Dhaka, Sep 9: The question of repatriation of Rohingya refugees, who escaped Myanmar’s military crackdown in 2017, came up as Bangladesh hosted a three-day international conference on Rohingya in late August.
Since Muhammad Yunus assumed leadership of the interim government in August 2024, the question of Rohingya repatriation has attained policy priority, positioning himself as the ‘moral advocate’.
However, this continues to remain a mere symbolism. Meanwhile, the influx of Rohingyas has increased since the fall of the previous government, with about 80,000 new refugees entering Bangladesh, added onto the 1.2 million Rohingya refugees in the country.
The deteriorating situation of Myanmar’s civil war, with the Arakan Army’s significant stronghold in Rakhine bordering Bangladesh, further worsened repatriation efforts. The Rohingya crisis no longer remains a refugee problem for Bangladesh but has added to its security challenges, evolving into a national security threat.
Since early this year, Yunus has intensified repatriation attempts, from addressing a letter to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Myanmar’s worsening humanitarian situation; to inviting Guterres to visit Rohingya refugee camps in Coz’s Bazar this March jointly pledging for Rohingya repatriation by ‘next Eid’; to multilateral and bilateral engagements to secure cooperation on the issue of repatriation and the most controversial proposal of a ‘humanitarian corridor’ linking Cox’s Bazar with Rakhine.
However, actual repatriation remains wishful thinking even after the Myanmar junta verified 180,000 Rohingyas to be eligible for return, as no such repatriation had taken place. On the other hand, Bangladesh disclosed that it has also been communicating with the rebel Arakan Army, which is now controlling 14 out of 17 townships of Rakhine state, much to Myanmar’s junta’s objections.
However, Dhaka justified such a move as ‘protecting its national interest’. While the Arakan Army’s engagement with Dhaka is understandably rooted in securing its legitimacy in Rakhine, Bangladesh’s ‘balancing approach’ remains unclear, as it is well reported that the Arakan Army’s advancement in Rakhine in December 2024 triggered a fresh Rohingya exodus in the townships of Buthidaung and Maungdaw.
Also, the rebel group has not formally agreed to take back Rohingya refugees – Bangladesh’s sole reason for communication with the Arakan Army. On the contrary, the Human Rights Watch (HRW) in its June report noted that the Arakan Army has been oppressing the Rohingyas in northern Rakhine.
The cramped up Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh, living in inhuman conditions worsened by international donor crunch, have now become more vulnerable to Rohingya armed groups, the most prominent being Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), militarising refugee camps, involving in drugs and arms smuggling and pulling the border conflict into Bangladeshi territory.
Through active and forceful recruitment of Rohingya youth from these camps, the Rohingya armed groups are now fighting against the Arakan Army. These activities have not only hindered repatriation efforts but also contributed to Bangladesh’s destabilising situation in its southeast.
just the Rohingyas, the conflict in Myanmar has been impacting Bangladeshi civilians as well. The latest re-appearance of violent escalation along the Teknaf border, especially shelling and gunfire from Rakhine, has affected the safety of Bangladeshi local civilians along the border, instilled fear in the bordering region, which has affected their movements and livelihood.
has further triggered more attempts at Rohingya influxes. Moreover, the repeated instances of abduction of Bangladeshi fishermen from the Naf River and the adjacent maritime zones of the Bay of Bengal by the Arakan Army have raised challenges to Bangladesh’s cross-border security.
to Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), there have been at least 230 such cases in the past eight months, and 46 in the past three weeks alone. Experts note that the Arakan Army’s isolation and resource shortages are motives behind such abductions.
Therefore, one cannot rule out that the rebel group might put pressure on Bangladesh to open a humanitarian corridor for aid supply, a proposal that the interim government initially considered but later retracted due to protests by political parties.
Given the nature of conflict in Myanmar, there is no doubt that such a corridor would be used for the purpose of sustaining conflict, which would have spillover effects on Bangladesh, while humanitarian reasons such as repatriation of Rohingyas would be completely sidelined. For so long an economic constraint on Bangladesh, the issue of the Rohingya is now Bangladesh’s political and security problem.
The recent international conference on Rohingya held in Cox’s Bazar titled “Stakeholder Dialogue: Key Messages for the High-Level Conference on the Rohingya Situation”, therefore, is Yunus’s latest desperation to revive international engagement on the pressing issue.
However, the policy miscalculations are doing more harm to Bangladesh than resolving the Rohingya issue. Despite this, Yunus’s diplomatic efforts to bring in international cooperation on the same are proving to be mere lip service by the latter.
With the chief advisor admitting to ‘reach all its limits’, the only solution being Rohingya repatriation, Bangladesh needs a policy reformulation, keeping border as well as regional security in mind. It remains to be seen in the slated UN meeting in New York in late September whether it will garner only international solidarity with Bangladesh’s efforts at Rohingya repatriation or active cooperation on the same.
IANS