by Meenakshi Ganguly (Deputy Asia Director of Human Rights Watch)
Dawood is 19 years old and living in a crowded Rohingya refugee settlement in Bangladesh. He says his life is shattered.
In February 2024, the Myanmar military conscripted Dawood and other Rohingya men and boys to fight the Arakan Army, an ethnic armed group, in Rakhine State. They received little or no training, and dozens were killed or injured. Dawood spent a month in the hospital before being redeployed to the front lines. In May, with his unit besieged, he deserted, returning to his home village in Buthidaung township.
Home provided no sanctuary from the fighting. Neither the military nor the Arakan Army cared much for protecting Rohingya civilians, and before long, Dawood and other villagers were on the move again, this time fleeing shelling and gunfire. Local observers estimate that hundreds are dead or missing. The Arakan Army corralled the survivors and detained about 80 men, including Dawood, whom they accused of being former Myanmar soldiers. He was able to escape, hiding in the forest before making the long and perilous journey to Bangladesh.
Bangladesh was already home to a million Rohingya refugees who had fled Myanmar military atrocities, when Dawood and tens of thousands of others started arriving. The Bangladesh government said it was unable to support these new arrivals. “We are working very hard to make sure that we can repatriate those people,” Muhammad Yunus, head of the interim government said recently, adding that US government funding cuts had depleted humanitarian assistance.
United Nations rights experts have been clear that Rohingya cannot safely return to Myanmar. The ongoing fighting is not their only threat, as the community remains at risk of ethnic persecution by both the Myanmar military, responsible for crimes against humanity and acts of genocide against the Rohingya, and the abusive Arakan Army, which now controls most of Rakhine State.
In September, the UN will convene to discuss the future of Rohingya Muslims and other minorities in Myanmar. But later this month, countries at the UN Human Rights Council will consider its annual resolution that highlights the dire situation facing the Rohingya.
This resolution is a crucial opportunity for states to urge host countries to end any pushbacks and coerced returns. They should call for Myanmar’s junta to cease its abuses and permit humanitarian aid. Countries should strengthen and expand existing sanctions, particularly on arms transfers, jet fuel, and oil and gas revenues. Most crucially, countries should work to deliver justice and reparations for the abuses that Dawood, and refugees like him, have endured.
