'Forget about going back': 9 years on, Rohingya crisis enters dangerous phase
The Rohingya refugee crisis has entered a dangerous new phase nine years after the initial military crackdown in Myanmar. Despite over a million people living in camps in Bangladesh, aid is shrinking and new refugees continue to arrive, making repatriation efforts currently unrealistic.
Why it matters
It highlights a forgotten humanitarian catastrophe where millions remain displaced without a clear path to safety or return.
CHIANG MAI, Thailand — As the world's attention stays fixed on the Middle East and Ukraine, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslim refugees are marking a grim anniversary largely unnoticed.
Nine years ago this week, a military crackdown in Myanmar drove them from their homes into Bangladesh, in what the United States called a "genocide."
And still they are arriving. Even as governments discuss whether those in the camps might eventually return, more Rohingya continue crossing from conflict-torn Rakhine state into southern Bangladesh.
Despite more than 1 million people languishing in sprawling camps for almost a decade, as conditions deteriorate and aid shrinks, talk of repatriation is premature, according to analysts. The more immediate challenge is stopping more people from being pushed out.
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