Sitting on the floor of a rented room in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, Karim recalls the pain and grief he sustained during a bombing in Myanmar’s Rakhine state in August, severely injuring him and killing his 7-year-old daughter. “She died on the spot,” he said in an interview in September. (Karim is identified only by his first name for security reasons.)
Karim blames the Arakan Army, an ethnic armed group fighting against the Myanmar military, for the attack. At the time, he was waiting to flee for Bangladesh—as more than 1 million Rohingya refugees have before him. The majority arrived in 2017, as the Myanmar military committed crimes against humanity while violently expelling some 740,000 Rohingya after militant attacks against police posts.
Sitting on the floor of a rented room in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, Karim recalls the pain and grief he sustained during a bombing in Myanmar’s Rakhine state in August, severely injuring him and killing his 7-year-old daughter. “She died on the spot,” he said in an interview in September. (Karim is identified only by his first name for security reasons.)
Karim blames the Arakan Army, an ethnic armed group fighting against the Myanmar military, for the attack. At the time, he was waiting to flee for Bangladesh—as more than 1 million Rohingya refugees have before him. The majority arrived in 2017, as the Myanmar military committed crimes against humanity while violently expelling some 740,000 Rohingya after militant attacks against police posts.
Tens of thousands of people are now being driven out again in eerily reminiscent scenes—this time amid a broader internal armed conflict in Myanmar, with some of the fiercest fighting taking place in Rakhine.
In September, I returned to Cox’s Bazar for the first time since the 2017 crisis. Much has changed. On the road from the airport, banners once promoted the humanitarian hospitality of then-Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, but now she is gone, having resigned and fled the country in August under pressure from mass protests.
Bangladesh’s interim government, led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, is now confronted with the management of the world’s largest refugee camp. So far, the government’s message is that Bangladesh cannot accept more people. New arrivals are being pushed back in violation of international law, something that Yunus himself has called “absolutely unacceptable.”
Another thing that has moved on is the world’s attention. During the 2017 crisis, there was a rotating foreign media presence in Cox’s Bazar. This time, I was one of only a few people on the flight from Dhaka, and with security conditions deteriorating, it was tougher to fully access the camps.
Change has also taken place in Myanmar. In 2017, the Myanmar military expelled the Rohingya, but this time, those I spoke with all identified the Arakan Army as an additional culprit. The Arakan Army is one of several armed groups in Myanmar fighting against the military since it seized power in a 2021 coup, and it enjoys broad public support among loosely united pro-democracy forces in the country.
To many people across Myanmar, Arakan Army fighters are key players in an existential battle against a military that has killed more than 5,000 people, arrested more than 25,000, and plunged the country into economic and social turmoil. To many Rohingya, however, the Arakan Army is just carrying out the latest atrocities against them in Rakhine, following decades of systematic oppression by the Myanmar military.
In Cox’s Bazar, Rohingya refugees said Arakan Army fighters in Myanmar drove them from their homes, took their food, and killed Rohingya civilians. Some family members appeared to be in a state of shock. During the frantic escape to Bangladesh across the Naf River, one man said all six of his children drowned. Another man broke down while sharing photos of his wedding from a few months earlier; his wife drowned when the boat they were fleeing on capsized.
Karim had sent his two younger children and other family members ahead to Bangladesh, but his eldest daughter wanted to stay with him. He passed out after the Aug. 5 drone and mortar attack that killed her and likely more than 100 other people. Karim ended up in a clinic in Bangladesh; he has no plans to go back to Rakhine. “Myanmar has turned into a place where it is impossible to live for Muslim people like us,” he said. “If we’re sent there, they will kill us.”
The Arakan Army has repeatedly denied accusations that it harms civilians. It said it issued warnings for civilians to leave conflict areas ahead of its operations and helped evacuate people, that it instructs its soldiers to distinguish between civilians and combatants, and that it takes disciplinary actions in case of breaches. It shifted blame to the military for the Aug. 5 attack while also suggesting that Rohingya militants could be “posing” as civilians.
Seven years ago, it seemed remotely possible that Rohingya in Bangladesh could return to Myanmar, with discussions of safe, voluntary, and dignified return. Now, families who fled the country in 2017 are sharing cramped quarters, limited rations, and even clothes with new arrivals. Camp resources appear stretched to their limits. Many people are hungry, traumatized, and scared—reluctant to venture out for fear of armed gangs and militant activity.
Though Bangladesh is understandably concerned about its ability to accommodate more refugees and rightly calling on the international community for more support, there are actions that it can take to alleviate suffering now. Dhaka can facilitate the registration of new Rohingya arrivals with the U.N. Refugee Agency, which would grant them access to aid channels.
Meanwhile, talk of return to Myanmar has diminished. In Rakhine, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya still live under apartheid conditions. “We were like frogs in a pond,” one young man said, describing growing up with no freedom of movement. “My life has been filled with unrest since childhood,” a 40-year-old woman said. “There is no freedom in Myanmar.” (Both agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity, fearing deportation and the security situation.)
Regardless of who is governing Myanmar, one thing that has not changed is this system of apartheid. The persecution of the Rohingya was an inconvenient truth that tainted Myanmar’s narrative of success during a brief period of quasi-civilian rule after 2011, capped with a landmark election in 2015. As Myanmar opened to the outside world, it slammed the door on the Rohingya, further restricting their rights—then came 2017.
Now that armed groups and pro-democracy forces have come together in response to the 2021 coup, the Rohingya risk becoming an afterthought once again, despite assurances to the contrary.
To be clear, the Myanmar military is primarily responsible for the human rights crisis that has engulfed the country. It persecuted the Rohingya, seized power in a coup and arbitrarily arrested civilian leaders, and has carried out indiscriminate airstrikes, hitting schools, hospitals, and monasteries. It has also forcibly recruited Rohingya people to fight in its ranks, further dividing the Rohingya and the ethnic Rakhine, whom the Arakan Army claims to represent.
But all those who oppose the military, including Myanmar’s ousted civilian National Unity Government, must do more to publicly condemn and investigate atrocities against the Rohingya—no matter who is committing them. This inclusive approach must be at the heart of any state that emerges from the current crisis. Those who dream of a new Myanmar that respects human rights must show that the Rohingya are included in their dreams.
It may already be too late. As more Rohingya leave, their history leaves with them. One of the camps in Cox’s Bazar hosts the Rohingya Cultural Memory Centre, which preserves what has been lost in Myanmar through artwork, crafts, and music. Inside, there are intricate wooden replicas of houses, mosques, boats, and shops as they once looked in Rakhine.
The exhibit looks like a vanishing world.
The post A Future Myanmar Must Include the Rohingya appeared first on Foreign Policy.
