https://arab.news/mx6mr
For years, the world has viewed the Rohingya crisis as a tragedy contained within the borders of Myanmar — a humanitarian disaster to be managed through refugee camps, aid packages and diplomatic appeals. That illusion no longer holds. The crisis is now spreading beyond Myanmar’s frontiers, threatening to destabilize the wider region, from Bangladesh to Malaysia and Indonesia, while even reshaping the security landscape of the Bay of Bengal.
Recent reports from the UN and independent monitors reveal that, as the fighting between the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army intensifies in Rakhine State, thousands of Rohingya civilians have been forced to flee once again. Villages have been razed, security outposts built in their place and entire communities displaced toward the coast. With land routes sealed, many are taking to the sea in rickety boats. The result is a new wave of perilous maritime migration and an emerging transnational crisis.
In Bangladesh, which already shelters nearly 1 million Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar, the humanitarian situation has deteriorated dramatically. International funding for the camps has been slashed, food rations have been cut by a third and malnutrition rates among children are soaring. Dhaka, struggling with its own political and economic challenges, has made clear that it cannot absorb another influx. Refugees arriving now are increasingly being detained, pushed back at the border or left stranded in the riverine no-man’s-land between the two countries.
