Rohingya in Bangladesh

Because Bangladesh has not signed the 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol, it does not formally recognize Rohingya as refugees. Instead, they are registered as "Forcibly Displaced Myanmar Nationals" (FDMNs), a category that exists only in Bangladeshi policy, not in international law. [9]

The designation carries real consequences: it restricts freedom of movement outside the camps, bars formal employment, and limits access to courts. [9]

Because the World Food Programme's operation runs entirely on voluntary donor funding, repeated shortfalls have forced repeated cuts to the monthly food voucher: from $12 to $10 in March 2023, then to $8 that June, and from $12.50 down to as low as $6 in 2025. Child malnutrition (GAM) has fluctuated between 8.6% and 12.7% alongside these cuts. [4,12]

Kutupalong-Balukhali, the core of the Cox's Bazar settlement, is the most densely populated refugee camp in the world: most residents live with less than 15 square metres of space each, well below emergency shelter standards. Seasonal monsoon flooding and shelter fires are recurring hazards in this density. [11]

Armed groups, chiefly the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) and the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO), compete for control inside the camps through extortion, abduction, and killing. Documented killings by these groups climbed from 22 in 2021 to a peak of 90 in 2023, before falling to at least 65 in 2024. Bangladesh's Armed Police Battalion, responsible for camp security since 2020, has itself faced accusations of extortion and abuse. [6,7]

Since 2019, Bangladesh has fenced the camps with barbed wire and periodically restricted mobile internet access, citing security concerns. Human rights organizations have argued the measures instead cut refugees off from markets, health information, and the outside world, without resolving the underlying security problems they were meant to address. [6]

A Myanmar-curriculum pilot launched in 2021 has since expanded to cover Kindergarten through Grade 10. As of July 2024, roughly 303,000 children and adolescents, about 76% of that year's target, were enrolled, with an 82% attendance rate. Because of the FDMN status described above, there is still no accredited pathway from camp schooling into Bangladeshi universities or technical institutes. [8,9]

Long before this curriculum existed, community-based schools were already operating informally inside the camps, set up and run entirely by Rohingya teachers and parents, without recognition from any government, UN agency, or accrediting body. These schools remain the backbone of day-to-day education for many camp children.

In April 2025, a group of Rohingya teachers formed the Examination Board of Rohingya Refugees (EBRR), the community's own attempt to standardize this patchwork of schooling and issue certified results, more on the board is available at rohingyaedu.com. EBRR held its first matriculation examination in March 2026. [13] But even these certificates carry no official recognition from Bangladesh, Myanmar, or any international accrediting body, so students completing this track still graduate without a credential that opens doors outside the camps.

The response draws criticism from several directions at once. Rights organizations argue Bangladesh's FDMN policy and its movement/communication restrictions deny basic protections without making the camps safer. [9] Humanitarian agencies point instead to donor fatigue: funding has trended downward year over year even as needs have not, which they see as the more immediate threat to refugees' welfare. [2] Bangladesh, for its part, frames restrictions as a security necessity after eight-plus years of hosting the world's largest refugee population with no resolution in sight, and continues to press for repatriation as the only durable solution. [2]