On Monday, tons of of Rohingya refugees gathered at Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh demanding justice and the precise to return to their properties, on the ninth anniversary of the genocide perpetrated in opposition to them in Myanmar. Since then, multiple million stateless Rohingya have remained stranded in tightly packed camps in Bangladesh’s coastal district of Cox’s Bazar, the place residing situations are steadily deteriorating as worldwide help declines.
The presence of the Rohingya in Bangladesh has made the South Asian nation house to one of many world’s largest refugee populations.
Key our bodies and actors have deemed the Rohingya disaster a genocide, together with United Nations officers and former United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken in 2022, however what motion has the worldwide group taken, and is there any decision in sight?
Who’re the Rohingya?
As of 2021, there have been an estimated 120,000 Rohingya, a Muslim-majority ethnic group, internally displaced in Myanmar. They’ve been described by UN Secretary-Normal Antonio Guterres as “one in all, if not the, most discriminated folks on this planet”.
Earlier than 2017, there have been multiple million Rohingya in Myanmar.
Whereas Myanmar is an ethnically numerous nation, with 135 main ethnic teams and 7 ethnic minority states, in line with the worldwide human rights organisation, Minority Rights Group, the Rohingya should not formally recognised as one in all them. They’ve been denied citizenship in Myanmar since 1982, which makes them the world’s largest stateless group. The Burmese are the most important and most dominant ethnic group in Myanmar.
The federal government of Myanmar, a predominantly Buddhist nation, views the Rohingya as undocumented immigrants from Bangladesh. They weren’t included within the nation’s 2014 nationwide census.
Almost all of the Rohingya remaining in Myanmar dwell within the coastal state of Rakhine, which was known as Arakan till 1989 and which borders Bangladesh.
Why did so many Rohingya flee to Bangladesh?
The Myanmar army has repeatedly cracked down on the Rohingya in Rakhine state because the Seventies.
Myanmar, previously referred to as Burma, was underneath army rule for 5 a long time till the 2015 election, when Aung San Suu Kyi received a landslide victory.
Whereas Aung San Suu Kyi’s electoral victory was initially seen as a desperately wanted reprieve from a protracted interval of army regimes, she remained silent on the problem of the Rohingya, who continued to endure harassment.
In August 2017, a violent army crackdown pressured greater than 700,000 Rohingya refugees to flee throughout the border into Bangladesh. Many refugees have since reported rape, torture, arson and homicide by Myanmar safety forces, backed by Buddhist teams.
Quickly after the army marketing campaign in opposition to the Rohingya started, Human Rights Watch reported that a minimum of 200 Rohingya villages had been destroyed and burned by the army, whereas an estimated 13,000 Rohingya have been killed. Docs With out Borders, identified by its French initials MSF, reported that a minimum of 6,700 Rohingya have been killed within the first month, together with greater than 700 kids under the age of 5.
The 2017 crackdown is now the topic of an ongoing genocide case on the Worldwide Court docket of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, filed by The Gambia in 2019.
Aung San Suu Kyi was deposed in a army coup in February 2021, prompting mass protests which developed into an armed rebellion after the generals responded with power.
Since then, violence in opposition to Rohingya remaining in Myanmar has continued.
What number of Rohingya are in Bangladesh?
As of July this yr, Bangladesh was internet hosting near 1.2 million Rohingya refugees, in line with UN figures. Most of them live in refugee camps in Kutupalong and Nayapara, within the Cox’s Bazar area. Greater than 75 p.c of the refugee inhabitants contains ladies and kids, in line with UN figures.
1000’s of Rohingya have continued to make harmful journeys by boat or on foot to Bangladesh because the preliminary exodus of 2017, amid political instability in Myanmar.
Based on the Workplace of the UN Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), greater than 6,500 Rohingya refugees launched into unsafe maritime journeys out of Myanmar, throughout which 900 died in 2025.
Its report added that one in seven Rohingya refugees final yr have been reported lacking or useless within the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal. This marks the best mortality price worldwide of any route for refugee and migrant sea journeys.
What are the calls for of the Rohingya protesters?
Refugees are calling on the worldwide group to put stress on Myanmar to permit them to return to their properties with out concern of extra violence.
Nay San Lwin, the cofounder of the Free Rohingya Coalition, a worldwide community of Rohingya activists, advised Al Jazeera: “9 years have handed with delayed justice and no clear path to repatriation with full rights and dignity.
“The nine-year commemoration should spark quick motion, not simply statements. All supporters and allies should unite to stress the Myanmar army and the Arakan Military to finish violence in opposition to the Rohingya and set up protected situations for survivors to return house,” Nay San Lwin stated.
“All we ask is to return to our homeland with full rights, peace, security, dignity and justice.”
The worldwide response to the Rohingya genocide is characterised by an preliminary wave of humanitarian help and democratic efforts, however each these efforts have stagnated since.
Receiving refugees
As soon as praised for taking in multiple million Rohingya refugees, Bangladesh is now going through rising criticism because it insists it lacks the sources to maintain them, citing deep help shortfalls and financial strains at house.
Bangladesh hosts a overwhelming majority of Rohingya refugees. However plenty of them have additionally settled in neighbouring international locations, resembling Malaysia, which hosts 192,481 Rohingya refugees, and India, which hosts 87,022.
Nevertheless, a Human Rights Watch report final yr said that Indian authorities expelled dozens of Rohingya refugees to Bangladesh, deeming them “unlawful immigrants”. Rohingya refugees have additionally been evicted from their properties in Malaysia.
Humanitarian help
Because the first Joint Response Plan (JRP) was launched by Bangladesh and UN our bodies in March 2018, successive plans have lower humanitarian help to a inhabitants that depends virtually solely on help. The recalibrated 2026 JRP has lowered its enchantment by 26 p.c to $710.5m, to cowl solely essentially the most vital, life‑saving wants, piling stress on companies resembling meals safety.
“Kids and youth are rising up with out formal training, whereas the worldwide group continues to scale back funding, forcing the World Meals Programme to chop meals rations. Desperation drives survivors to hunt security elsewhere, usually resulting in tragic drownings at sea,” Nay San Lwin stated.
Final yr, the World Meals Programme stated “severe funding shortfalls” had pressured it to chop month-to-month meals vouchers for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh by greater than half – from $12.50 to $6 per particular person per thirty days.
Diplomatic help
To mark the ninth Rohingya Genocide Remembrance Day on August 25, 16 diplomatic missions in Dhaka, together with these of the UK, Australia, Canada and the European Union, issued a joint assertion calling for the Rohingya’s proper to return to their properties.
UN Secretary-Normal Antonio Guterres additionally wrote an X publish calling for renewed world consideration to the Rohingya disaster.
“Rohingya folks in Myanmar, Bangladesh & throughout the area face deepening insecurity, shrinking safety house and diminishing prospects for sturdy options, exacerbated by funding cuts impacting life-saving help,” he wrote.
Authorized circumstances
Myanmar’s 2017 army crackdown on the Rohingya has been underneath investigation by the Worldwide Legal Court docket (ICC) since 2019. The ICC authorized that investigation after Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s de facto civilian chief on the time, was named in an Argentinian lawsuit over crimes in opposition to the Rohingya.
Nevertheless, little progress has been made within the ICC case and, thus far, there have been no public indictments or trials.
A separate case was filed by The Gambia in 2019 on the ICJ, accusing Myanmar of committing genocide in opposition to the Rohingya.
In 2019, Myanmar chief Aung San Suu Kyi defended her nation’s army in opposition to allegations of genocide on the courtroom. In a speech that lasted about half-hour, the previous human rights icon denied “genocidal intent” and outlined the historical past of tensions in Rakhine state.
She promised that civilians and members of the army who attacked harmless folks could be prosecuted, however repeatedly termed the 2017 crackdown as an “inner battle”, saying Myanmar’s army was responding to assaults by armed native teams, such because the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), a bunch which claimed to be appearing in self-defence on behalf of Rohingya folks.
However Aung San Suu Kyi failed to make use of the phrase “Rohingya” even as soon as in her 3,379-word speech.
In 2020, the ICJ ordered provisional measures requiring Myanmar to guard the Rohingya and forestall genocidal acts. The case stays earlier than the courtroom, with no last ruling issued.
