25 August 2017 saw the start of the so-called clearance operation carried out by Myanmar security forces, together with Bamar ethnic extremists and Rakhine Buddhist fundamentalists. In August 2018 UN investigators published a report accusing the Myanmar forces of mass murder and rape with genocidal intent. The Doctors Without Borders organization estimates that between August and September 2017 at least 6,700 Rohingya were killed and more than 700,000 brutally displaced; today they are accommodated in refugee camps. A total of 1.3 million Rohingya live in South East Bangladesh, where they are considered forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals.

In 2018 and 2019 both countries, Bangladesh and Myanmar, announced their intention of repatriating the Rohingya to Myanmar, but all attempts failed. This was firstly because Myanmar proved reluctant to actually take the Rohingya back in, and secondly because the Rohingya themselves found it inconceivable to return to a country they had been violently expelled from. So they’re faced with a dilemma: they don’t want to come to Bangladesh to live in camps, but neither can they stay in Myanmar or go back there. In practical terms, accommodating the Rohingya in Bangladesh is turning out to be a major challenge. Food, water and medical supplies are scarce. The Bangladeshis see the situation as a burden on local resources: stretches of forest have to be cleared for refugee camps, while the local population struggles to survive without any subsidies for infrastructure development and job creation.

Moderating a high-ranking event organized by amfori in 2018 in Dhaka, I asked the experts about problems in the refugee camps. They brought up the subject of the assertion of religious influence. The ensuing proposal that the intentions of religious organizations should be thoroughly scrutinized before they were allowed into the refugee camps was implemented within a very short time. In this context I would like to express my high regard for the way all those involved work day-to-day to prevent humanitarian disasters and keep the difficult situation under control.

In March 2019, however, Bangladesh announced that it would no longer take in any Rohingya refugees from Myanmar. In January 2020, the United Nations International Court of Justice ordered Myanmar to protect its Rohingya community from genocide. In response the country rejected accusations of genocide and refused to recognize the Rohingya as a nation. To this day UN investigators are warning of the risk of renewed mass murder campaigns in Myanmar. So as things now stand, it has to be assumed that the Bangladeshi district of Cox’s Bazar will become home to more than one million refugees. The camps are overcrowded, and in late 2020 the authorities started moving refugees to the supposedly safe island of Bhashan Char. According to World Vision, more than half of those in refugee camps in Bangladesh are children!....