Rohingya communities in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine State are facing forced labor, food and health crises, severe movement restrictions, and escalating armed conflict, said the rights group Amnesty International on Monday, issuing a warning against premature decisions to repatriate refugees from Bangladesh. This warning comes as the United Nations General Assembly (GA) is set to convene a “High-Level Conference on the Situation of Rohingya Muslims and Other Minorities in Myanmar” on Tuesday.
The objectives of the High-level Conference are to mobilize political support, sustain international attention on the Rohingya crisis, review the overall crisis and address its root causes, including the situation faced by Rohingya and other minorities in Myanmar as well as the humanitarian crisis within Myanmar and the wider region.
However, the conference also aims to formulate a plan for the more than one million Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh to return home to Myanmar voluntarily, safely, sustainably, and with dignity after the military violently drove them from the country in 2016 and 2017.
Currently, more than 1.15 million Rohingya refugees live in sprawling makeshift camps in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh — the world's largest refugee settlement. Conditions are rapidly deteriorating as aid cuts reduce access to food, healthcare, education, and protective services.
August 25 marked the eighth anniversary of the beginning of a campaign of mass atrocities by Myanmar's security forces in Rakhine State in 2017, which forced more than 740,000 Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh. Eight years later, Rohingya people — both refugees and those remaining in Myanmar — face an escalation of their already desperate circumstances.
An independent international fact-finding mission on Myanmar documented evidence of genocide and crimes against humanity. Since these atrocities were committed, no one in Myanmar has been held accountable for the crimes perpetrated against the Rohingya people.
Meanwhile, conditions in Myanmar have worsened considerably. The remaining Rohingya in Rakhine State are trapped amidst ongoing conflict and continue to face grave risks and persecution.
“Existing conditions in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine State are nowhere near ready for Rohingya to return safely,” said Joe Freeman, Amnesty International’s Myanmar researcher.
"The Arakan Army has, to many Rohingya, replaced the Myanmar military as their oppressor. The military are using Rohingya civilians as cannon fodder to fight against the Arakan Army, and Rohingya armed groups are launching new attacks into the territory."
Freeman added that the dramatic reduction of aid from the United States has further contributed to the humanitarian crisis, where supplies are scarce and prices are skyrocketing.
Amnesty International interviewed Rohingya refugees who arrived in Bangladesh within the past year and as recently as July 2025. The refugees came from Maungdaw and Buthidaung townships, both of which were captured from the Myanmar military by the Arakan Army (AA) last year.
Amnesty International also spoke with UN agency staff, diplomats, researchers, and representatives from international humanitarian organizations. Additionally, Amnesty International met with representatives from the political and humanitarian wings of the AA.
“While it is vitally important to put an international spotlight on the Rohingya crisis with this conference, any attempt to push ahead with repatriation without addressing the acute dangers facing all communities – Rohingya, Rakhine and other ethnic minorities in Bangladesh and in Myanmar – could be catastrophic,” Freeman said.
The northern part of Myanmar’s Rakhine State, which borders Bangladesh, is now under the control of the Arakan Army, an ethnic armed organization (EAO). The Myanmar military still controls Sittwe, the state capital and a key entry point for aid and transport.
In November 2023, the AA began an offensive that drove the military out of much of the northern part of the state. The armed group is loosely aligned with other EAOs and resistance groups that have been fighting against the Myanmar military since a coup in 2021. It now effectively controls Myanmar’s entire border with Bangladesh.
The Myanmar military has exploited long-standing tensions between the ethnic Rakhine Buddhist population of Rakhine State and the Rohingya Muslim population by working with Rohingya armed groups and forcibly recruiting Rohingya civilians to fight against the mostly Buddhist Arakan Army.
Due to the armed conflict, Rohingya and Rakhine civilians have been caught between the Arakan Army and the Myanmar military, which has blocked humanitarian aid deliveries via Sittwe and carried out deadly, indiscriminate airstrikes. In one such attack earlier in September, a military airstrike reportedly killed at least 19 Rakhine students while they slept.
According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), hundreds of thousands of Rohingya are internally displaced, and more than 150,000 Rohingya men, women, and children have fled to Bangladesh camps in the last 20 months, bringing the total number of refugees there to nearly 1.2 million.
Due to the acute global funding crisis, the critical needs of newly arrived and existing refugees are at risk of going unmet, which could lead to the collapse of essential services for the entire Rohingya refugee population.
The 2025 Joint Response Plan (JRP) for the Rohingya humanitarian crisis has requested US$934.5 million from the international community to fund protection, shelter, and basic supplies for refugees in the camps. However, to date, the JRP is only 38 percent funded, while the initial plan does not account for more than 150,000 new refugee arrivals.
Amnesty International, other human rights organizations, and UN-appointed investigators have documented violations of international humanitarian law and mounting human rights abuses against civilians by the Arakan Army, including indiscriminate attacks and arbitrary detentions.
According to Amnesty International, life for Rohingya civilians under Arakan Army rule in Rakhine State feels painfully similar to life under the Myanmar military. Many allege that it is worse because they are constantly suspected of being tied to Rohingya militant groups.
The Arakan Army has been accused of serious crimes against the Rohingya, including extrajudicial executions, torture, forced labor, forced recruitment, and large-scale arson. The Myanmar military has also unlawfully conscripted Rohingya to fight in the ongoing conflict.
Meanwhile, the military has been implicated in crimes against humanity and severe war crimes, including launching targeted airstrikes against civilians and civilian infrastructure, such as schools, hospitals, displacement camps, and places of worship.
In September, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) released a report stating that "restrictions on the rights and freedoms ofRohingya imposed by previous governments remained in place," and that, similar to the Myanmar military, the AA denied the Rohingya's identity by referring to them only as Bengalis or Muslims.
The OHCHR report presented a bleak outlook on the ongoing crisis in Myanmar, especially in Rakhine State. Civilians continue to suffer killings, torture, forced displacement, and destruction reminiscent of the 2017 atrocities committed by the military against the Rohingya. The ongoing violence in Rakhine has led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands more people.
According to testimony gathered by Amnesty International, Rohingya communities in northern Rakhine State face severe movement restrictions imposed by the Arakan Army, as well as discriminatory bans on fishing and other livelihood options. They also face forced labor, inadequate access to healthcare and education, and limited humanitarian aid. They also continue to die or be seriously injured in the ongoing conflict.
Last month, the World Food Programme (WFP) warned that "a deadly combination of conflict, blockades, and funding cuts is driving a dramatic rise in hunger and malnutrition." The UN agency added that in central Rakhine State, the percentage of families unable to meet their basic food needs increased from 33 percent in December 2024 to 57 percent.
The WFP stated that the situation in northern Rakhine State, where international organizations are not active, is likely "much worse."
Myanmar faces multiple interconnected humanitarian emergencies caused by persecution, protracted armed conflict, intercommunal violence, and natural disasters. After more than four years of civil war and a devastating earthquake in March 2025, 21.9 million people in Myanmar require humanitarian assistance, the third-highest number worldwide.
The situation deteriorated significantly after the February 2021 military coup, which sparked widespread protests and a violent military crackdown. Since then, the crisis has worsened due to escalating conflict between armed groups and the military, as well as due to storms, flooding, earthquakes, and a severe hunger crisis.
Food insecurity continues to surge in Myanmar due to the dire circumstances. An estimated 15.2 million people, nearly a third of the population, faced high levels of acute food insecurity in 2025 — a sharp increase from 13.3 million in 2024.
Access and funding are major challenges in addressing Myanmar's humanitarian emergency, which is widely considered one of the most neglected in the world because it receives far less international attention than other crises.
The global humanitarian funding crisis is having also major negative repercussions in Myanmar. As of today, only 12 percent of the country's humanitarian needs and response plan are funded.