Amnesty International on Monday said that the repatriation of over a million Rohingya people from Bangladesh to Myanmar would be ‘catastrophic’ under current conditions in the military-ruled country’s northern Rakhine State.
Rohingya communities in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine State are facing forced labour, food and health crises, severe restrictions on movement and escalating armed conflict, Amnesty International said in a statement as it warned against dangerously premature decisions to repatriate Rohingyas from Bangladesh.
The international rights watchdog’s warning came ahead of a UN General Assembly high-level conference scheduled for September 30 to discuss the plight of Rohingyas and other minorities in Myanmar, and possible pathways for repatriation.
Most Rohingyas now in Bangladesh were violently expelled from Myanmar in 2016–17 in what the UN described as a campaign of ethnic cleansing.
Nearly eight years later, Amnesty’s new findings suggest conditions in northern Rakhine remain unfit for safe, voluntary and dignified return.
Based on interviews with newly arrived Rohingyas in Cox’s Bazar and testimonies from humanitarian workers, Amnesty reported that Rohingyas in northern Rakhine are trapped between the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army—the ethnic Rakhine armed group that has taken control of the Bangladesh-Myanmar border and much of northern Rakhine since 2024.
‘The Arakan Army has, to many Rohingya, replaced the Myanmar military as their oppressor,’ Amnesty’s Myanmar researcher Joe Freeman said.
The humanitarian situation has worsened sharply as international aid flows have been cut and conflict has disrupted supply routes.
The World Food Programme has recently stated that half of all families in central Rakhine are unable to meet their basic food needs. At the same time, the situation in northern Rakhine, where aid agencies have limited or no access, is believed to be even worse.
Bangladesh currently hosts around 1.2 million Rohingyas, most living in camps in Cox’s Bazar and Bhasan Char.
Over 1,50,000 new arrivals have crossed the border since early 2024, fleeing intensified conflict.
