EIGHT years after the mass flight from Myanmar, roughly a million Rohingya remain in Bangladesh, concentrated in 33 hyper-dense camps in Cox鈥檚 Bazar, with additional families relocated to the government-built settlement on Bhasan Char. The scale and duration of displacement, coupled with dwindling aid, have shifted the situation from a temporary emergency into a protracted crisis that now shapes local politics, budgets and security alike.
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Reality of 鈥榲oluntary, safe, dignified鈥� return
REPATRIATION has always been the declared endgame. In April 2025, after talks at the BIMSTEC summit in Bangkok, Bangladesh announced that Myanmar had verified about 180,000 Rohingya from lists Dhaka submitted years earlier, framed as a step towards eventual return. Yet verification on paper does not equal conditions on the ground. Previous repatriation attempts in 2018 and 2019 collapsed when refugees, facing statelessness and continuing persecution, refused to board buses. The principle has not changed: any return must be voluntary, safe, and dignified, with clear guarantees of rights and protection.
Those guarantees, however, appear more remote than ever. The war in Myanmar has intensified, and in Rakhine State the Arakan Army has seized control across most townships, upending the balance of power and worsening insecurity for Rohingya communities trapped between armed actors. By late August 2025, reports suggested the AA controlled 14 of 17 townships in Rakhine 鈥� hardly a backdrop for organised, rights-respecting returns.
International investigators have been clear. The UN鈥檚 Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar has warned that safe return is impossible until crimes against the Rohingya end and perpetrators are held accountable, echoing a rights-based threshold consistently unmet by repatriation plans. Amnesty International has also documented serious abuses by the AA against Rohingya, noting new displacement since mid-2024. The message is consistent: no credible pathway to safety exists inside Rakhine at present.
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Bangladesh鈥檚 bind
FOR Bangladesh, hosting remains both a humanitarian duty and a hardening domestic burden. International assistance is declining even as needs expand. In August 2025, Reuters reported that funding shortfalls triggered widespread learning-centre closures in the camps, cutting off education for hundreds of thousands of children and fuelling negative coping strategies such as child marriage and child labour 鈥� classic markers of a protracted crisis moving in the wrong direction.
Dhaka鈥檚 decongestion strategy, including relocation to Bhasan Char, has moved tens of thousands since 2021. While the island eases pressure on Cox鈥檚 Bazar, it does not resolve the legal limbo, the absence of durable rights, or the long-term costs borne by host communities. Bangladesh鈥檚 legal framework is limited, as the country is not party to the 1951 Refugee Convention, complicating both self-reliance initiatives and programme design.
These constraints are colliding with worsening conditions across the Naf River. UN assessments in late 2024 warned that parts of Rakhine were on the brink of acute famine amid conflict, aid blockages, and economic collapse 鈥� hardly the environment into which the international community could responsibly encourage returns.
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Insufficient regional geopolitics
THE Rohingya crisis lies at the intersection of Bay of Bengal geopolitics. China has brokered several 鈥榩ilot鈥� repatriation discussions since 2023; India sees stability in western Myanmar as a strategic interest; ASEAN mechanisms remain cautious. Yet without enforceable rights and independent monitoring in Rakhine, diplomatic manoeuvring risks becoming mere optics. Bangladesh can and should continue convening neighbours and partners, but the true metric of success must be conditions-based: citizenship, freedom of movement, access to services, restitution or compensation, and accountability pathways 鈥� whether domestic or international. Anything less risks repeating the cycle of paperwork without protection.
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What would make repatriation plausible?
A VIABLE repatriation framework would commit to concrete, time-bound steps towards full nationality and proper documentation for Rohingya, verified by independent monitors to ensure those papers confer genuine rights to work, movement and education. It would include security guarantees in Rakhine, such as demilitarised corridors for return and humanitarian operations, credible protection from abuses by all armed actors (including the AA), and binding prohibitions on forced labour, extortion and arbitrary detention. It would restore schools, clinics and livelihoods while supporting mixed communities to prevent zero-sum resentments.
Such a framework would also advance accountability by cooperating with international evidence-gathering mechanisms, creating pathways for compensation or restitution of destroyed property, and guaranteeing that no collective punishment occurs upon return. Crucially, this must be overseen by robust international monitoring with genuine authority, a joint UN-ASEAN-OIC mechanism based in return areas, empowered to report in real time and to pause returns if standards are breached.
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Holding pattern to resilience
WHILE Dhaka presses for conditions-based repatriation, it can still move from a reactive stance to a resilience-first approach at home. The 2025鈥�26 Joint Response Plan already outlines priorities: protection, life-saving aid, host-community support and disaster risk reduction. Three no-regret moves could translate these into lived improvements:
鈥擲tabilise core services (education, health, food) with predictable finance. Education must be treated as a firewall: reopen learning centres and expand Myanmar-curriculum pathways so teenagers do not disappear into crime or trafficking. This should be seen as social protection, not a discretionary add-on; donors should be pressed for multi-year, front-loaded funding.
鈥擨nvest in host-community dividends. Expand infrastructure such as roads, clinics, and water supply that benefit Bangladeshis and refugees alike, and strengthen livelihood schemes that generate local jobs, reducing resentment while sustaining political support for humane policies.
鈥擧arden camp security and justice. Support community-based protection and trusted complaint channels; bolster policing against extortion and trafficking networks; and improve high-risk camp zones (lighting, patrols, safe spaces) to curb gender-based violence.
Beyond immediate relief, two strategic levers merit political capital. First, managed mobility rather than indefinite warehousing. While third-country resettlement will never absorb the majority, even modest pipelines, for the most vulnerable, for students via scholarships, and for medical cases, can relieve pressure and establish rights-based precedent. Second, conditional regional diplomacy. Future 鈥榲erification鈥� milestones must be tied to tangible, verifiable changes in Rakhine such as restored freedom of movement, reopened schools and secure humanitarian access. Coordinated messaging with partners is essential so that no actor, whether Naypyidaw, regional capitals, or local militias, mistakes paperwork for progress.
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Way forward
BANGLADESH has shouldered a heavy load, often with too little help. Yet repatriation cannot be willed into existence through communiqu茅s. The realities inside Rakhine鈥攁ctive conflict, abuses by multiple armed actors, looming hunger, and the absence of enforceable rights, make safe return impossible at present. This does not excuse drift; it demands doubling down on two tracks: conditions-based diplomacy tied to rights and accountability, and an interim plan that keeps a generation of Rohingya and their Bangladeshi neighbours safe, educated, and economically hopeful until genuine return becomes more than a line in a press release.
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Md Obaidullah is a graduate assistant of political science at the University of Southern Mississippi.
