Myanmar's Rohingya Crisis: Safe Return Now 'Further Out of Reach' Than Ever

Nine years have passed since the Rohingya were forced from Myanmar, and the government in Naypyidaw is once again speaking about bringing them home. Earlier this month, officials announced they had made headway in verifying refugees held in camps across the border in Bangladesh. Out of 820,000 names submitted by Bangladeshi authorities, Myanmar's government confirmed roughly 308,000 as people who once lived within its borders. But there is a condition attached: they will not allow any of these people to return until security stabilizes in Rakhine State, the region from which most fled.

The promise of progress, however, masks a grimmer reality. Analysts studying the situation say that safe repatriation is now further out of reach than it has been at any point since the crisis began in 2017. Myanmar is locked in civil war. The military no longer holds most of Rakhine State. And the Rohingya remain stateless—the government refuses to recognize them as citizens, instead calling them "Bengalis" and treating them as foreign migrants despite centuries of presence in the country.

The expulsion began in August 2017, when Myanmar's military launched operations in northern Rakhine after alleged attacks by a Rohingya militant group. More than 750,000 people fled across the border into Bangladesh within weeks, joining hundreds of thousands displaced by earlier violence. Today, Bangladesh hosts approximately 1.2 million Rohingya refugees, most concentrated in sprawling camps near Cox's Bazar in the south. The United Nations has documented evidence of genocidal intent. The United States has argued that military members committed genocide and crimes against humanity. A case brought by Gambia against Myanmar remains pending at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

The 2021 military coup that triggered Myanmar's current civil war has made the situation worse, not better. Even though elections were held earlier this year and a civilian government was formed, the military still dominates the state apparatus. Ronan Lee, a researcher at Loughborough University who has studied the Rohingya expulsion, told analysts that safe return is simply impossible under current conditions. The economy has collapsed. The military that carried out the 2017 deportations still holds power. Life in Myanmar today, he said, would be more dangerous for the Rohingya than it was when they were forced to leave. Moe Thuzar, head of the Myanmar Studies Program at Singapore's ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, added that even if the government wanted to facilitate returns—which few believe it does—it no longer controls most of Rakhine. An ethnic Rakhine armed group called the Arakan Army now holds much of the territory, including the northern areas from which many Rohingya fled. Both the military and this group have been documented by the UN as committing serious abuses: restricting movement, detaining people arbitrarily, and forcing recruitment.

Meanwhile, the camps themselves are becoming uninhabitable. Funding has dried up. Food rations have been cut. Gang violence is rising. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have attempted dangerous sea voyages to Malaysia and Indonesia in recent years. Child marriage, child labor, and school dropouts are increasing as families facing hunger make impossible choices between feeding their children and educating them. The World Food Programme reports that food insecurity is now universal across the camps. UNICEF found that admissions of Rohingya children for treatment of severe acute malnutrition rose 27 percent year-over-year. The UN and Bangladesh say 710 million dollars is needed in 2026 for urgent refugee and host-community needs. Only about 60 percent of that has been funded.

Antje Missbach, a professor of migration at Bielefeld University, noted another barrier: even if a voluntary return could be negotiated, Myanmar's government has not offered the Rohingya citizenship. Many of their villages have been destroyed or are now occupied by other communities. Rakhine is not safe, she said. Rafiqul Islam, a professor of peace and conflict studies at the University of Dhaka, described the camps as facing a perfect storm—severe overcrowding, chronic underfunding, limited educational and livelihood opportunities, and growing security concerns. The worsening conditions are pushing a population already traumatized by genocide into increasingly desperate survival strategies. Mizanur Rahman, an anthropologist at Jagannath University in Dhaka, argued that Bangladesh cannot be expected to bear this burden alone. There needs to be genuine international burden-sharing, he said. The EU has allocated 23.4 million euros in humanitarian funding for Bangladesh this year, with most supporting Rohingya refugees, and separately announced a 14 million euro development grant through UNHCR in June. But these sums fall far short of what is needed. The Rohingya remain trapped between two impossible choices: return to a country where the military that expelled them still rules and where their villages no longer exist, or remain in camps that are slowly becoming unlivable.