Nine years ago today, Rohingya began streaming into Bangladesh to escape the genocide in Myanmar’s Rakhine State. In the weeks following 25 August, 2017, more than 700,000 Rohingya fled across the border.
Over this long period, not a single Rohingya has been successfully repatriated to Myanmar. Instead, more than 154,000 additional Rohingya have joined the influx over the past year and a half. At present, more than 1.4 million registered and unregistered Rohingya are living in 33 camps in Ukhiya and Teknaf.
Local representatives and Rohingya leaders say the camps, densely populated and surrounded by hills, have become more than shelters for displaced people. Taking advantage of prolonged uncertainty, unemployment and endless frustration, they have turned into a hub of serious criminal activity.
A total of 292 murders have taken place in the camps over the past nine years. Local communities are increasingly caught in the grip of more than 10 Rohingya armed groups seeking to establish dominance through targeted killings, abductions, drug and arms trafficking, and hostage-taking for ransom.
The impact of this criminal activity is not confined to the camps. It has also cast a deep shadow over local Bangladeshi communities and development partners.
The unchecked activities of criminal networks inside the camps have made life increasingly unsafe for ordinary residents of Ukhiya and Teknaf. Travelling on roads around the camps at night has become risky for local people.
More than 50 local and international NGO officials and employees involved in refugee services are also facing serious security concerns. Fearing for their lives and facing threats from extortionists, NGO workers are being forced to leave the camp areas before 4pm. This is having a negative impact on humanitarian assistance operations in the long run.
Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner (RRRC) Additional Secretary Mohammad Mizanur Rahman said targeted killings and criminal activities by armed groups from Myanmar had increased in the camps.
Joint forces are conducting ongoing operations against the militants. Almost every day, suspects are being arrested with weapons. However, the crisis cannot be fully resolved until the Rohingya are ensured a dignified return to their homeland in Rakhine, he said.
Killings and struggles for dominance
Four major armed groups from Myanmar, along with five or six smaller groups, are currently active in the camps. Their primary objectives are to maintain control over the camps, keep routes for yaba, crystal methamphetamine and arms operational, and profit financially.
Government statistics show that over the past nine years, 15,137 Rohingya have been accused in 5,603 cases filed in the camps. But despite the growing number of cases, the bloodshed has not stopped.
Police and Rohingya leaders say at least 23 people, including commanders from both sides, have been killed in at least 19 major clashes over the past two years, driven by struggles for dominance and internal conflicts.
292 killed in nine years
An analysis of the pattern of crime in the camps from 2017 through 2026 reveals a disturbing picture. Although a degree of order prevailed during the first year after the Rohingya influx began in August 2017, internal conflicts among Rohingya armed groups emerged the following year, when 23 people were killed. In 2019, as drug trafficking—particularly yaba—and struggles for dominance among criminal groups intensified, the number of killings rose to 32.
Even during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, crime did not not stop; 16 people were killed that year. On the night of 29 September, 2021, Muhibullah, a top Rohingya leader and chairman of the Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace and Human Rights (ARSPH), was shot dead by members of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA). The following day, six teachers and students at a madrasa were killed. A total of 30 people were killed that year.
As extortion and abductions became widespread in 2022, the number of killings rose to 44. The year 2023 was the bloodiest in the history of the camps, with 83 people killed in unprecedented clashes between ARSA and the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO) over control of the camps.
Twenty-two people were killed in 2024, 30 the following year, and 12 have been killed through 20 August this year. According to government records, the total number of people killed over the past nine years stands at 292.
However, local representatives and Rohingya leaders say many cases of abduction and murder never result in formal cases because bodies are often hidden out of fear or in remote, dark areas of the hills following killings. They estimate that the actual number of people killed over the past nine years is likely to exceed 325.
After investigating and analysing the crimes, law enforcement agencies say the nature of criminal activity has changed dramatically. It is no longer limited to extortion; child abductions and ransom demands using modern mobile banking services such as bKash and Nagad have also increased.
Abdul Shukkur, president of the Cox’s Bazar branch of the human rights organisation Human Rights Defenders Forum and a senior lawyer, said the failure to repatriate even a single Rohingya over the past nine years had created extreme frustration.
Unless the criminal empires built by armed groups emerging from this frustration are dismantled, the Cox’s Bazar region will face long-term risks, he said.
He added that, alongside strict administrative and military operations, the international community must step up diplomatic efforts to open the way for sustainable repatriation as quickly as possible. This, he said, is the only way to break free from the cycle of bloodshed and crime.