Jannatul Sharin Aoyon
Bangladesh despite of being a developing country facing its own struggles, has generously hosted more than 1 million Rohingya refugees. Their plight remains ignored while the world watches Myanmar’s political shift. Rohingya once lived in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, which is now under the control of the Arakan Army (AA).
Myanmar’s deputy prime minister and foreign minister has agreed to repatriate 180,000 Rohingya in a meeting with the interim government of Bangladesh in April this year. But it seems unlikely as they no longer have total control over the region. The junta has blocked access to much of Rakhine state in an effort to weaken the AA and rebellion groups, who are demanding autonomy.
Meanwhile, the Rohingya continue to suffer, facing oppression from both the AA in Rakhine and the Military Junta. With national elections planned for December 2025, no real change is expected. The political shift offers promises, but not solutions. The Rohingya remains overlooked and forgotten.
These hapless people are known as the world’s most persecuted minority. If we dive down in the past, we might discover something more surprising. Bangladesh has been giving shelter to Rohingya refugees for the past 47 years! The very first Rohingya influx to Bangladesh was produced in 1978.
Around 250,000 people took shelter in camps of Ukhia and Teknaf to escape persecution. It was called Operation Nagamin (Dragon King) launched by Burmese military on the Rohingya living in Arakan. With UNHCR’s assistance in 1978, Myanmar and Bangladesh signed a repatriation agreement under international pressure. Around 180,000 people repatriated through the initiative. This effort was partially successful because no citizenship or legal rights were granted to the people.
Myanmar’s Citizenship Law in 1982 rendered the Rohingya stateless. It recognized 135 ethnic groups as citizens except the Rohingya. Operation Pyi Thaya from 1991–1992 was another large-scale military campaign. It forced almost 250,000 Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh due to sexual violence, religious persecution and military abuse. A repatriation deal backed by UNHCR aimed to return Rohingya with proof of residency in 1992. Over 230,000 were sent back but it was not completely voluntary.
The effort failed to address the root causes of the crisis which is statelessness and systemic persecution. As a result, the cycle of displacement and abuse continued. Over the years, the inflow continued but the crisis took a critical turn in 2017. ARSA attacked around 30 police posts and army bases in Rakhine killing 12 officers on 25th August 2017.
In response Burmese security forces launched the deadly Clearance Operation campaign as a ‘counter-insurgency’ measure against the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA). The Clearance Operation displaced more than 740,000 Rohingyas, killed almost 10,000, raped more than 1900 women, and burned 400 Rohingya villages in Rakhine state. Considering the intense brutality the UN Human Rights Commissioner termed it a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing,” and the US declared it a “genocide.”
The Rohingya people continue to live in the shadows years after being forced into the overcrowded refugee camps of Cox’s Bazar. Deprived of citizenship, freedom of movement, access to formal education and employment, they live under uncertain conditions. Families are packed into one room shelters with an average of 40,000 people per square kilometre. It is a density far beyond what is considered habitable.
All kinds of human rights have been snatched from the whole ethnic group. Despite the struggle they still hold onto hope that one day they might return home, live a normal life-something every human being deserves.
While they eagerly wait on the bank of Naaf river totally forgotten and voiceless, Myanmar on the other side is busy with its political shift. Myanmar’s ruling Military Junta recently announced the formation of an 11-member Interim Government. It will oversee a general election scheduled for December 2025.
This move has raised questions about whether it might finally bring a ray of hope for the Rohingya, or their plight will once again be sidelined. On the surface, this may seem like a step of political transition towards a democratically elected government, but it raises critical concerns.
The Interim Administration will be led by Military Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing who will be the acting President. He is the very general who implemented both the 2017 Rohingya atrocities and the 2021 coup that toppled Myanmar’s elected government. This suggests that the upcoming election may not be a pathway to real democracy rather a move toward “electoral authoritarianism” or “Pseudo-democracy”. It is a political façade where elections are held to legitimize military or authoritarian rule rather than to ensure genuine democratic governance.
Nevertheless, most of the areas of Rakhine being under the control of AA indicates that even if a democratic government forms, it will have minimum control over Rakhine. If the conflict between the rebellion groups is not resolved and military maintains control, concerns are raised that the Rohingya issue will not be genuinely addressed.
The responses of regional hegemonic powers like China could play significant role to solve the crisis. But they chose to be on the safer side helping both the AA and military junta for their own interests and beneficial projects like BRI. Their veto at the UN Security Council and support to the Military Junta has illustrated the difficulty of taking decisive international action against Myanmar, given the strategic importance of Myanmar to Beijing.
Another regional power India also maintains a strategic relationship with AA for its diplomatic and economic interests specially the Act East Policy. The 2019 ruling of the International Court of Justice, which ordered Myanmar to take measures to protect the Rohingya from genocide, has seen minimal compliance.
UNHCR, WHO, UNESCO and other international organisations have been continuously providing humanitarian aid to these people to overcome the plight. USA and EU have condemned the attack on Rohingya, but they have not been able to come to a possible solution for the crisis either.
Amid these political shifts and power recalibrations, the plight of the Rohingya remains largely ignored. Their future tied not to democratic promises but to geopolitical gamesmanship and military self-preservation.
The writer is a Student, Department of Political Science, University of Dhaka