Article content continued

For decades, the Rohingya have been subject to a particularly harsh form of state-backed persecution in Myanmar, at the root of which is the denial of their citizenship, their basic rights and their very humanity. When that persecution turned violent once again last August, it drove more than 693,000 Rohingya to flee across Myanmar’s border with Bangladesh over the course of just a few weeks. Since then, Rohingya babies born in Bangladesh have not been registered. They have no birth certificates, no refugee status and no citizenship anywhere. How will these babies make their way in life when they begin life without proper recognition from the very first moment?

When last September’s mass influx of terrified and traumatized people joined hundreds of thousands of other Rohingya refugees who had previously fled to Bangladesh, the displacement settlements there were suddenly housing one of the largest and most vulnerable concentrations of refugees in the world.

Nine months on, the crisis has hardly abated. Around one million people are crammed into precarious shelters, some of which are already collapsing with the start of the monsoon season. The spread of disease is a deadly risk, with the combination of rainfall, over-crowding, poor water and sanitation infrastructure, and unvaccinated children.

How to move forward and resolve this immense crisis?

In the short term, more humanitarian aid is urgently needed in Bangladesh. The longer-term solution, however, is not in aid but in some form of political settlement. Densely populated Bangladesh cannot be expected to absorb one million people. Bangladesh and Myanmar have agreed on a plan to repatriate the Rohingya to Rakhine State, but that can only be done voluntarily, safely, and in a dignified manner – distant aspirations at this stage.