Arakan News Agency
The Bangladeshi government has announced that it will not provide permanent housing for new Rohingya refugees arriving in Cox’s Bazar camps, noting that efforts will instead focus on ensuring the safe and swift return of these refugees.
According to Times of Bangladesh, the Commissioner for Refugee Relief and Repatriation, Mohammad Mizanur Rahman, stated: “The Bangladeshi government will not provide permanent housing for the new refugees. The current focus is on the safe and swift return of the Rohingya to their homeland as soon as possible.”
Out of approximately 150,000 newly arrived refugees in Bangladesh, around 130,000 have been registered under detailed procedures similar to those used in 2017, including fingerprint and facial data, which were entered into the FDMN database (Forcibly Displaced Myanmar Nationals), according to unnamed officials.
Officials described this system as limited-access registration intended solely to facilitate the distribution of food, medical care, and basic services, without granting any long-term rights or recognition to the refugees.
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) highlighted the urgent need for temporary shelters. Marcel Colun, head of the UNHCR office in Cox’s Bazar, said: “We requested the Bangladeshi authorities to provide land for building temporary shelters, but we have not received any response. More than 2,000 temporary shelters are needed to accommodate the new arrivals.”
Bangladesh hosts over one million Rohingya refugees in the Cox’s Bazar camps, which the United Nations classifies as the largest refugee camp in the world. Refugees there have been living under difficult humanitarian conditions since fleeing Myanmar in 2017 due to the “genocide campaign” conducted by the Myanmar military. Additional waves of Rohingya have arrived since renewed fighting erupted in Arakan State in November 2023 between the Myanmar army and the Arakan Buddhist militias (Arakan Army).
