Rohingya Refugee Repatriation from Bangladesh: A Far Cry from Reality

Abstract

State-backed systematic persecution in 2017 forcibly displaced more than 700,000 Rohingya people from Rakhine State, Myanmar, to Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. The Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar have become a matter of worry for the Bangladesh government. The conditions in the camps are appalling, raising the possibility of an epidemic, and there has been a spike in crime, including rape, murder, abduction and drug and human trafficking. Seeking a better future, some Rohingya refugees have attempted to move from Bangladesh to Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia through various illegal routes. But these attempts have either failed or the refugees faced an even worse situation, since these Southeast Asian states refused to confer refugee status on the Rohingyas. Therefore, to bring normalcy back to the lives of the Rohingya people, a repatriation process from Bangladesh to Rakhine State, Myanmar, must be created and implemented. This would require the Government of Myanmar to guarantee a conducive living environment for the Rohingyas in the Rakhine State, uphold their basic human rights and provide Myanmar citizenship to the Rohingyas. As regional powers with major economic and political interests in Myanmar, India and China could play a constructive role and bring pressure on the Myanmar government to agree to take back the Rohingyas from Bangladesh. But so far, both New Delhi and Beijing have been reluctant to get involved in resolving the Rohingya refugee issue.