SEMPORNA, Malaysia ¨C Patches of palm thatch entwined with a few forlorn stilts sticking out of the emerald waters in a Malaysian marine park off the island of Borneo are the only traces remaining of the homes of hundreds of sea nomads.
Robin, one of those left homeless among a community that inspired the fictional ¡¯Metkayina¡¯ tribe in the 2022 film ¡¯Avatar: The Way of Water,¡¯ took to a boat with his children to flee the Malaysian officials who razed their home.
¡°I don¡¯t know where to go now,¡± he told reporters from the deck of a wooden houseboat festooned with drying clothes, where he lives with a cousin and their eight children after the demolition drive razed structures deemed illegal.
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