Rohingya Repatriation: A Roadmap Without a Road

Rohingya refugees cross the Naf River on a makeshift raft while fleeing violence in Myanmar, on their way to Bangladesh. Credit: UNICEF/Mackenzie Knowles-CoursinOpinion by Mohammad Zaman (vancouver b.c., canada)Monday, August 03, 2026Inter Press Service VANCOUVER B.C., Canada, August 3 (IPS) - The Rohingya crisis remains one of the most enduring humanitarian and political failures in South and Southeast Asia. Since the 2017 mass expulsion from Myanmar’s Rakhine State, Bangladesh has hosted more than one million refugees in Cox’s Bazar and Bhasan Char, while Myanmar has failed to create conditions for safe return. What began as an emergency response has hardened into protracted displacement marked by statelessness, insecurity, aid dependency, and diplomatic fatigue. Repatriation is repeatedly presented as the preferred durable solution, yet every major attempt has failed because the core political question remains unresolved: the Rohingya cannot safely return to a state that denies them citizenship, protection, and equal belonging. In 2017, only months after the largest influx, Bangladesh and Myanmar signed a bilateral Memorandum of Arrangement. It promised a time-bound repatriation...