The Rohingya repatriation myth

Almost a million Rohingya refugees remain trapped in refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, more than six years after being driven from Myanmar. The stated policy of the international community remains voluntary repatriation. This paper lays out our argument that the narrative of repatriation is a myth, not a genuine possibility any time in the next decade or more. Our central argument is that full repatriation of the whole refugee population is completely impossible regardless of outcome of the civil war in Myanmar, probably ever, and even repatriation of a sizeable minority is speculative, reliant on either the Arakan Army winning clear territorial control or a democratic government coming to power that gains clear control over the military. Even in these best-case scenarios, we argue that the demographic pressure of some 1.2 million Rohingya potentially returning to Rakhine State would be so destabilising as to make it an impossibility

Democracy · Development economics · Economic growth · Economics · Political science · Politics · Population · Refugee · Repatriation · Sociology · Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography · Cambodian History and Society · Demography · Law · Medicine · Migration, Health and Trauma

• The Rohingya dilemma

  Open Access•Mohammad Musfequs Salehin, Md Aslam Hossain•International Migration•2025

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