Source: Amnesty International –
Rohingya communities in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine State are facing forced labour, food and health crises, severe restrictions on movement and escalating armed conflict, Amnesty International said today as it warned against dangerously premature decisions to repatriate refugees from Bangladesh.
Tomorrow the UN General Assembly will convene a High-level Conference on the Situation of Rohingya Muslims and Other Minorities in Myanmar. The conference aims to formulate a plan under which the more than one million Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh can return home to Myanmar after the majority were violently driven from the country by the military in 2016 and 2017.
Amnesty International conducted interviews with 15 Rohingya refugees who arrived in Bangladesh within the past year, as recently as July 2025. The refugees came from both Maungdaw and Buthidaung Townships, which were both captured from the Myanmar military by the Arakan Army in 2024. The organization also spoke with UN agency staff, diplomats, researchers and international humanitarian organizations.
In addition, Amnesty International met with representatives from the political and humanitarian wings of the Arakan Army: the United League of Arakan (ULA) and the Humanitarian and Development Coordination Office (HDCO).
“Existing conditions in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine State are nowhere near ready for Rohingya to return safely,” Amnesty International’s Myanmar Researcher Joe Freeman said. “The Arakan Army has, to many Rohingya, replaced the Myanmar military as their oppressor. The military are using Rohingya civilians as cannon fodder to fight against the Arakan Army, and Rohingya armed groups are launching new attacks into the territory. The dramatic reduction of US aid has further contributed to a humanitarian crisis in which supplies are scarce and prices are skyrocketing.
“While it is vitally important to put an international spotlight on the Rohingya crisis with this conference, any attempt to push ahead with repatriation without addressing the acute dangers facing all communities – Rohingya, Rakhine and other ethnic minorities in Bangladesh and in Myanmar – could be catastrophic.”