangladesh, refugees began arriving by fishing boats; they crossed the mouth of the Naf River where it flowed into the Bay of Bengal. The boats were crammed with people, all of them racing to make the crossing in the monsoon swells before their boats were intercepted by patrolling coast guards.