A high-profile Australian delegation organised by the Refugee Council of Australia (RCOA), in collaboration with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), Save the Children, and UNHCR, will travel to the Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, this week. The visit is aimed at drawing international attention to one of the world’s most prolonged humanitarian emergencies, while calling for urgent action and long-term solutions for Rohingya refugees.
The delegation includes prominent human rights advocate and former Socceroo Craig Foster AM; co-founder of the Rohingya Maiyafuinor Collaborative Network and NSW Young Woman of the Year 2024, Noor Azizah; and RCOA’s Advocacy Coordinator Graham Thom. The visit will involve direct engagement with refugees and humanitarian workers, as well as community-based sport and education initiatives.
Craig Foster, who will take part in football activities in the camps, emphasised the powerful role sport can play in refugee communities.
“Sport plays a critical role in places like Cox’s Bazar, where people, especially young people have few opportunities and little control over their futures. It builds physical and mental health, brings communities together across ethnic lines, and provides a platform for education, skills training, and personal development. We can, and must, do more to give refugee children a chance to grow, thrive and hope.
“Cox’s Bazar is the largest refugee settlement in the world, but we can’t let its scale make us numb. We need a global wake-up call, because refugee camps are not a solution. Australians are rightly proud of our resettlement program, but we must expand our humanitarian intake and ensure our support services reach the people who need them most. What’s happening in Cox’s Bazar is not sustainable, and the time to act is now.”
For Noor Azizah, a Rohingya advocate and former refugee, the visit carries personal and political weight.
“Even though I’ve never lived in the camps, Cox’s Bazar is close to my heart. It’s where hundreds of thousands of my people sought safety after fleeing the same violence my family escaped. I’m going to listen, especially to women and young people, and carry their voices with me. We can’t afford silence, because our people are still waiting for justice, for dignity, for freedom.”
The visit will build on years of advocacy, calling on the Australian Government to take a stronger leadership role in responding to the crisis.
Dr Graham Thom, Advocacy Coordinator of RCOA, says this visit is a chance to shine a light on a crisis the world cannot afford to ignore.
“The Rohingya people have endured decades of persecution in their home country and remain without a pathway to safety or citizenship. At the same time over a million Rohingya who have been forced to flee remain in limbo, trapped in the world’s largest refugee camp with ever dwindling resources. It is crucial they are not forgotten.”
MSF and Save the Children, both of which operate frontline humanitarian services in the camps, are supporting the mission and echo the call for urgent, coordinated action.
MSF Australia spokesperson, Humanitarian Affairs Lead Arunn Jegan, said, “The Rohingya people face one of the most protracted and politically neglected humanitarian emergencies in the world. In Cox’s Bazar, MSF medical teams witness every day the toll that statelessness, overcrowding, and extreme shortages of medical care take on people’s health and dignity. People have been stuck here for nearly eight years, some for over 30 years, with no solutions on the table. Their lives are in limbo.
“Australia has already prioritised assistance to the Rohingya people, and with the leadership of the newly elected government, now is the time to push for real, long-term solutions. That means urgent funding to sustain life-saving services in the camps, but also a bold commitment to addressing the root causes of their displacement and containment — including their ongoing persecution in Myanmar.
Save the Children Australia CEO Mat Tinkler echoes those concerns.
“Rohingya refugees’ needs are as urgent today as they were eight years ago, if not more urgent in the world we are living in today. With the concerning global shift towards cutting life-saving aid programs, the situation on the ground in places like Cox’s Bazar is becoming more precarious. We are seeing a real time diminishing of resources in the camps, meaning many NGOs on the ground are barely meeting the survival needs of nearly one million people, and in some cases having to cut programs all together.
“It’s time to move beyond short-term fixes, and it is well past time to offer over half a million children the chance at a safer, more hopeful future.”
Cox’s Bazar is currently home to nearly one million Rohingya refugees who fled mass violence in 2017. Eight years on, most remain in camps with limited access to education. The Australian delegation will seek to amplify the voices of Rohingya refugees, particularly women and youth.
Due to security in Bangladesh, we will only be able to facilitate pre-recorded interviews with Craig Foster and Noor Azizah on 17-19 June, which can only be published on 20 June, to align with World Refugee Day.
