Myanmar Says 300,000 Rohingya in Bangladesh Camps Verified for Return

Myanmar's military-backed government announced on Saturday that it has verified more than 300,000 Rohingya refugees currently living in camps in Bangladesh as former residents of western Rakhine state. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated it would accept their return once security conditions in the region improve.

The announcement comes as the Rohingya refugee crisis enters its ninth year. Hundreds of thousands of people remain in Bangladeshi camps after fleeing Myanmar in August 2017, when the military launched a crackdown following attacks by a Rohingya insurgent group on guard posts in Rakhine. That operation drove over 700,000 Rohingya across the border, joining hundreds of thousands of others who had arrived during earlier waves of violence.

The scale and ferocity of the 2017 campaign led to international accusations of ethnic cleansing and genocide, including from the United Nations. Myanmar does not recognize the Rohingya as one of its 135 official ethnic minorities, referring to them instead as Bengalis to imply they are illegal settlers from Bangladesh.

According to the foreign ministry, Myanmar had verified 426,545 of the 828,824 refugees on a list provided by Bangladesh as of the end of July. Of those, 308,797 were determined to be former residents of Rakhine. The ministry said 113,507 people could not be verified, and 4,241 were found to have been involved in what it called terrorist activities.

The statement said Myanmar would continue working with Bangladesh to receive verified former residents once the security situation in Rakhine becomes more stable. It also rejected claims that over one million people were displaced from Rakhine, asserting that more than 540,000 crossed into Bangladesh after the 2017 violence while over 200,000 remained in northern Rakhine.

Myanmar and Bangladesh agreed to a two-year repatriation process in 2018, but the plans have not succeeded. Security in Myanmar worsened after the military seized power in 2021, ousting the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and triggering widespread armed resistance. Fighting between the military and the Rakhine-based Arakan Army, which now controls much of the region, has forced more refugees to flee toward Bangladesh.

In recent years, deteriorating conditions in camps, steep cuts to foreign aid, and the lack of safe prospects for return have driven an increasing number of Rohingya to attempt dangerous sea crossings to Malaysia and Indonesia. Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said in late July that Myanmar had agreed to take back 5,000 Rohingya refugees living in Malaysia. However, a Myanmar foreign ministry official clarified that the repatriation program was focused solely on verified Myanmar nationals held in detention centers in Malaysia, rejecting reports that the government would accept Rohingya.