ASIA/BANGLADESH – Bishop Gomes: “The Rohingya crisis is growing more severe as international aid continues to decline”

Dhaka – “The situation facing the Rohingya is extremely difficult. International funding is decreasing day by day, and some non-governmental organizations have been forced to suspend their activities in the refugee camps.
Caritas remains deeply involved in assisting the Rohingya. The birth rate is very high, yet the Rohingya are not allowed to work freely. People living in the refugee camps are unhappy, while the cost of basic necessities continues to rise.”
This is how Bishop Subroto Boniface Gomes, Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Dhaka, described to Fides the complex situation of the Rohingya, the predominantly Muslim ethnic minority from neighboring Myanmar who have taken refuge in Bangladesh but remain without legal recognition.
The Rohingya are considered ‘stateless’ because Myanmar’s 1982 Citizenship Law excluded them from the country’s officially recognized ethnic groups, effectively depriving them of citizenship. Under international law, they constitute one of the world’s largest stateless populations. Bangladesh hosts them for humanitarian reasons but officially refers to them as “Forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals” offering neither a path to integration nor naturalization. As a result, Rohingya refugees cannot obtain Bangladeshi citizenship, move freely outside the camps without authorization, or legally access employment.
“The Rohingya issue represents an enormous challenge for Bangladesh,” Bishop Gomes continued. “The Myanmar government has expressed its willingness to repatriate some of the refugees, many of whom wish to return to their homeland. However, the continuing instability in western Myanmar makes this impossible. We are therefore facing a crisis for which no viable solution can currently be identified.”
The bishop also pointed to growing tensions with local communities in the Cox’s Bazar area, which hosts the refugee camps.
“Local comunities are themselves living in poverty. They work hard to support their families and are witnessing increasing pressure on already scarce resources. Managing the Rohingya presence is becoming an ever more difficult challenge for Bangladesh.”
Bishop Gomes noted that the crisis “has now entered its ninth year since the mass exodus of 2017, when hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh. It remains one of the world’s longest-running and most complex refugee crises,” he said.
Despite Bangladesh’s official “closed-border” policy, more than 150,000 additional refugees have fled Myanmar’s Rakhine State to the camps in Cox’s Bazar in recent months. The total Rohingya refugee population in Bangladesh now exceeds 1.2 million, while humanitarian conditions continue to deteriorate.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees , together with partners in the Joint Response Plan , has appealed for $710.5 million to fund humanitarian operations in 2026. However, severe funding shortfalls have already forced humanitarian agencies to reduce food assistance to approximately $7 per person per month, contributing to rising levels of child malnutrition.
Deep cuts in funding also threaten essential services including food assistance, shelter, healthcare, education and protection. UNHCR has warned that without immediate support from the international community, the humanitarian situation is likely to worsen significantly.
More than 235,000 Rohingya children living in refugee camps remain without access to formal education, while healthcare facilities operated by humanitarian organizations are functioning under extreme pressure.
Driven by desperation, hundreds of Rohingya continue to risk dangerous sea journeys aboard overcrowded and makeshift boats, mainly toward Malaysia and Indonesia. In April 2026, the sinking of a boat in the Andaman Sea left around 250 people missing, while nearly 900 Rohingya lost their lives in several shipwrecks during 2025.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh and Malaysia have launched bilateral consultations aimed at increasing diplomatic pressure on Myanmar’s authorities, including through ASEAN channels, in the search for a lasting solution to the crisis.
The government in Dhaka continues to reiterate that the only sustainable solution is the safe, voluntary and dignified repatriation of the Rohingya to Myanmar, stressing that the crisis originated there and can only be permanently resolved there.
However, fighting continues in Myanmar’s Rakhine State—home to most of the Rohingya population—between the Myanmar regular army and the Arakan Army armed group. The Rohingya who remain in the region are caught in the crossfire and continue to suffer abuses from both sides, including forced recruitment, extortion and severe restrictions on their freedom of movement, effectively confining them to segregated areas. Amid the worsening food crisis affecting more than 12 million people across Myanmar, according to the World Food Programme , the Rohingya remain among the country’s most vulnerable minorities, lacking both recognized citizenship and adequate legal protection.
Providing a detailed account of the plight of what—an expression used by Pope Leo XIV—may be described as “the crucified of today” is the recently published reportage On Both Sides of the Border: Rohingya, Chronicles of a Persecuted People, written by Italian journalists and analysts Giuliano Battiston and Emanuele Giordana and published in Italy by Add Editore. The authors shed light on the ordeal of one of the world’s most marginalized peoples—a people without a homeland and without rights.

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