'We Came Here to Escape Death. Should We Jump Into the Face of Death Again?' Nine Years On, Rohingya Repatriation Remains a Distant Dream

Nearly nine years after more than 700,000 Rohingya fled Myanmar's military crackdown, not a single refugee has been able to return home. A roundtable in Cox's Bazar brought together Rohingya leaders, researchers, UN officials, government representatives and civil society members, who agreed on one uncomfortable truth: repatriation is the only solution, but the conditions for it do not yet exist.

Photo Source: UCR

Rohingya Refugee Camps, COX'S BAZAR, Bangladesh, Since 2018, Rohingya community leaders in Bangladesh's refugee camps have been told the same thing, year after year: repatriation will happen today or tomorrow. Eight years later, not a single Rohingya has returned to Myanmar.

That painful reality sat at the centre of a roundtable discussion titled "How Far Is the Future of Rohingya Repatriation?" held at the Cox's Bazar District Council Auditorium on Thursday, organised by local media outlet Bay Insight and voluntary organisation Embolden Bangladesh. Researchers, Rohingya representatives, UN officials, government officials, development workers, civil society members and local elected representatives gathered to confront a question that grows heavier with each passing year.

Their conclusion was broadly shared, and deeply sobering: repatriation is the primary and sustainable solution, but the conditions for repatriation have not yet been created. And Bangladesh, they agreed, cannot simply keep waiting.

'Repatriation Does Not Happen by Words Alone'

Syed Ullah, president of the United Council of Rohingya, did not mince his words.

"Repatriation does not happen by words alone. Since 2018, we have been hearing that repatriation will happen today or tomorrow. But we have seen no reflection of those words in reality," he said.

He argued that the conversation has gone on long enough. What is needed now, he said, is a strategic plan rooted in the current reality, not in repeated promises.

Syed Ullah also pushed back against the framing of the Rohingya crisis as primarily Bangladesh's problem. In his view, it is first and foremost Myanmar's problem, secondly Bangladesh's, and thirdly a problem for the rest of the world to share.

He placed particular weight on the question of identity, which he described as deliberate and politically motivated. Myanmar has long referred to the Rohingya as "Bengalis," implying they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh rather than an indigenous people of Rakhine State. Syed Ullah said this narrative is not accidental.

"They want to prove that we are Bengalis," he said. "Myanmar is trying to establish internationally the idea that the Rohingyas are people from Bangladesh who at some point illegally settled in Myanmar and later returned to Bangladesh."

He reminded the audience that the Rohingya displacement did not begin in 2017. Rohingya came to Bangladesh at different times, including in 1991, 2016, 2017 and again in 2024. Viewing the crisis as a recent episode of "migration," he said, would erase its deep historical reality.

His appeal to Bangladesh was simple. "We are not putting any kind of pressure on Bangladesh. We only want peace."

'90 Percent of Arakan Is Under the Arakan Army'

Mujibur Rahman, a Rohingya youth leader and president of the Arakan Football Federation, raised what may be the most urgent and underappreciated obstacle to repatriation: who actually controls the land the Rohingya are supposed to return to.

"Around 90 percent of Arakan is now under the control of the Arakan Army," he said. "Therefore, Bangladesh cannot deal with repatriation solely through discussions with Myanmar's central government."

His point cut to the heart of the problem. The agreements Bangladesh has reached over the years were signed with Myanmar's central government. But that government no longer controls Rakhine State in any meaningful way. The Arakan Army, an ethnic Rakhine armed group that has fought the junta for years, now dominates the territory. Any repatriation plan that ignores this reality, Mujibur Rahman argued, is a plan built on sand.

He called on Bangladesh to engage China and India as part of any diplomatic push. "This must be done," he said firmly.

He also expressed anger at the language now being used about his people in Myanmar. "We are not beggars. We are the people of Arakan, the homeland of our fathers, forefathers and generations."

And he shared what he described as his greatest fear, one that is already beginning to materialise. "We fear one thing the most, and that is also happening in Bangladesh. That is the creation of an anti-Rohingya movement or sentiment here."

'There Can Be No Solution Without Taking the Arakan Army Into Account'

Professor Rahman Nasir Uddin, an anthropologist at the University of Chittagong and a leading refugee expert, raised some of the discussion's most difficult questions.

He described the stripping of Rohingya citizenship as state policy, not a bureaucratic accident, and argued that any repatriation plan that does not confront this politics of identity denial is doomed to fail.

He questioned whether Myanmar's central government is even capable of honouring whatever agreements it has made with Bangladesh.

"The central government does not have the capacity to implement the agreement. So whom did we make the agreement with?" he asked.

He also shared findings from his own fieldwork with Rohingya who arrived in Bangladesh after 2024, saying their testimonies revealed evidence of violence even more intense than what was documented during the 2017 genocide. "There are indications that genocide is continuing," he said.

For Professor Uddin, three things must be guaranteed before any repatriation can begin: legal recognition of Rohingya identity, security and social protection, and the guarantee of human dignity.

"We came here to escape death. Should we jump into the face of death again?" he said, quoting the words of Rohingya refugees he had interviewed.

He also called out what he described as a troubling tendency in Bangladesh to blame the Rohingya community for the actions of individuals. "There may be criminals or members of armed groups within such a large population," he said, "but the actions of individuals or groups should not be attributed to the entire community."

'It Is Still an Aspiration, But There Is No Concrete Plan'

Marcel Collon, head of the UNHCR Cox's Bazar Sub-Office, acknowledged plainly that even after nine years, the international community has not produced a workable plan for Rohingya repatriation.

"It is still an aspiration, but there is no concrete plan for how it will be implemented," he said.

He listed what he considers the minimum conditions for repatriation: an end to all forms of conflict in Myanmar, security guarantees for returnees, the right to return to their original areas, the ability to reclaim land and homes, and citizenship or at the very least fundamental rights close to citizenship.

He also cautioned against expecting those conditions to materialise quickly. "It could take another one, two or three years," he said. To build those conditions, Bangladesh will need to work not only with Myanmar but also with neighbouring countries and influential international actors.

'Nine Years Is Not a Short Period'

Development worker Faria Hossain was direct about what nine years of waiting has meant for the people living through it.

The Rohingya crisis, she said, is no longer at the stage of an emergency humanitarian response. It has become a protracted crisis and must be treated as one. That means long-term thinking, not just relief operations.

She also raised a point that several other participants echoed: the people most affected by this crisis are rarely present when decisions about their future are made. "The solution should not be discussed merely 'about the Rohingyas,'" she said, "but 'with the Rohingyas.'"

'They Must Return With Dignity'

Abu Morshed Chowdhury Khoka, president of the Cox's Bazar Civil Society, acknowledged the arithmetic of the challenge. If more than 1.2 million people are to return gradually, the process will take years. But, he stressed, simply sending people across the border is not repatriation. It must come with guarantees of dignity.

He noted that international attention to the Rohingya crisis has declined since other emergencies in Afghanistan and Ukraine captured global attention, and warned that this declining visibility has real consequences for the Rohingya's chances of return.

He also made clear that the interests of the Bangladeshi host communities must be part of the conversation. After nine years, the economic, environmental and social impact of the crisis on Cox's Bazar and surrounding areas has grown significantly. "Just as the safety and dignity of Rohingyas must be considered," he said, "the dignity and interests of the local population that has been bearing the consequences of the crisis for years must also be taken into account."

Third-Country Resettlement: A Path or a Complication?

Subrata Chakraborty, an adviser to BRAC, noted that there are three internationally recognised durable solutions to refugee crises: repatriation, local integration and third-country resettlement. With local integration not a realistic option in Bangladesh, he argued that third-country resettlement should remain on the table alongside repatriation.

Camp-in-Charge Arafat-ul-Alam, however, raised a concern from the ground. In his experience, the possibility of resettlement to countries like Canada or Australia is creating a new mindset among some Rohingya, who are beginning to see third countries as their future destination rather than Myanmar. Some, he said, are even trying to appear more vulnerable than they are in order to qualify for resettlement, creating competition and a sense of injustice among those not selected. "Repatriation is the only solution," he said.

He also sought to clarify Bangladesh's position. The government, he said, has never adopted a policy of permanently settling Rohingya in Bangladesh. Temporary shelter, Myanmar-based education and cultural preservation programmes are all oriented toward one goal: return.

Nine Years Later, the Question Has Changed

In 2017, the question was how to save the Rohingya. Soon afterwards, the question became how to send them back. Now, nine years later, the question is harder than either of those.

When will Myanmar become safe enough for them to return? And if it takes another one, two or three years, how will Bangladesh manage more than one million people while maintaining humanitarian dignity and protecting the interests of local communities?

The roundtable did not produce easy answers. But it produced honest ones.

Repatriation remains the goal. Bangladesh wants it. The Rohingya want it. But the Myanmar they fled in 2017 no longer exists in the same form. Ninety percent of Rakhine State is controlled by a different armed force than the one that signed agreements with Dhaka. The identity of the Rohingya is still contested. Their citizenship is still denied. Their land is still occupied.

As Professor Rahman Nasir Uddin put it, the question is no longer simply "When will the Rohingyas return?"

The question is: "Where is the Myanmar they can return to?"

The roundtable titled "How Far Is the Future of Rohingya Repatriation?" was held at the Cox's Bazar District Council Auditorium. It was organised by Bay Insight and Embolden Bangladesh, moderated by Bay Insight Editor Sourav Deb, and chaired by Hasna Hossain, director of Bay Insight Media Group and chairman of Embolden Bangladesh.