The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) on Wednesday called on countries to prioritize life-saving measures as hundreds of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar have sought safety in the region in the first five days of the new year. In 2024, more than 7,800 Rohingya attempted to flee the country by boat. More than 650 died or were reported missing.
In 2025, a total of 460 men, women and children have so far arrived by boat in countries in the region, including Malaysia (196 people) and Indonesia (264 people), after weeks at sea, fleeing intensified fighting in Myanmar. Ten people are reported to have died during the journeys. Just three weeks earlier, another 115 Rohingya landed in Sri Lanka after the loss of six at sea.
“Saving lives must be the first priority,” said Hai Kyung Jun, Director of UNHCR’s Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific.
“We appreciate the steps taken by governments in the region to receive these vulnerable people who fled fighting and persecution back home and survived long days at sea with little food and water. We stand ready to provide support to governments and local efforts to assist them.”
The new arrivals come at the peak of the "sailing season" - when the seas are calmer between the annual monsoon seasons - following an intensification of fighting in Myanmar.
In 2024, more than 7,800 Rohingya attempted to flee the country by boat - an 80 percent increase from 2023. More than 650 died or were reported missing en route, making it one of the most perilous journeys in the world.
In 2023, nearly 4,500 Rohingya had made the risky boat journey attempting to across the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal. Some 569 Rohingya were reported to have perished or gone missing in 2023 in South-East Asian waters.
UNHCR reports that more children embarked on the vessels in 2024, accounting for 44 percent of the total passengers, up from 37 percent in 2023. The proportion of women also increased to nearly a third.
New trends last year included thousands of people so desperate to flee that they risked their lives trying to cross the Naf River into Bangladesh in bad weather during the rainy season. In addition, an increasing proportion of Rohingya have set sail directly from Myanmar, whereas in the past many left from the camps in Bangladesh.
UNHCR said there have also been reports of boats being pushed back to sea, adding that while states have a legitimate right to control their borders and manage irregular movements, "such measures must guarantee the right of people to reach safety."
“We call on all States to continue search and rescue efforts and make sure that survivors receive the assistance and protection they need,” Jun said.
UNHCR encourages States to focus on protection at sea, meeting humanitarian needs and countering false narratives and hate speech against refugees and asylum-seekers arriving on their shores.
The UN agency also said that greater international and regional action is also necessary to end the fighting in Myanmar and address the root causes of displacement, so that refugees can return home voluntarily, safely and with dignity.
As the situation in Myanmar continues to deteriorate and conditions in the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh remain dire, more people are expected to flee in the coming months.
Beginning in 2024, the Rohingya in Myanmar are enduring the worst violence against their community since 2017. That year, more than 740,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh following mass atrocities by Myanmar security forces in Rakhine State. They joined hundreds of thousands of other Rohingya who had previously sought refuge in the neighboring country.
In Bangladesh, more than one million Rohingya refugees remain in camps in a coastal region of the Bay of Bengal that is extremely vulnerable to cyclones, floods, landslides, fires, and the effects of climate change. Most Rohingya refugees currently live in the Kutupalong and Nayapara refugee camps in the Cox's Bazar region.
On November 27, 2024, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced that he was seeking an arrest warrant for Myanmar's acting president, General Min Aung Hlaing, for the crimes against humanity of deportation and persecution of the Rohingya committed in 2017.
The Office of the Prosecutor alleges that the crimes against humanity were committed between August 25, 2017, and December 31, 2017, by the Myanmar Armed Forces (MAF), also known as the Tatmadaw, “supported by the national police, the border guard police, as well as non-Rohingya civilians”.
Since 2019, the ICC has been investigating alleged crimes committed during waves of violence in Rakhine State in 2016 and 2017, and the subsequent forced displacement of Rohingya from Myanmar to Bangladesh.
The Rohingya have suffered tremendous hardship for years. An estimated 630,000 ethnic Rohingya living in Myanmar's Rakhine State are unable to move freely and have been subjected to government persecution and violence by multiple actors.
Myanmar's ethnic Rohingya minority is currently facing another wave of deadly violence. This time, however, the perpetrators are reportedly the Arakan Army (AA), one of several ethnic groups fighting the country's ruling junta, as well as Myanmar security forces.
Many thousands of Rohingya have been driven from their homes as intense fighting between junta forces and the Arakan Army has engulfed Rakhine State. Most are without adequate food, shelter or medicine. Tens of thousands have crossed or are waiting to cross the border into Bangladesh in recent months.
In Rakhine State, conflict between Myanmar security forces and the AA has been ongoing since November 2023 and now affects 16 of the state's 17 townships, bringing the total number of people currently displaced in Rakhine State to an estimated 570,000, many of whom are ethnic Rohingya.
By the end of 2024, conflict had forced more than 3.5 million people to flee their homes within Myanmar, an all-time high and a staggering increase of nearly 1.5 million internally displaced people since 2023. In addition, more than 1.36 million people were refugees and asylum seekers, including approximately 1.14 million Rohingya refugees and asylum seekers.
Humanitarian needs in Myanmar have continued to rise due to ongoing armed violence and political unrest since the military coup in February 2021. The humanitarian situation remains dire, with 19.9 million people in the country - nearly a third of them children - in need of humanitarian assistance in 2025.