A few weeks later his brother was killed by the same group known as the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army. His cousin was also executed, his corpse left exposed in a football field.
The 24-year-old father of one breaks down in tears in his western Sydney home when he sees photos of himself before the attack from two years ago that disfigured him permanently for doing his job.
He worked with the International Organisation of Migration in one of the world's largest refugee cities, Cox's Bazar, in Bangladesh documenting sexual violence perpetrated against Rohingya women.
Mohammed Ismail uses a crutch to walk and temporary prosthetics. (Farid Farid/AAP PHOTOS)
"Life has been extremely difficult. In the first few months I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, I was in a lot of pain," Mr Ismail told AAP via an interpreter.
"I feel very sad for myself because I used to be able to move around freely."
Rohingyas are a long persecuted stateless Muslim minority in Myanmar, subjected to what the United Nations categorised as a genocide in 2017. Over 20,000 people were killed and some 750,000 forcibly displaced into ramshackle refugee camps in neighbouring Bangladesh.
Mr Ismail was part of that mass exodus, which involved a week of trekking through mountains and jungles.
He arrived in Australia six months ago as a humanitarian entrant with his wife, child, parents, some siblings and their kids. He is now trying to move forward, literally one step at a time, with the help of prosthetics which he desperately needs.
His arm and leg have been infected several times forcing him to have three more operations to stave off more health complications.
Mr Ismail has been adjusting to life using a crutch to walk and temporary prosthetics from NSW-based APC Prosthetics that he secured with the aid of refugee resettlement agency Settlement Services International.
"I can walk with the leg, and although I can't really grab stuff with the hand I still feel like at least I have one," he said with his prosthetics gently resting on the table next to him.
Myanmar's shifting conflict dynamics in Rakhine State after the 2021 military coup have meant that some Rohingya rebel groups, such as the Arakan Army, have aligned with the junta.
Rohingya refugees take shelter at a camp near Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh. (Tracey Nearmy/AAP PHOTOS)
Arunn Jegan, an experienced Australian emergency coordinator with medical aid group Doctors Without Borders who has headed up mission in Bangladesh several times, said this year's spike in violence is reminiscent of 2017.
"In the last few months, we had movements of upwards of 10,000 people from Myanmar into Bangladesh, and we treated them in our hospitals, we treated them with gunshot wounds and we treated sexual and gender based violence," he said.
"I strongly believe the Rohingyas existence is a crisis in itself, and that really comes back to their predicament as a stateless people."
He commended the Australian government for pledging $235 million to Rohingya refugees but echoed calls made by advocacy groups to increase the numbers of resettled refugees to Australia.
Mr Jegan said there were more than 1.2 million Rohingyas in Bangladesh and over 2.5 million spread across the region in countries such as Malaysia and Thailand without any guarantee of safety from rebel groups and the Burmese junta.
These include several of Mr Ismail's family members in Cox's Bazar who militants have threatened to kill and rape.Â
He is desperate to bring them to Australia where he is rebuilding his life in Lakemba, a suburb with a large Bangladeshi population.
"When I was in Burma and Bangladesh, we saw a lot of violence, we used to hear gunshots daily and now it's much more peaceful here.
"We were kicked out of our home and now I have a place to stay in peace."
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