World leaders have gathered once again in New York for the annual United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), where speeches resound with lofty commitments to international law, human rights, and the protection of vulnerable populations. Yet just beyond the echo of those promises lies a humanitarian catastrophe that exposes the hollowness of such declarations. The plight of the Rohingya, one of the most persecuted communities of our time, demonstrates that the global refugee protection system is crumbling in plain sight.

Seven years have passed since Myanmar’s military launched a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya Muslim minority in Rakhine State. What began as a series of coordinated massacres, mass rapes, and village burnings in 2017 quickly became one of the largest forced displacements of this century. Over 750,000 people fled across the border into Bangladesh, joining earlier waves of refugees. Today, more than 1.5 million Rohingya live in the sprawling, overcrowded camps around Cox’s Bazar, making it the world’s largest refugee settlement.

Their condition is dire. Stripped of citizenship by Myanmar’s discriminatory laws, unwanted by Bangladesh, and largely forgotten by the rest of the world, the Rohingya exist in a legal and humanitarian limbo. Donor fatigue has set in, leading to a collapse in international aid. Food rations have been slashed to the bare minimum; education is severely restricted; healthcare is threadbare. A whole generation of Rohingya children is growing up stateless, without meaningful access to schooling or opportunity. They are being raised not as citizens of any country, but as permanent refugees.

The Rohingya crisis is not just another humanitarian emergency; it is a test case for the international refugee protection regime........

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