The International Response to the Rohingya Refugee Crisis
Myanmar, alternatively known as Burma, is a Southeast Asian country bordering Thailand, Nepal, and Bangladesh. The country has faced great political instability throughout its history and has undergone multiple civil wars, with the most recent and ongoing conflict starting in 2021. Myanmar’s population is composed of several different ethnic groups, with the most populous being the Bamar, who account for 68% of the population and number around 40 million as of 2020. Another prominent minority group is the Rohingya: although their population stood only at around 1.4 million, they are the largest stateless population in the world, and targeted by the Burmese government in the ongoing Rohingya genocide.
The Rohingya are a Muslim ethnic minority group who had their citizenship revoked in 1982 under Ne Win’s predominantly Buddhist regime. As a stateless population, the Rohingya are especially vulnerable to genocide and human rights violations since they lack any sort of legal protections. No government is obligated to provide basic human rights for them, since they lack citizenship in any country, and their children are ineligible for jus soli citizenship. Under the current Burmese government, the Rohingya are barred from pursuing an education, seeking medical aid, finding employment, and even lack the freedom of following their faith and religion. In 2017 the government led an anti-Rohingya military campaign in the Rakhine State. Hundreds of villages were razed and mass human rights violations occured including mass rape and arson. The government denies that the Rohingya were targeted in this campaign, even though over a third of Rakhine State’s population was Rohingya at the time which cast doubt over their claims. Mohammadul, a survivor of one of these attacks, recalls, “My brothers dropped dead on the spot. I woke up from being unconscious, and opened my eyes to only meet with the eyes of a soldier who was watching. He came and shot me right in the chest once more.” Mohammadul was lucky enough to survive two weeks, long enough to make it to a hospital in Bangladesh and survive. However, his brutal story is one of many, and most do not find happy endings.
These attacks displaced 742,000 refugees, mostly Rohingya women and children, who fled to neighboring Bangladesh. Their situation only worsened in 2021, with the outbreak of the 2021 Civil War, leading to even more displacements. According to the UN, as of 2023, Myanmar has 2.6 million internally displaced people, a million of them in Bangladesh, 168,000 in Malaysia, 93,000 in India, and 84,000 in Thailand. Of the refugees in Bangladesh, 95% of them are dependent on humanitarian aid, and one of eight refugees who attempted the journey either passed away or went missing.
The Rohingya genocide case was taken to the International Criminal Court in 2019, and a affirmative statement was issued on November 27, 2024. The UN defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,” such as mass murder, preventing a certain population from having any children, or forcing children to assimilate into a different ethnic or cultural group. Within his statement, Prosecutor Karim Ahmad Khan ruled that there were sufficient grounds to indict Min Aung Hlaing, the current president of Myanmar, with “criminal responsibility for the crimes against humanity of deportation and persecution of the Rohingya, committed in Myanmar, and in part in Bangladesh.” Khan also requested an arrest warrant for the president, though the request has yet to be validated by the ICC judges. As such, no official international action has been taken against the Burmese government. ASEAN has proposed a Five-Point Consensus to help stabilize Myanmar, but the current government has refused to follow the plan. ASEAN cannot intercede further due to the body’s principle of non-interference. Other countries, including the US, Australia, Canada, and the European Union have imposed sanctions on Myanmar and on its military leadership and top officials, whilst also providing humanitarian aid in conjunction with groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. The sanctions have restricted the Burmese government’s ability to procure aviation fuel and weaponry, with spending on weapons dropping by almost $100 million from 2022 to 2023.
Despite these efforts, the Rohingya genocide is still ongoing. On March 19th, Ataullah abu Ammar Jununi, leader and founder of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), was arrested by Bangladeshi police for raiding, torturing, and killing several Rohingya civilians. ARSA is a radical resistance group who have attacked a number of Burmese border officials, civilians from other ethnic groups, and even fellow Rohingyas who also sought to peacefully resolve their persecution. These attacks have been used by the Burmese government to justify ethnic cleansing and discrimination against the Rohingya, including the 2017 attacks. ARSA’s radical nature has made it a polarizing figure to Rohingya refugees, with some supporting the violence as the only means to make their grievances taken notice of while the majority believe it to be an obstacle to true, long-term peace. Under the Trump administration the United States also continues to retract its lifesaving foreign aid, threatening the security for many Rohingya refugees.
While international economic sanctions and the ICC have helped weaken Min Aung Hlaing’s current regime, they have not solved the plight of the Rohingya. Myanmar recently announced that they would be welcoming 180,000 Rohingya refugees back from Bangladesh, yet has not made any promises regarding whether these refugees will be able to attain citizenship or even have access to basic rights and needs. The news also comes in the wake of Myanmar’s recent, catastrophic 7.7 magnitude earthquake, heavily impacting Burmese infrastructure and furthering concern over the safety of these refugees’ return, resettlement and reintegration into the Burmese community especially since their homes have long been destroyed. The story of the Rohingya genocide sets a dangerous precedent within the international community, and exemplifies the lack of power that international bodies such as the UN and ASEAN have to prevent genocide and crimes against humanity. Since the Rohingya genocide began in 2016, recent conflicts such as the war in Ukraine and Israeli-Hamas war have broken out, and are still ongoing despite similar international sanctions and genocide cases. In times of severe international crises, national governments have no higher power to keep them in check, and are able to do whatever they wish with little to no consequences. The story of the Rohingya isn’t the first of its kind, and unless the international community shifts to a more proactive approach for humanitarian causes, it certainly won’t be the last.