Few words can describe just how unparalleled the Rohingya crisis is in the context of human history.
A genocide in all but name, the crimes that the Myanmar government is still committing against a section of their own population has yet to be acknowledged with the severity it requires in the international arena.
Keeping the Rohingya here within our borders in refugee camps indefinitely was never a long-term workable solution, and this is true whether the Rohingya are being accommodated in Cox’s Bazar, or in better facilities at Bhasan Char. And while the US’s recent pledge of another $170 million in humanitarian aid is a much appreciated gesture, this does little to nothing to achieve the only solution to this crisis: The safe and secure repatriation of the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh’s magnanimity has been acknowledged by the international community well enough, but it is the lack of any sort of action to hold the genocidal Myanmar government into account that continues to harm repatriation efforts.
More than a million Rohingya refugees are now within Bangladesh’s borders after having fled ethnic cleansing in Rakhine State back in 2017. This money was needed a long time ago, but it is doubly unfortunate that the international community has dragged its feet on the matter of repatriation.
While a handful of nations have recently come forth in agreement that repatriation is the only sustainable solution to this crisis, we need developed nations, such as the US, to stand firm to the Myanmar government’s injustices and take up measures such as imposing sanctions that stand to directly impact Myanmar’s economy and its infrastructure for the message to go through.
It has been far too long since the Rohingya were violently displaced by the atrocities committed against them in Rakhine and it is time that they were allowed to return to their homeland.
