Nine years after more than a million Rohingya fled Myanmar for Bangladesh, the crisis shows little sign of easing. Instead, a combination of shrinking humanitarian assistance, deteriorating conditions and the absence of any credible pathway to repatriation is pushing more people towards increasingly dangerous journeys in search of safety and livelihoods.
The ninth anniversary of the mass Rohingya exodus falls on Tuesday, with the UN warning that Myanmar’s wider humanitarian crisis remains one of the world’s most complex and protracted displacement emergencies.
As of July, about 3.8 million people were internally displaced inside Myanmar, while another 1.63 million were refugees and asylum-seekers, according to the latest UN assessment. For the estimated 1.33 million Rohingya, the prospect of a safe, voluntary and dignified return remains bleak.
The crisis has been compounded by a series of natural disasters and extreme weather events, including Cyclone Mocha in May 2023, Typhoon Yagi in September 2024 and the 7.7-magnitude earthquake that struck Myanmar in March 2025.
With humanitarian resources in host countries increasingly stretched, thousands of Myanmar refugees have continued to undertake perilous journeys in search of protection, family reunification and economic opportunities.
Between January 2022 and June 2026, an estimated 387,200 people fled Myanmar by land and sea, with 92 per cent travelling by land and 8 per cent by sea or river. Movements peaked in 2024, particularly during the second half of the year, and remained high during the first half of 2025.
The first six months of 2025 recorded 53 per cent more land movements than the same period a year earlier. Many people reported facing detention and other protection risks along the routes.
“Due to limited access and the often clandestine nature of these movements, the actual numbers are likely higher,” a UN spokesperson said.
Maritime movements surged by 153 per cent during the first half of 2025. The pace subsequently slowed, with the last six months of the year recording about 35 per cent as many maritime movements as during the corresponding period of 2024.
Overall movements in 2025 fell by 56 per cent compared with 2024, including a 42 per cent reduction in land movements and a 66 per cent decline in maritime movements. But the UN has stressed that the continued scale of these movements underlines the urgent need for a coordinated and comprehensive response.
The maritime route remains particularly perilous.
In the first seven months of 2026, more than 5,800 people attempted the journey on 114 boats – the highest number of maritime departures recorded in the first seven months of any year since UNHCR began systematically tracking such movements in 2022.
Women and children accounted for approximately 59 per cent of those undertaking the journeys. About 78 per cent of arrivals occurred along routes between Myanmar and Malaysia, underlining the increasingly regional nature of the displacement crisis.
UNHCR has adopted a “Route-Based Approach” to improve early access to protection and solutions for refugees and asylum-seekers, with the aim of reducing the need for risky onward movement.
But humanitarian workers say the international response is struggling to keep pace with the scale of the crisis. They are urging Bangladesh to become more proactive in mobilising political and financial support from the international community.
Speaking to the Financial Express on Sunday, Masum Mahbub, chief executive of the US chapter of Human Concern International (HCI), said Bangladesh should organise advocacy campaigns in major world capitals to keep the Rohingya crisis on the international agenda.
“We have not seen any such campaign apart from the Joint Response Plan, initiated by the UN agencies,” he said.
Masum, a Bangladesh-born US citizen, said his organisation was planning to take members of the US Congress to Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh to help policymakers better understand the scale and consequences of the crisis.
For nearly three decades, HCI has maintained a humanitarian presence in Bangladesh, Masum said. The organisation dedicates close to $1 million annually to aid and programmes for local communities and Rohingya refugees, working through trusted local NGO partners to deliver community-based assistance.
The urgency is becoming more apparent as food assistance for the Rohingya is cut back.
A recent report by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) highlighted the depth of the humanitarian crisis facing Rohingya refugees and host communities in Bangladesh. It said around half a million young people aged 18 to 24 living in the camps are unemployed and largely excluded from formal employment and accredited education.
Food rations have repeatedly been reduced and are increasingly falling short of minimum nutritional needs, with some households receiving the equivalent of as little as $7 per person a month, according to the IRC.
“Emergency responses are no longer enough,” the organisation said.
The pressure is also being felt by Bangladeshi communities living alongside the refugee settlements in Cox’s Bazar. Their economic difficulties have received far less international attention despite years of hosting the displaced population.
Families surveyed by the IRC reported that average annual incomes fell by 24 per cent between 2016 and 2020, while wages for unskilled workers declined by 38 per cent as aid budgets contracted and the economic pressures of prolonged displacement intensified.
The strains risk creating a crisis within a crisis: a refugee population increasingly dependent on shrinking assistance and host communities facing mounting economic pressure.
Nearly nine years after the mass exodus began, there is still no credible pathway towards large-scale repatriation. Conditions in Myanmar remain too dangerous for a safe and voluntary return, while Bangladesh continues to host the bulk of the displaced Rohingya population under severe humanitarian and economic pressure.
The continuing departures suggest that the absence of durable solutions is itself becoming a driver of further displacement. For refugees facing dwindling assistance and uncertain futures, the choice is increasingly between remaining in increasingly strained conditions or embarking on journeys that expose them to trafficking, detention, exploitation and death.
The anniversary therefore arrives not simply as a reminder of a crisis that began nine years ago, but as a warning that it is becoming harder to sustain.
Without sustained humanitarian financing, stronger regional cooperation and renewed diplomatic efforts to address the causes of displacement in Myanmar, the cycle of flight is likely to continue – leaving Bangladesh and the wider region to shoulder an ever greater burden while a durable solution remains out of reach.
