Nine Years On, Rohingya Refugees Still Fleeing Into Bangladesh

Nine years after Myanmar's military launched a crackdown that the United States has called a genocide, Rohingya Muslims are still fleeing into Bangladesh, even as aid dwindles and hopes of returning home fade.

The exodus began on August 25, 2017, when Myanmar's military and armed Rakhine civilians burned hundreds of Rohingya villages and killed at least 6,700 people in a single month, according to Doctors Without Borders. Between 700,000 and 750,000 people crossed into Bangladesh in that initial wave.

Today, roughly 1 million Rohingya live in what has become the world's largest refugee settlement, with 200,000 more elsewhere in Bangladesh. More than half are children. According to Shari Nijman, a Bangladesh-based spokesperson for the U.N. refugee agency, 154,000 more Rohingya have arrived in the camps since 2024 alone, as conditions in Myanmar's Rakhine state "remain extremely unstable."

"After nine years, it is incredibly difficult for the Rohingya to hold onto hope that this will ever end," Nijman said.

Myanmar's 2021 military coup and the ensuing civil war have blocked any path home. The Arakan Army, an ethnic Rakhine armed group, now controls most of Rakhine state and stands accused of its own abuses against Rohingya civilians, while a junta blockade has halted food and medicine, deepening hunger.

Independent researcher Jessica Olney, who has worked with the Rohingya for a decade, said the world is not grappling with the reality that displacement is ongoing. "Forget about going back right now; people are still coming in, and nobody seems to talk pragmatically about that," she told NPR.

Humanitarian funding has fallen sharply. World Food Program rations dropped from $12 a person per month to $8 in 2023 before partially recovering, then were cut again this April to as little as $7 for some refugees under a new tiered system — even as 40% of children under 5 in the camps were already chronically malnourished, according to the U.N.

The Trump administration pledged $73 million in new aid in March 2025 and another $60 million that September, far short of the $300 million the U.S. gave in 2024. A $710.5 million U.N.-Bangladesh appeal launched in May, itself a quarter smaller than the previous year's, has so far received only about 66% of its funding.

Olney warned that without restored aid or the right to work, refugees are increasingly pulled toward illicit economies, gambling or dangerous boat journeys to Malaysia. "It's going to achieve a regional security crisis, which we already have, but it will get worse," she said.