The Rohingya Crisis in Bangladesh: Emerging Threats to Refugee Safety and Security

Possible report and analysis:

Bangladesh authorities are planning to return Rohingya refugees to Myanmar, but without consulting the Rohingya community and despite the grave risks to their safety and freedom, warns Human Rights Watch. In coordination with Myanmar junta authorities, Bangladeshi officials took 20 Rohingya refugees to Rakhine State in early May to visit resettlement camps as part of a renewed effort to repatriate about 1,100 Rohingya in a pilot project. However, the Rohingya refugees who visited the Hla Poe Kaung transit camp and Kyein Chaung resettlement camp in Maungdaw township found detention-like conditions, persistent discrimination, and lack of full citizenship rights that made them feel unsafe and unwilling to return.

“This is another trap by Myanmar to take us back and then continue the abuses like they have been doing to us for decades,” one Rohingya refugee said. “They are trying to confine us in camps like in Sittwe,” said another. Myanmar authorities have held about 140,000 Rohingya arbitrarily and indefinitely in camps for more than a decade. The camps were severely damaged by Cyclone Mocha on May 14, which caused deaths and injuries among Rohingya and underscored their vulnerability to extreme weather events and lack of access to humanitarian aid.

The Rohingya refugees who visited Rakhine State found their land and villages destroyed and their houses and school replaced by transit and resettlement camps built by Myanmar authorities on Rohingya land that security forces burned and bulldozed in 2017 and 2018, amid a campaign of crimes against humanity and acts of genocide. Myanmar junta officials provided the visiting Rohingya with booklets that outlined an arrangement for the government to receive and resettle displaced persons who return under the pilot project. The booklet stated that returnees would be housed temporarily at the Hla Poe Kaung transit camp and then relocated to one of two resettlement camps or one of 15 designated villages, where they can build a home through a cash-for-work program. The booklet also mentioned security personnel deployed “to ensure the rule of law and security in the areas where the returnees reside or pass through.”

Human Rights Watch, however, warns that Myanmar authorities have long invoked “security concerns” as the rationale for violating the rights of Rohingya to travel outside of their camps and villages in Rakhine State. Moreover, the booklet referred to National Verification Cards (NVCs) as documentation that returnees would have to apply for, but NVCs do not grant Myanmar citizenship. Rohingya have widely rejected the NVC process, which they see as marking them as foreigners in their own country. NVC-holders have not been granted meaningful freedom of movement, while threats and coercion to force Rohingya to accept the card have been hallmarks of the process.

Rohingya are effectively denied citizenship under Myanmar’s 1982 Citizenship Law, which leaves them stateless, and since the 2021 military coup in Myanmar, their prospects of safe and voluntary returns have decreased, as the same generals who orchestrated the 2017 mass atrocities are now in power. China has recently held tripartite talks in Kunming with Bangladesh government and Myanmar junta officials on restarting repatriation ahead of the monsoon season, despite the absence of safe and sustainable conditions for returns and the need to uphold the principle of nonrefoulement, the right of refugees not to be returned to a country where their lives or freedom would be threatened.

Human Rights Watch calls for donor governments and United Nations experts to call for a halt to any Rohingya repatriation until conditions are in place for safe and sustainable returns, with the necessary safeguards for full and equal access to citizenship, security, freedom of movement, education, and livelihoods. The organization also urges Bangladesh to continue to uphold its policy of not forcing Rohingya refugees to return to Myanmar under current conditions and to create opportunities for Rohingya to learn and work so that they’re better prepared to go home when that day comes. The looming threat of refugee repatriation to Myanmar risks exposing Rohingya once again to junta’s crimes of apartheid, persecution, and deprivation of liberty. The world can’t afford to repeat the mistakes of the past and neglect the plight of Rohingya who seek dignity and justice in their homeland.

**Human rights challenges and moral obligations**

The emerging threat of repatriation of Rohingya refugees without their meaningful participation and consent and without ensuring their safety, security, and rights not only violates international law but also raises serious ethical and moral dilemmas about the responsibility to protect vulnerable populations and uphold human rights in practice. The plight of Rohingya, who have suffered severe and systemic oppression and persecution in Myanmar for decades, has been widely recognized by the international community, but efforts to redress their grievances and end their disenfranchisement and discrimination have been inadequate and incomplete.

The enduring challenges of protecting and promoting human rights stem from multiple factors, including the broader political, social, and economic context of conflict, inequality, and authoritarianism that limits access to justice, accountability, and participation; the persistence of prejudices and stereotypes that fuel discrimination, hate speech, and violence against particular groups; the fragmentation and inefficiencies of global governance and cooperation mechanisms that constrain the implementation and enforcement of human rights norms and standards; and the erosion or rejection of human rights values in some countries and societies that undermines their universality and legitimacy.

To address these challenges, it is crucial to adopt a holistic, comprehensive, and people-centered approach that recognizes the indivisibility and interdependence of human rights and emphasizes the need for inclusive, participatory, and transformative processes of change that empower individuals and communities to claim and exercise their rights and hold duty-bearers accountable. This approach should be based on the principles of non-discrimination, dignity, equality, justice, and sustainability that guide human rights discourse and practice and blend the normative and operational dimensions of human rights work in a synergistic manner.

The normative dimension of human rights work involves the monitoring, analysis, advocacy, and promotion of human rights norms and standards at the international, regional, and national levels, and the engagement of diverse stakeholders, including civil society organizations, media, academia, and human rights defenders, in generating and disseminating knowledge and ideas about human rights issues and challenges. This dimension also involves the creation and strengthening of legal and institutional frameworks that protect and respect human rights, including constitutional guarantees, laws, policies, and mechanisms for oversight, enforcement, and redress.

The operational dimension of human rights work involves the implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of human rights programs and interventions that aim to promote and protect human rights and empower their bearers, including marginalized and vulnerable groups, to claim and exercise their rights and hold duty-bearers accountable. This dimension involves the design and implementation of projects and initiatives that target various sectors, including education, health, water, sanitation, housing, labor, governance, and justice, and that integrate a human rights-based approach that ensures the participation, empowerment, and agency of rights-holders and that addresses the structural causes and consequences of human rights violations.

**Editorial and advice to decision-makers**

The plight of Rohingya refugees and their potential repatriation to Myanmar poses a grave human rights challenge and moral obligation for the global community to uphold the principles and values of human rights in practice and to prevent further harm and suffering for vulnerable populations. As such, decision-makers at local, national, regional, and global levels should take urgent and decisive actions to address this challenge and fulfill their obligations under international law and human rights norms and standards.

First, donor governments and United Nations experts should call for a halt to any Rohingya repatriation until conditions are in place for safe and sustainable returns, with the necessary safeguards for full and equal access to citizenship, security, freedom of movement, education, and livelihoods. They should also support and empower Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and other countries of asylum to claim and exercise their rights, receive humanitarian assistance and protection, and prepare for a possible future return to their homeland.

Second, Myanmar junta authorities should cease their brutal and discriminatory practices against Rohingya and other ethnic minorities, release all political prisoners, and restore democracy and the rule of law

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