Rohingya Crisis: UN seeks end to impunity amid aid shortfall

Eight years after the mass exodus that began in August 2017, the Rohingya crisis remains unresolved and increasingly precarious for those who fled Myanmar’s Rakhine state. The United Nations’ human rights arm warns that the situation has worsened, urging an end to impunity for atrocities and a secure, rights-based path for the Rohingya, including citizenship, safety, and equality. At the same time, the international response is strained by a global funding shortfall, leaving aid agencies with limited ability to meet basic needs in camps in Bangladesh, where the world’s largest refugee settlement has grown under difficult conditions.

In Bangladesh, roughly 1.3 to 1.5 million Rohingya refugees are living in Cox’s Bazar, many of them children, in crowded shelters with dwindling access to education, food, and other essential services. The sustainability of providing for such a population has become a central political issue for the Bangladeshi leadership. The country’s de facto prime minister, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, has stated that there is no room to mobilize additional domestic resources to support the refugees, calling on the international community to craft a practical,...