Dr. Cemal Sangu
Former Turkish Diplomat
Dhaka… A city etched into memory by the humid air of Bengal, its rain-washed streets, ceaseless human tide and rivers merging along the distant horizon. A thin mist settled over the city in the mornings; heavy clouds covered the sky during the day; and sudden showers often broke in towards evening. Together, they lent the landscape a spirit that was at once mysterious and wistful. It sometimes seemed as though nature in Bengal governed not only the seasons, but human emotions as well.
Bangladesh was a land where rivers converged, where water flowed into soil and soil into life. The abundance carried by the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna nourished the vast delta, while the monsoon rains could turn this country into either a corner of paradise or a harsh testing ground where people struggled against their fate. There was a profound poetry in a landscape where water, greenery and earth were intertwined. Yet behind this beauty lay another reality: poverty, social inequality, fragile lives and, at times, some of humanity’s most severe ordeals.
I was serving in Dhaka, one of the first overseas postings of my professional career, in a city alive with movement and contradictions. As life flowed vigorously through its streets, the shadow of a disaster unfolding a few hundred kilometres away would sometimes fall across the ordinary rhythm of the day. In those years, I closely followed reports emerging from Arakan, in the west of Myanmar, then known as Burma. Each new account suggested that the Rohingya Muslims living across the border were being drawn into an increasingly severe climate of oppression and violence.
During my posting in Dhaka, I did not limit myself to following the great human tragedy that had forced Rohingya Muslims to seek refuge in Bangladesh through diplomatic reports and press coverage alone. As part of a visit programme arranged at the time, I had the opportunity to visit refugee camps near Cox’s Bazar. The flight from Dhaka to Cox’s Bazar was more than a journey to the country’s south-east. It was a journey towards the very place where a human tragedy we had known through news reports was unfolding—in the midst of suffering and desperation.
When our aircraft landed at Cox’s Bazar, the sky was heavy with clouds. Rain fell as though it would never cease, and the air seemed weighed down by humidity and gloom. As we left the airport and made our way towards the camps, the rain-soaked roads, the earth turned to mud and the damp air all around us left an almost indescribable sadness within me. It was as though the sky itself shared in the suffering there, drawing a curtain of clouds over the people below.
The scene that greeted us upon reaching the camp was one of destitution beyond the power of words to convey. Frail tents stood haphazardly on ground transformed into a sea of mud; makeshift shelters had been pieced together from reeds and whatever scarce materials people could find. Leaning against one another, these fragile refuges revealed how harshly human lives could be confined. Rain trickled over the tents and reed huts, while mud clung to our feet with every step. We had to put on the boots prepared for us as part of the visit programme. Even walking here was a struggle in itself.
Yet what weighed most heavily was not the mud beneath our feet, but the human scene before our eyes. Women, elderly people, children… Some searched for a corner where they might escape the rain; others for a shelter under which to rest their heads; still others for a patch of dry ground where they could keep their families at least a little safer. People who had once owned their homes, gardens and villages were now trying to hold on to life beneath a few belongings and thin sheets of tent fabric. The children’s faces seemed to carry more fatigue and bewilderment than the joy of childhood; the elderly bore the sorrow of a life left behind; and the women carried the heavy responsibility of keeping their families together.
In the large tents set up by aid organisations, food was being distributed in an effort to provide people with at least one modest, warm meal. The containers held by those waiting in the rain were more than vessels for food under such conditions; they held the hope of making it through another day. Nearby, I noticed a small medical tent. With its limited resources, this modest medical post seemed like a small yet vital hand of hope extended to people living under the shadow of disease and malnutrition.
When I saw that tent, I thought that humanity, despite all its helplessness, had not surrendered. On one side were people searching for shelter in the rain; on the other were aid workers trying to bring them food, tend their wounds and find remedies for their illnesses. There were shattered lives on one side, and hands reaching out to help those lives stand again on the other. The sky remained overcast. The rain had not stopped, and the mud had not dried. Yet what remains most deeply etched in my memory is neither the intensity of the rain nor the wretched condition of the camps. What I have never forgotten are the faces of people struggling to hold on to life amid such deprivation and despair.
At times, we try to understand a disaster through figures: How many people had fled? How many families had abandoned their homes? How many tents had been erected, and how many people had received assistance? Yet in that camp there was a reality that no figure could convey on its own. Beneath every tent lay a life left unfinished; within every family was a home abandoned; in every child’s eyes was a sense of security that had been lost. That day, I understood once more that being a refugee is not merely crossing a border. It is being torn away from the world in which one was born and raised, and having the bond between one’s past and future severed in an instant.
Many years have passed since that journey from Dhaka to Cox’s Bazar. Yet the people I saw in the rain, among the reed huts and frail tents, remain before my eyes despite the passage of time. That experience transformed the Arakan question, for me, from an issue followed in diplomatic files into one inscribed in human memory and conscience.
1. The Historical Memory of Arakan: Identity, Belonging and the Colonial Legacy
To understand the human tragedy in Arakan, it is not enough to look only at the military operations that began in 1991. Behind this suffering lies a complex process in which centuries of historical interaction, colonial-era population and labour policies, post-independence nationalism and the state’s citizenship regime became intertwined.
Arakan lies on the coast of the Bay of Bengal, in a region where the trade networks of Bengal, South-East Asia and the Indian Ocean have intersected throughout history. Relations between Muslim merchants, sailors and settlers and the Buddhist kingdoms of Arakan shaped the region’s social fabric over many centuries. Academic literature, however, offers differing interpretations of the historical formation, naming and origins of Rohingya identity. Some studies trace the Muslim presence in the region to early patterns of trade and settlement, while others emphasise the impact of labour migration from Bengal to Arakan under British colonial rule on the later demographic structure. This contested historical background cannot justify denying Rohingya people their rights to citizenship and belonging; debates about historical origins must be kept separate from the fundamental rights of people living today.[1][2]
Under British colonial rule, Burma was administered as part of the administrative structure of British India. Administrative and economic ties between Bengal and Burma increased population movements for agricultural labour and trade. Some of this mobility became part of Arakan’s agricultural economy and local labour market. Over time, the colonial administration’s labour and population policies created conditions that fostered competition and mistrust among local communities. Yet this historical process, on its own, cannot explain the later classification of an entire Muslim community as ‘foreigners’ or ‘illegal immigrants’.
The Second World War further unsettled Arakan’s social balance. During the Japanese invasion of Burma and the British retreat, Muslim and Buddhist communities became associated with different political and military sides. In 1942, reciprocal violence, the destruction of villages and forced displacement took place. The loss of civilian lives in both communities made this period one of the historical turning points in the mistrust that would deepen in the years that followed. It is historically and morally unacceptable, however, to assign responsibility for past conflicts to an entire religious community today.[3]
The point to bear in mind is that Arakan’s history is too layered to be reduced to a single ethnic or religious narrative. Muslim and Buddhist communities have experienced not only periods of rivalry, but also examples of coexistence and mutual interaction. Yet post-independence state-building, rather than bringing this plural social heritage together under a shared framework of citizenship, increasingly moved towards deepening divisions based on identity.
2. Military Rule, the Citizenship Law and the Making of Statelessness
General Ne Win’s seizure of power in a military coup in 1962 marked one of the major turning points in the deepening exclusion of Muslims in Arakan. Instead of addressing the country’s ethnic and religious diversity through an inclusive understanding of citizenship, the government foregrounded a centralised national identity and security-based approach. Restrictions on Rohingya organisation, travel, education, religious life and employment increased.[4]
During the 1978 campaign known as Operation Nagamin (King Dragon), more than 200,000 Muslims from Arakan fled to Bangladesh. Refugees reported violations including military violence, forced displacement, sexual assault and looting of property. Most returned following international pressure, but the problems of citizenship and security remained unresolved.[5]
The 1982 Burma Citizenship Law gave exclusion a legal and administrative foundation. It organised citizenship into three categories—‘citizen’, ‘associate citizen’ and ‘naturalised citizen’—and relied on criteria relating to settlement before 1823 and membership in ethnic groups recognised by the state. Since Rohingya were not included among the recognised national groups, they faced severe obstacles to obtaining full citizenship. The law should not be interpreted as having automatically cancelled everyone’s citizenship through a single act; in practice, however, its implementation deprived the great majority of citizenship rights and led to de facto statelessness.[6]
Discrimination in travel permits and access to education and public services, restrictions on marriage and civil registration, forced labour and loss of property became part of everyday life. People were increasingly deprived of the ability to move, work and build a future in the land where they had been born.
Citizenship thus ceased to be merely a legal status. It became an instrument determining who could move, work and build a future in the land where they lived.
3. 1991–1992: Suffering Across the Border
Growing repression also created conditions for the emergence in the 1980s of armed groups such as the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO) and the Arakan Rohingya Islamic Front (ARIF). Sources give differing dates for ARIF’s establishment, citing either 1986 or 1987. While the Myanmar authorities regarded these organisations as security threats, it would be wrong to equate armed groups with the entire civilian Rohingya population.[7]
Reports emerged in 1991 of an increase in military units, facilities and roads in northern Arakan. Tessa Piper’s 1993 study records refugee testimonies alleging that some settlements had been cleared for military projects and that civilians had been used as unpaid labour.[8]
During the operations that expanded towards the end of 1991, refugee testimonies repeatedly described forced labour and portering, ill-treatment, arbitrary detention, killings, rape, confiscation of property and attacks on religious buildings. Not every incident had been independently verified, and the Myanmar government rejected the allegations; nevertheless, the recurring accounts raised serious human rights concerns.[9]
The Myanmar government defended the operations as a campaign against armed organisations. Security concerns, however, cannot legitimise the collective punishment of civilians. The fact that women, children and elderly people were also forced to abandon their homes showed that what was taking place went beyond an ordinary security operation.
The exodus became apparent in the first half of 1991, intensified towards the end of that year and continued throughout 1992. Human Rights Watch records that approximately 250,000 Rohingya crossed into Bangladesh, while Piper’s report also refers to estimates exceeding 270,000 by July 1992. Although the figures vary, it is clear that hundreds of thousands of people were forced to cross the border.[10]
Families left their villages with only a few belongings, trying to reach Bangladesh by crossing forested and mountainous routes and, at times, the Naf River. This journey was less an attempt to begin a new life than a last resort to escape the fear of death.
Sources give the number of camps around Teknaf and Cox’s Bazar as either 19 or 20. As the need for shelter, food, clean water, healthcare and sanitation grew rapidly, shortages of land, materials and personnel made conditions even harsher.[11]
4. Bangladesh’s Diplomatic and Humanitarian Test
Faced with the exodus of 1991–1992, Bangladesh assumed a major humanitarian burden despite its limited economic resources. To meet the shelter, food and healthcare needs of hundreds of thousands of people, the government in Dhaka sought support from the United Nations and international organisations and launched relief operations in the camps.
Dhaka sought both to protect the lives of those seeking refuge and to safeguard border stability and its relations with Myanmar. Although it viewed repatriation, rather than permanent integration, as the solution, any return had to take place under safe, voluntary and dignified conditions.
In April 1992, Bangladesh and Myanmar reached an understanding on repatriation, and the process began in September. Reports nevertheless indicated that some returns had been carried out forcibly. In its report of 22 December 1992, Amnesty International recorded allegations that more than 150 people had been returned against their will on 25 November.[12]
UNHCR joined the process in October 1992 but withdrew its support in December over concerns about the principle of voluntariness. Agreements reached in 1993 envisaged individual and voluntary returns, yet uncertainty over citizenship, security and fundamental rights remained unresolved. Further returns took place between 1993 and 1997, but no lasting solution was achieved.[13][14]
This process exposed the dilemma of refugee diplomacy: while Bangladesh sought to accelerate repatriation because of the growing humanitarian and economic burden, refugees were reluctant to return while the conditions that had forced them to flee remained unchanged.
Returning home means more than crossing a border. Without guarantees of physical safety, citizenship, property, freedom of movement and human dignity, repatriation cannot be considered a lasting solution.
By opening its borders, Bangladesh protected the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Reports of forcible returns, however, revealed the problematic aspects of a policy conducted amid competing humanitarian responsibilities, economic pressures and border-security concerns.
5. The International Community’s Test: Aid, Diplomacy and Law
As the crisis came onto the international agenda, UNHCR, the World Food Programme and non-governmental organisations provided assistance in the camps. Humanitarian aid, however, was not enough to remove the causes of the crisis or to create the political conditions for safe return.
Myanmar joined ASEAN on 23 July 1997 and was therefore not a member of the organisation during the 1991–1992 crisis. In subsequent years, the Rohingya issue tested the balance between ASEAN’s principle of respect for sovereignty and its responsibilities for regional peace and human rights. Although the 2021 Five-Point Consensus envisaged an end to violence, dialogue and humanitarian assistance, ASEAN leaders acknowledged on 26 October 2025 that no substantial progress had been made in its implementation.[15]
The search for legal accountability entered a new phase when The Gambia brought a case against Myanmar before the International Court of Justice in 2019 under the Genocide Convention. The Court indicated provisional measures in 2020; hearings on the merits took place from 12 to 29 January 2026. On 3 November 2026, the Court announced that it would deliver its judgment on 19 November 2026. The case concerns allegations under the Genocide Convention, not every violation committed in 1991–1992.[16]
The Rohingya issue thus moved beyond the boundaries of a refugee crisis and became a test of sovereignty, international law and humanitarian responsibility. The real test is not only to deliver aid after a catastrophe, but also to change the conditions that gave rise to it.
6. A Recurring Tragedy: 2012, 2016 and 2017
The problems of citizenship, property and freedom of movement remained unresolved after the 1991–1992 exodus. Violence erupted again in Rakhine State in 2012 between Buddhist Rakhine communities and Muslim Rohingya. Villages were burned, many people were killed or displaced, and tens of thousands sought refuge in camps.[17]
Violence escalated again in October 2016 following attacks on security posts. The ARSA attacks on police posts on 25 August 2017 were cited as justification for large-scale operations by the Myanmar military. The military response, which also affected civilians, was accompanied by allegations of village burnings, killings and sexual violence. More than 700,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh after August 2017.[18]
The scene I had witnessed in Cox’s Bazar in 1991 was repeated on a far greater scale a quarter of a century later. The events of 2017 became an even more devastating chapter in the long history of exclusion and forced displacement.
7. Arakan’s Invisible Map: The Bay of Bengal and Its Rising Geopolitical Significance
Arakan, in western Myanmar, forms a strategic threshold between South and South-East Asia, with its Bay of Bengal coastline and border with Bangladesh. Its shores are a transit zone where land and maritime connections intersect.
In 1991–1992, however, Arakan had not yet acquired the level of visibility it would later gain through energy and transport projects. Its geographical position and resource potential could attract the attention of major powers in the future; that possibility should not, however, be presented as the direct cause of the military operations of that period.
In later years, China’s port and oil and gas pipelines at Kyaukpyu, together with India’s Sittwe Port and Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project, gave concrete expression to Arakan’s geo-economic value. The China–Myanmar natural gas pipeline became operational in 2013 and the oil pipeline in 2017. The framework agreement for the Kaladan project between India and Myanmar was signed on 2 April 2008.[19][20]
Kyaukpyu provides China with an energy and transport link from Yunnan to the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean, while Sittwe and Kaladan serve India’s pursuit of alternative access to its north-eastern states and stronger links with South-East Asia. Arakan has consequently become more prominent in calculations concerning regional influence, trade and energy security.
As major powers calculated the future routes of trade and energy, hundreds of thousands of people were denied the right to determine their own future. The contrast between the growing value of the region and the deprivation of its inhabitants’ basic rights is one of the most striking contradictions of the Arakan tragedy.
8. Today: A Memory Stretched from Cox’s Bazar to Karachi
Despite the passage of all these years, most Rohingya continue to live in Bangladesh. According to UNHCR figures dated 30 September 2026, the registered Rohingya refugee population in Bangladesh stood at 1,206,528. Of these, 1,173,291 were living in camps in Cox’s Bazar and 33,237 on Bhasan Char island. These figures reflect the cumulative impact of successive waves of displacement, particularly those of 1991–1992 and 2017, as well as subsequent movements. All current statistics and legal timetable information in this article are stated as of 8 November 2026.[21]
On 20 May 2026, the United Nations and its partners launched a humanitarian appeal for US$710.5 million to address the needs of Rohingya refugees and host communities in Bangladesh. The 2026 Joint Response Plan aims to support refugees in Cox’s Bazar and Bhasan Char, as well as Bangladeshi host communities. The fact that assistance is still required on this scale shows that the crisis has evolved from a temporary refuge emergency into a humanitarian problem spanning generations.[22]
Türkiye’s humanitarian presence continues not only through official institutions but also through civil society organisations and volunteers. İHH reported that in November 2025 it delivered food parcels to 350 families in the Cox’s Bazar camps and continued its work in education, childcare and healthcare, as well as vocational activities for women.[23] TİKA (the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency), in cooperation with the Ministry of National Education and the Arakan Humanitarian Aid Association, supported a programme in which 95 Rohingya teachers received vocational training in November 2025.[24] Earlier, a joint healthcare initiative by TİKA and BİSEG volunteers provided medical examinations to 1,937 refugees at Kutupalong camp.[25] These examples show that solidarity extends beyond emergency food assistance to include education, healthcare and community resilience.
Many of the children born in Cox’s Bazar today have never seen the Arakan that their parents describe as their homeland. For them, home may be no more than the name of a village recalled by their elders, the memory of an old house or the story of a life left behind. The camps, once expected to be temporary, now bear witness to an entire generation’s childhood and youth.
Returning to one’s homeland is not simply a matter of crossing a border post. It requires renewed guarantees of citizenship, security, property rights, freedom of movement and human dignity. A return without these conditions would mean sending people back into the very uncertainty from which they fled. A lasting solution requires safe, voluntary and dignified repatriation, alongside equal citizenship, recognition of fundamental rights and the ability of people to live on their own land without fear.
Years later, while serving in Karachi, Pakistan, I encountered Rohingya refugees once again. I took part in an assistance programme organised by the Turkish Red Crescent at schools in the Korangi and Orangi neighbourhoods, where refugees who had arrived from Myanmar in previous years were living. More than 3,000 students received schoolbags containing stationery, as well as shoes and clothing. Each bag placed in a child’s hands carried more than the items they would need on their way to school; it also carried a measure of hope that they would be able to continue their education.
As I looked at the children in Korangi and Orangi, the rainy, muddy roads of Cox’s Bazar suddenly returned to my mind. The families I had seen in 1991 searching for shelter beside reed huts were before me years later in the neighbourhoods of Karachi, now trying to keep their children connected to school life. Time had changed the cities and the countries, but the burden of displacement had not entirely lifted from those families’ shoulders. The despair etched into my memory in Cox’s Bazar and the hope I saw in the eyes of children in Karachi had become two moments in the same human story.
Conclusion: Remembering and Bearing Witness
In 1991, near Cox’s Bazar, I saw families searching for shelter in the rain. Years later, in Karachi’s Korangi and Orangi neighbourhoods, I met refugee communities striving to secure an education for their children. Thirty-five years changed countries and balances of power, but they did not end the Rohingya people’s search for a safe life, equal citizenship and a dignified future.
The schoolbags placed in children’s hands in Korangi and Orangi did not erase the suffering I had witnessed in Cox’s Bazar; they added hope to my memory. Diplomacy derives its meaning not only from agreements and negotiations, but also from acts of solidarity that touch human lives. Yet aid cannot take the place of a lasting solution. What is ultimately needed is an order of rights and security in which people can live without fear on their own land.
The story of Arakan is more than the uprooting of a people from their homeland; it is a question addressed to the conscience of humanity. Some scenes do not remain in the past: the tents beneath the rain and the schoolbags in children’s hands continue to live in my memory as two pages of the same human story. The silent cry of Arakan is still knocking at humanity’s door.
References
Amnesty International. Bangladesh: Fear of Forcible Return (Refoulement): Burmese Muslim Refugees. ASA 13/008/1992, 22 December 1992. https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa13/008/1992/en/
ASEAN. “About ASEAN.” Member states and dates of accession. https://asean.org/about-asean/
ASEAN. “Leaders’ Review and Decision on the Implementation of the Five-Point Consensus.” Kuala Lumpur, 26 October 2025. https://asean.org/asean-leaders-review-and-decision-on-the-implementation-of-the-five-point-consensus-kuala-lumpur-malaysia/
Burma (Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma). Burma Citizenship Law. 15 October 1982. https://www.refworld.org/legal/legislation/natlegbod/1982/49622
China National Petroleum Corporation. Annual Report 2017. Section on the “Myanmar-China Crude Pipeline.” https://www.cnpc.com.cn/en/2014enbvfg/201504/469c5c60316a49bd8f75f461417eab33/files/49ea4f96494f4
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Dalar, Mehmet, and Özkan Gökcan. “Myanmar’ın Rohingya Müslümanları Politikası: Tarihsel ve Hukuksal Bir Analiz” [Myanmar’s Policy towards Rohingya Muslims: A Historical and Legal Analysis]. Bingöl Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi, 8/15 (Spring 2018), pp. 33–63. https://doi.org/10.29029/busbed.391407 (in Turkish).
Government of India, Press Information Bureau. “Status of Kaladan Project.” 26 August 2010. https://www.pib.gov.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?lang=2®=48&relid=65335
Human Rights Watch. Burmese Refugees in Bangladesh: Still No Durable Solution. Vol. 12, No. 3(C), May 2000. https://www.hrw.org/report/2000/05/01/burmese-refugees-bangladesh/still-no-durable-solution
International Court of Justice. “The Gambia v. Myanmar: The Court to Deliver Its Judgment on 19 November 2026.” Press Release No. 2026/27, 3 November 2026. https://www.icj-cij.org/case/178
Médecins Sans Frontières-Holland. Ten Years for the Rohingya Refugees: Past, Present and Future. Amsterdam, 1 April 2002. https://www.msf.org/ten-years-rohingya-refugeespast-present-and-future-report-summary
Myanma Port Authority. “Crude Oil Terminal at Kyaukphyu Made Island.” Project information. https://www.mpa.gov.mm/development_projects/crude-oil-terminal-at-kyaukphyu-made-island-which-can-accommodate-300000-ton-tankers-built-by-seaop/
Myanma Port Authority. “Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project.” Project and framework agreement information. https://www.mpa.gov.mm/development_projects/kaladan-multi-modal-transit-transport-project/
Piper, Tessa. Myanmar: Muslims from Rakhine State: Exit and Return. WRITENET, 1 December 1993. https://www.refworld.org/reference/countryrep/writenet/1993/en/94252
United Nations in Bangladesh. “Recalibrating the Rohingya Response: 2025–26 Joint Response Plan.” 20 May 2026. https://bangladesh.un.org/en/315838-recalibrating-rohingya-response-2025-26-joint-response-plan
UNHCR. “Country – Bangladesh.” Rohingya Population Statistics; Government of Bangladesh/UNHCR, updated 30 September 2026. https://data.unhcr.org/en/country/BGD/591
İrkin, Sercan. “Arakanlı Müslümanların Vatanlarından Kopuşunun Üzerinden 9 Yıl Geçti” [Nine Years Since Rohingya Muslims Were Forced from Their Homeland]. Anadolu Ajansı, 28 August 2026. https://www.aa.com.tr/tr/ayrimcilikhatti/aktuel/arakanli-muslimlarin-vatanlarindan-kopusunun-uzerinden-9-yil-gecti/1832289 (in Turkish).
Anadolu Ajansı. “TİKA’dan Bangladeş’teki Arakanlı Müslümanlara sağlık yardımı” [TİKA Provides Healthcare Assistance to Rohingya Muslims in Bangladesh]. 30 October 2024. https://www.aa.com.tr/tr/dunya/tikadan-bangladesteki-arakanli-muslumanlara-saglik-yardimi/3379674 (in Turkish).
İHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation. “Türkiye’den Arakanlı mültecilere yönelik yardımlar devam ediyor” [Aid from Türkiye to Rohingya Refugees Continues]. 18 November 2025. https://ihh.org.tr/haber/turkiyeden-arakanli-multecilere-yonelik-yardimlar-devam-ediyor (in Turkish).
TİKA. “TİKA ve MEB İş Birliğiyle Bangladeş’teki Rohingya Kampında Öğretmenlere Yönelik Eğitim Programı Düzenlendi” [Training Programme for Teachers Held at a Rohingya Camp in Bangladesh in Cooperation with TİKA and the Ministry of National Education]. 28 November 2025. https://tika.gov.tr/tika-ve-meb-is-birligiyle-bangladesteki-rohingya-kampinda-ogretmenlere-yonelik-egitim-programi-duzenlendi/ (in Turkish).
[1]Human Rights Watch, Burmese Refugees in Bangladesh: Still No Durable Solution, Vol. 12, No. 3(C) (New York: Human Rights Watch, May 2000), pp. 5–7; Mehmet Dalar and Özkan Gökcan, “Myanmar’ın Rohingya Müslümanları Politikası: Tarihsel ve Hukuksal Bir Analiz,” Bingöl Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi, 8/15 (Spring 2018), pp. 36–39.
[2]Human Rights Watch, Burmese Refugees in Bangladesh, pp. 5–6. The report discusses the historical presence of Muslims in Arakan and the social relations surrounding the Mrauk-U Kingdom. Since the historiography of the formation and origins of Rohingya identity includes differing approaches, this article does not adopt any single account of origins as definitive.
[3]Human Rights Watch, Burmese Refugees in Bangladesh, pp. 6–7; Dalar and Gökcan, “Myanmar’ın Rohingya Müslümanları Politikası,” pp. 39–41.
[4]Human Rights Watch, Burmese Refugees in Bangladesh, pp. 6–7; Dalar and Gökcan, “Myanmar’ın Rohingya Müslümanları Politikası,” pp. 39–41.
[5]Human Rights Watch, Burmese Refugees in Bangladesh, pp. 6–7; Dalar and Gökcan, “Myanmar’ın Rohingya Müslümanları Politikası,” pp. 39–41.
[6]Burma Citizenship Law, 15 October 1982, especially Sections 3–4; Dalar and Gökcan, “Myanmar’ın Rohingya Müslümanları Politikası,” pp. 42–44. Section 3 of the law sets out the pre-1823 settlement criterion, while Section 4 provides for the state’s discretion in determining which ethnic groups are recognised as ‘national’ groups.
[7]Human Rights Watch, Burmese Refugees in Bangladesh, p. 7, note 12; Dalar and Gökcan, “Myanmar’ın Rohingya Müslümanları Politikası,” p. 44. Sources give differing dates for ARIF’s establishment, ranging from 1986 to 1987.
[8]Tessa Piper, “Myanmar: Muslims from Rakhine State,” Sections 3.1 and 4.3. Piper records allegations of military build-up along the border and forced displacement in 1991, as well as estimates at the time that the number of refugees had exceeded 270,000 by mid-1992.
[9]Tessa Piper, “Myanmar: Muslims from Rakhine State,” Sections 5.1–5.2; Human Rights Watch, Burmese Refugees in Bangladesh, pp. 12–13. These reports compile testimonies concerning forced labour, forced portering, confiscation of property and restrictions on movement.
[10]Human Rights Watch, Burmese Refugees in Bangladesh, pp. 2 and 8; Dalar and Gökcan, “Myanmar’ın Rohingya Müslümanları Politikası,” p. 44. Figures differ among sources depending on the period covered and the method of registration.
[11]Human Rights Watch, Burmese Refugees in Bangladesh, p. 8; Dalar and Gökcan, “Myanmar’ın Rohingya Müslümanları Politikası,” p. 44. Dalar and Gökcan state that UNHCR began establishing approximately 20 camps between Teknaf and Cox’s Bazar from February 1992; HRW refers to 19 camps for the same period.
[12]Amnesty International, Bangladesh: Fear of Forcible Return (Refoulement): Burmese Muslim Refugees, ASA 13/008/1992, 22 December 1992. Amnesty International recorded reports that more than 150 people had been returned against their will on 25 November 1992.
[13]Human Rights Watch, Burmese Refugees in Bangladesh, pp. 21–22; Dalar and Gökcan, “Myanmar’ın Rohingya Müslümanları Politikası,” p. 45; Médecins Sans Frontières-Holland, Ten Years for the Rohingya Refugees: Past, Present and Future (Amsterdam: MSF-Holland, 1 April 2002), report summary.
[14]Human Rights Watch, Burmese Refugees in Bangladesh, pp. 21–22. HRW states that approximately 50,000 people were to be repatriated under the bilateral understanding between September 1992 and November 1993, and that UNHCR, after joining the process in October 1992, withdrew its support in December 1992 because the principle of voluntariness was not being respected.
[15]ASEAN, “About ASEAN,” date of Myanmar’s accession: 23 July 1997; ASEAN, “Leaders’ Review and Decision on the Implementation of the Five-Point Consensus,” Kuala Lumpur, 26 October 2025.
[16]International Court of Justice, “The Gambia v. Myanmar: The Court to Deliver Its Judgment on Thursday 19 November 2026,” Press Release No. 2026/27, 3 November 2026. Hearings took place from 12 to 29 January 2026; the judgment date was announced as 19 November 2026.
[17]Dalar and Gökcan, “Myanmar’ın Rohingya Müslümanları Politikası,” pp. 46–51; Sercan İrkin, “Arakanlı Müslümanların Vatanlarından Kopuşunun Üzerinden 9 Yıl Geçti,” Anadolu Ajansı, 28 August 2026.
[18]Dalar and Gökcan, “Myanmar’ın Rohingya Müslümanları Politikası,” pp. 46–51; Sercan İrkin, “Arakanlı Müslümanların Vatanlarından Kopuşunun Üzerinden 9 Yıl Geçti,” Anadolu Ajansı, 28 August 2026.
[19]China National Petroleum Corporation, Annual Report 2017, section on the “Myanmar-China Crude Pipeline”; Myanma Port Authority, “Crude Oil Terminal at Kyaukphyu Made Island,” project information. Construction of the pipeline began in 2010, and the oil pipeline was commissioned on 10 April 2017; the gas pipeline became operational in 2013.
[20]Government of India, Press Information Bureau, “Status of Kaladan Project,” 26 August 2010; Myanma Port Authority, “Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project.” The framework agreement between India and Myanmar was signed on 2 April 2008.
[21]UNHCR, “Country – Bangladesh,” Rohingya Population Statistics, data from the Government of Bangladesh/UNHCR, updated 30 September 2026. The total registered population was 1,206,528; 1,173,291 were in Cox’s Bazar and 33,237 on Bhasan Char.
[22]United Nations in Bangladesh, “Recalibrating the Rohingya Response: 2025–26 Joint Response Plan,” 20 May 2026. The plan appeals for US$710.5 million in funding to reach 1.6 million people in 2026.
[23]İHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation, “Türkiye’den Arakanlı mültecilere yönelik yardımlar devam ediyor,” 18 November 2025. The Foundation’s statement says that food parcels were distributed to 350 families in the Cox’s Bazar camps and that it continues to provide schooling, childcare and healthcare services, as well as sewing and vocational activities for women.
[24]TİKA, “TİKA ve MEB İş Birliğiyle Bangladeş’teki Rohingya Kampında Öğretmenlere Yönelik Eğitim Programı Düzenlendi,” 28 November 2025. TİKA reported that 95 Rohingya teachers took part in the programme held from 16 to 24 November 2025 in cooperation with the Ministry of National Education and the Arakan Humanitarian Aid Association.
[25]Anadolu Ajansı, “TİKA’dan Bangladeş’teki Arakanlı Müslümanlara sağlık yardımı,” 30 October 2024. The report states that 1,937 people received medical examinations in a healthcare initiative conducted by TİKA in cooperation with BİSEG at Kutupalong camp.
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