The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), together with the Government of Bangladesh, on Monday launched their Joint Response Plan (JRP) for one million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. The plan calls for US$934.5 million from the international community to fund protection, shelter, and basic needs for refugees in camps, and to support opportunities for self-reliance.
Now in its eighth year, the Rohingya humanitarian crisis has largely faded from the international spotlight, but the needs remain urgent. In Bangladesh, more than a million Rohingya refugees remain in camps in the Cox's Bazar region, in a coastal area of the Bay of Bengal that is extremely vulnerable to cyclones, floods, landslides, fires and the effects of climate change.
Amid growing insecurity in Myanmar and ongoing forced displacement, the two UN agencies and their humanitarian partners today called on the international community to step up its support for Rohingya refugees and their hosts in Bangladesh.
“Until the situation in Myanmar’s Rakhine State is peaceful and conducive to returning safely and voluntarily, the international community must continue to fund life-saving assistance to refugees in the camps,“ IOM and UNHCR said.
The unrelenting conflict in Myanmar, dwindling financial resources, and competing global crises have made it critical for the international community to act on behalf of Rohingya refugees, who remain in a precarious situation, completely dependent on humanitarian assistance for their survival as they are unable to leave the camps and legally work to support their families.
The Joint Response Plan brings together 113 partners and, for the first time, is a two-year appeal seeking $934.5 million in its first year to reach some 1.48 million people, including Rohingya refugees and host communities.
UNHCR and IOM said funding shortfalls in critical areas, including reductions in food assistance, cooking fuel or basic shelter, will have dire consequences for this highly vulnerable population and may force many to resort to desperate measures such as embarking on dangerous boat journeys to seek safety further afield.
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) recently warned that without urgent new funding, monthly rations would be halved from $12.50 per person to $6 per person. To maintain full rations, WFP urgently needs $15 million for April and $81 million through the end of 2025.
At least 500,000 children are among the more than one million Rohingya refugees living in the world's largest refugee settlement, with many families facing emergency levels of malnutrition.
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) reported earlier this month that more than 15 percent of children in the refugee camps are now malnourished, the highest level recorded since the mass displacement of Rohingya refugees in 2017.
More than half of the population in the camps are women and girls, who are at higher risk of gender-based violence (GBV) and exploitation, while one in three Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh is between the ages of 10 and 24. Without access to formal education, adequate skills training, and opportunities for self-sufficiency, their futures remain on hold.
In August 2017, more than 740,000 Rohingya sought refuge in Cox's Bazar to escape violence and persecution in Myanmar. They joined hundreds of thousands of other Rohingya who had previously fled. Large-scale forced displacement among Rohingya from Rakhine State also occurred following violence in 1978, 1992, 2012, and 2016.
For more than 50 years, members of the Rohingya Muslim minority have fled to neighboring countries, including Bangladesh, to escape persecution and discrimination in Buddhist-majority Myanmar. An estimated 500,000-600,000 ethnic Rohingya still living in Myanmar's Rakhine State are unable to move freely and face persecution, forced displacement, and violence.
The UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar has concluded that the root causes of this forced displacement include crimes against humanity and other serious human rights violations, with a strong inference of genocidal intent.
In November 2024, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced that he was seeking an arrest warrant for Myanmar's incumbent president, General Min Aung Hlaing, for the crimes against humanity of deportation and persecution of the Rohingya committed in 2017.
Resurgent intercommunal violence and intensified fighting since late 2023 have since displaced hundreds of thousands of people within Myanmar. By the end of 2024, conflict has forced more than 3.5 million people to flee their homes. Myanmar has been embroiled in a bloody civil war that has killed thousands of civilians since 2021, when the country's military seized power in a coup. In recent months, a coalition of ethnic rebel forces has escalated its offensive to oust the junta.
The Rohingya are now facing another wave of deadly violence, seven years after the military-led campaign in 2017. Last year, tens of thousands were driven from their homes in Myanmar as intense fighting between junta forces and the Arakan Army, an ethnic armed group, engulfed Rakhine.
New waves of Rohingya refugees, possibly more than 100,000 people, have entered Bangladesh since 2024, fleeing renewed persecution and escalating armed conflict in neighboring Myanmar. However, only about 1,006,000 Rohingya refugees were registered in Bangladesh at the end of 2024.
Further information
Full text: 2025-26 Joint Response Plan (JRP) for the Rohingya Humanitarian Crisis, UNHCR, report, released March 24, 2025
https://reporting.unhcr.org/joint-response-plan-rohingya-humanitarian-crisis-bangladesh