But a Times investigation found that only a few dozen have been repatriated — and maintaining the fiction that refugees are about to return is politically useful for both sides.

The vast majority of Rohingya are still crammed into squalid refugee camps in Bangladesh, fearing what might await them if they were to return. Much of the land in Myanmar’s Rakhine state that was emptied by ethnic cleansing, now holds power stations, government buildings and, most of all, military and border guard bases.

Promises made: This report by our Southeast Asia bureau chief, Hannah Beech, is part of a series by The Times that investigates the vows made by those in power when things go wrong.

YouTube cracks down on disinformation about Hong Kong protests

The company said it had disabled 210 channels that were behaving “in a coordinated way” to spread disinformation about the mass demonstrations, days after Facebook and Twitter took similar steps.