Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh

Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh refer to the Rohingya refugees from Myanmar living in Bangladesh. On 22 Oct 2017, the UN reported that an estimated 603,000 refugees from Rakhine, Myanmar had crossed the border into Bangladesh since August 25, 2017. There are about 1 million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.

Rohingyas are a Muslim minority in Myanmar regarded by many Myanmar Buddhists as illegal migrants from Bangladesh. The Rohingyas have lived in Myanmar for generations and the Bangladesh government has called for Myanmar to take back the refugees. They are denied citizenship in Myanmar and have been described as the world’s most persecuted minority. Rohingyas are persecuted in Myanmar by security forces and Buddhist extremists. Myanmar has denied persecuting the Rohingyas.

Since the 1970s Rohingya refugees have been coming to Bangladesh from Myanmar. In the 1990s, more than 250,000 resided in refugees camps in Bangladesh. In the early 2000s, all but 20,000 of them were repatriated to Myanmar, some against their will. This respite ended in 2015 and by 2017, an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 Rohinya refugees were in Bangladesh. Most of the refugees are located along the Teknaf-Cox's Bazar highway that is parallel to the Naf River, which is the border between Bangladesh and Myanmar. Most of the refugees are located in or near Cox's Bazar, a coastal area dependent upon tourism.

Bangladesh blamed the refugees for crime and 2012 Ramu violence in Cox's Bazar. Bangladesh also follows a policy of making the country unwelcome for Rohingya refugees. The majority of the refugees are unregistered, with only 32 thousand refugees registering themselves with UNHCR and the Bangladeshi government. An estimated 200,000+ refugees are living unregistered in Bangladesh. Amnesty International reports have stated that the Myanmar security forces are committing rape, extrajudicial killing, and burying homes belonging to the Rohingya in a December 2016 report. Refugees have been displacing the indigenous people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts. They have also been blamed for importing the drug Ya Ba.

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