DHAKA: Malaysia and other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations will send a peace mission to Myanmar to help address the Rohingya crisis, officials said Tuesday, as Bangladesh’s interim leader Muhammad Yunus, whose country hosts most refugees, met with Malaysian leaders.
The Rohingya, a mostly Muslim ethnic minority, lived for centuries in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state but were stripped of their citizenship in the 1980s.
Since then, many of them have fled to Bangladesh, with around 700,000 arriving in 2017 after a military crackdown that the UN has been referring to as a textbook case of ethnic cleansing by Myanmar.
Today, more than 1.3 million Rohingya are cramped inside 33 camps in Cox’s Bazar district on the southeast coast of Bangladesh, making it the world’s largest refugee settlement.
Yunus, the Nobel Peace Laureate who pledged support for the Rohingya upon taking office last year, is on a three-day visit to Malaysia — the ASEAN chair for 2025 — at the invitation of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.
“We are concerned with the burden placed on Bangladesh on having to cater for enormous numbers of Rohingya refugees,” Anwar said in a press conference with Yunus.
“The (Malaysian) foreign minister will coordinate a team with Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand to visit Myanmar in the next few weeks to ensure that peace is attained and the atrocity (against) some ethnic minorities and the people of Myanmar can be amicably resolved.”
Despite multiple attempts from Bangladeshi authorities, a UN-backed repatriation and resettlement process of the Rohingya has been failing to take off for the past few years.
Efforts have been stalled by armed conflict in Myanmar since the military junta seized power in 2021. Violence in Rakhine State, home to most of the Rohingya, has surged in recent months amid clashes between the junta and the Arakan Army, a powerful ethnic militia.
Retired Maj. Gen. Shahidul Haque, former diplomat and defense attache of the Bangladesh Embassy in Myanmar, told Arab News: “The issue of Rohingya repatriation is in a complex state in 2025.
“Multiple actors are involved in Myanmar: the capital, Naypyidaw, is controlled by the Myanmar military, while the Rohingyas’ birthplace, Rakhine, is under the control of the separatist Arakan Army.
“It will not be possible to repatriate a single Rohingya without reaching some form of agreement with the Arakan Army.
“A UN-backed Rohingya conference will be held in Doha next September, and the ASEAN peace mission visit may also help boost the UN initiative to find a sustainable solution to the crisis.”
The UN estimates that in the past 18 months alone, targeted violence against the Rohingya has driven an additional 150,000 people to flee to Bangladesh.
The protracted crisis has begun to affect the host community, which despite not being a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, has been supporting the Rohingya by providing not only land, but also water, electricity, healthcare and a huge law enforcement presence.
The Bangladeshi government estimated last year that it had spent around $2 billion since the beginning of the crisis only on maintaining the infrastructure for refugees.
The ASEAN mission will be the first such visit since the Myanmar military coup.
“This peace mission by the ASEAN is a breakthrough initiative for finding a resolution to the Rohingya crisis. Until now, Myanmar authorities have not welcomed any third-party engagement or visit on Rohingya issues,” Haque said.
“The timing of this visit is also very important as the Myanmar military rulers will hold a general election in December. The military rulers in Myanmar need support and recognition from ASEAN peers regarding the election. Maybe for this reason, they are now willing to engage with ASEAN nations.”
