New reporting paints a stark picture of life for the million or so Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. According to an investigation by The Guardian this month, families are now struggling without enough food, basic healthcare, soap, materials for shelters and even infant nutrition supplies. Doctors in the camps describe a surge in malnutrition cases. Mothers queue for hours hoping for powdered milk that no longer arrives. Clinics have scaled back or closed altogether. After years of declining international funding, the humanitarian response is now on the edge of collapse — and it is the world’s most vulnerable stateless population that is paying the price.
The story is tragically familiar. For eight years, the Rohingya have lived in the world’s largest refugee settlement, displaced from their homeland in Myanmar by the genocide of 2017. Through that time, aid agencies have repeatedly warned that funding cuts would inevitably translate into hunger and preventable disease. Those warnings were ignored. Now we have reached the point they feared. The situation is no longer deteriorating slowly. It is unravelling.
This comes at a particularly sensitive moment for Bangladesh. The interim government, tasked with stabilizing the country through a period of political transition, now finds itself responsible for a refugee population larger than the entire city of Riga, the capital of Latvia. Dhaka has long shown extraordinary generosity in hosting the Rohingya, but hosting nearly a million people with shrinking international support is not sustainable. Bangladesh’s economy is under pressure. Public patience is thinning. Tensions in Cox’s Bazar are rising. And the long-term prospects for the Rohingya are dimming by the day.
What makes this moment especially alarming is the convergence of several pressures. First, global humanitarian budgets have been slashed across the board. UN agencies report record deficits. Donor governments are reprioritizing toward their own domestic needs or conflicts closer to home.
Tensions in Cox’s Bazar are rising. And the long-term prospects for the Rohingya are dimming by the day
Dr. Azeem Ibrahim
Second, the geopolitical landscape in Myanmar continues to shift rapidly. The Arakan Army now controls most of northern Rakhine State, but it has outlawed use of the word “Rohingya” and continues to impose restrictions that make any safe, dignified return highly uncertain. Repatriation, once the only viable endgame, currently has no pathway, leaving the Rohingya trapped in limbo.
A third and even more devastating factor is the outlook for Rohingya children. They are growing up without adequate nutrition, education or hope. This is not simply a humanitarian crisis. It is the slow disappearance of a people’s future.
This captures this human dimension with clarity. One mother describes boiling rice water, the leftover starch, to feed her children because she cannot access basic rations. Another recounts wrapping her newborn in plastic sheeting because she lacks blankets. Health workers speak of infants who show the early signs of stunting, a condition that permanently impairs physical and cognitive development. These are not abstract metrics. They are the consequences of policy choices made thousands of miles away.
But the responsibility does not lie solely with donors. There is also a strategic failure at the heart of the international response. For years, the Rohingya crisis has been treated as a static humanitarian problem to be managed rather than a regional security challenge to be solved.
Cox’s Bazar is now a densely populated, impoverished, semi-permanent settlement on the border of a country in civil war. A generation of young Rohingya men have no education, no livelihood pathways and no realistic prospect of freedom of movement. Leaving such a population in perpetual deprivation is a recipe for instability that will not remain confined to Bangladesh.
This is why a new approach is urgently needed. The first priority is preventing the current humanitarian collapse. Donor governments must treat the Cox’s Bazar situation as an emergency, not a discretionary budget line. Food assistance must be restored to minimum nutritional thresholds. Health services must be stabilized. Water, sanitation and protection programs require immediate reinforcement. These are basic obligations under international humanitarian norms, not optional gestures of goodwill.
Second, the international community must support Bangladesh as it manages the political and security pressures associated with hosting nearly a million refugees. Dhaka has shouldered this burden largely alone for eight years. As a country navigating its own domestic transition, it cannot be expected to absorb worsening instability in the camps while donors quietly reduce their contributions. Strengthening camp governance, supporting host communities and expanding monitored livelihood programs are essential for preventing further deterioration.
Donor governments must treat the Cox’s Bazar situation as an emergency, not a discretionary budget line
Dr. Azeem Ibrahim
Third, there must be renewed diplomatic engagement on the conditions for eventual repatriation. The rapidly changing landscape in Myanmar, particularly the Arakan Army’s expanding control in Rakhine, requires a recalibrated strategy. While the political constraints are severe, the alternative is indefinite encampment, which is morally unacceptable and strategically dangerous.
Bangladesh, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and key international partners need a coherent approach that engages both the national unity government and the Arakan Army on rights, security guarantees and a framework for voluntary return.
Finally, we must recognize the Rohingya as more than mere victims of a prolonged emergency. They are a people with a rich cultural identity, a history stretching back centuries and an unyielding desire to rebuild their lives. Allowing their children to drift into permanent deprivation is not only a humanitarian failure. It is the erasure of a nation.
The crisis unfolding in Cox’s Bazar is not the result of a natural disaster or sudden conflict. It is the predictable outcome of sustained international neglect. Bangladesh cannot carry this weight alone and the Rohingya cannot survive on empty promises. If the world continues to look away, we will soon face a catastrophe far worse than what has already been reported.
There is still time to prevent that outcome, but only if action begins now. The Rohingya do not need sympathy. They need food, medicine, protection and a plan for their future. And they need it before this crisis becomes irreversible.
- Dr. Azeem Ibrahim is the director of special initiatives at the Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy in Washington, DC. X: @AzeemIbrahim
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source https://www.arabnews.com/node/2625724
Categories: Bangladesh, Burma, Burmese Muslims, Myanmar, refugees, Rohingya Muslims