Bangladesh: The Rohingya crisis continues amongst growing needs and shrinking support
MSF warns of mounting pressure on essential services as more than one million Rohingya remain in limbo in Bangladesh.
Written by Elko Brummelman, country representative of MSF in Bangladesh and Muhammad Hubaib, camp-based team member and a Rohingya refugee
Nearly nine years ago, in a landmark act of humanity,Bangladesh opened its borders to hundreds of thousands of Rohingya forced to flee relentless violence in Myanmar.
Over time, it’s easy to assume the crisis has settled into a “protracted reality”, yet in Cox’s Bazar, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Fronitères (MSF) continues to meet families who have only recently crossed the border from Myanmar. They arrive with stories of insecurity, violence, forced recruitment, extortion and fear. This latest cycle of conflict differs from 2017, marked by fighting between the Myanmar Armed Forces and the Arakan Army since late 2023. While all communities in Rakhine State are impacted, Rohingya are once again bearing the greatest consequences forced from their homes and driven to make deadly journeys in search of safety. Their journeys are a reminder the violent conditions that drove the 2017 exodus remain painfully present.
As Bangladesh prepares to assume the presidency of the 81st session of the UN General Assembly under the leadership of physician Khalilur Rahman, it has an opportunity for another landmark act of humanity: placing the protection needs of a violently persecuted minority at the centre of discussions. Today, more than one million Rohingya refugees live in the camps of Cox’s Bazar. Many have spent years in overcrowded shelters with limited opportunities to move freely, earn an income or build a future.
Resilience has its limits
“We, the people labelled as ‘refugees’, remind the world that we are human beings,” says Muhammad Hubaib, a Rohingya refugee who fled to Bangladesh in 2017 and now works with MSF in Cox’s Bazar. “We deserve dignity, protection and equal rights to rebuild our lives… I am tired of counting divisions among human beings with different unique words. We share the same humanity, the same blood, the same hopes and the same capacity to dream.”
For years, global narratives have praised the “resilience” of the Rohingya. But after nearly a decade of confinement in overcrowded shelters, relying on this narrative feels increasingly unjust. It risks suggesting they can indefinitely endure the unendurable. What the world misinterprets as sustainable resilience is a tiring, costly will to survive, kept alive by parents fighting to educate their children and youth voluntarily teaching younger generations with no clear pathway forward.
There is a growing disconnect between international rhetoric and lived reality. The UN and other international agencies rightly emphasize resilience and self-reliance as essential to preserving dignity and hope. Yet nearly a decade into this crisis, most Rohingya refugees remain without meaningful opportunities to work, move freely, pursue higher education or shape their own futures. In the absence of concrete pathways and solutions, including for a dignified and safe return to Myanmar; commitments to resilience and self-reliance risk becoming little more than empty promises.
A response under pressure
At the very moment needs remain high and solutions remain far, support for the wider humanitarian response is under growing pressure, including financially. MSF’s medical teams continue to respond to infectious diseases, chronic illnesses, maternal health needs and mental health concerns.
In 2025, MSF teams:
- provided 438,805 outpatient consultations and 118,929 emergency consultations
- conducted 75,583 mental health and psychiatric consultations
- supported 4,547 deliveries
- provided 18,477 consultations for diabetes
- treated 15,293 patients for hepatitis C
- cared for 3,515 survivors of sexual and gender-based violence
- supported 3,493 patients for violence-related injuries.
Security incidents and violence remain a concern. The prospect of safe, voluntary and dignified return remains distant while conflict continues in Rakhine State.
MSF operates independently of the UN-led humanitarian funding system, but we are acutely aware of the impact that funding reductions across the broader response could have on Rohingya refugees. Our teams are already witnessing increasing pressure on essential services, including healthcare, water and sanitation, education, protection services and food assistance. These pressures are felt by both Rohingya refugees and the communities of Cox’s Bazar that have lived alongside the world’s largest refugee community for nearly a decade.
Bangladesh played an important role in bringing the Rohingya crisis back to the global agenda through last year’s high-level conference on Rohingya Muslims and other minorities in Myanmar at the UN.
Through its UN General Assembly presidency, Bangladesh has a renewed opportunity to insist on meaningful political action — action that builds on, rather than undermines, the landmark act of humanity it extended to Rohingya people in 2017.
