As the international community had marked World Refugee Day on 20 June, the spotlight once again turned to the festering Rohingya crisis — a painful reminder of Bangladesh’s humanitarian generosity now burdened by geopolitical consequences. Since Myanmar’s brutal military crackdown in 2017, nearly 600,000 Rohingyas escaped the carnage in Rakhine and found refuge across the border in Bangladesh. Fast forward seven years, and over 1.2 million Rohingya refugees are crammed into makeshift shelters in Cox’s Bazar, still yearning to return to their homeland with dignity and security — an aspiration that remains elusive.

What began as a noble act of compassion by the former government has morphed into a strategic nightmare. Bangladesh, already stretched thin economically, took the Rohingyas under humanitarian grounds, building the world’s largest refugee settlement in Cox’s Bazar. But the generosity came with a price. Dhaka’s persistent call for repatriation was meant to be a long-term fix to a short-term crisis. Yet, repatriation remains a diplomatic mirage, complicated further by Myanmar’s internal chaos and the lack of sustained international pressure on Naypyidaw.

The cost of hosting over a million displaced people has proved to be far more than just financial. Bangladesh’s social fabric, national security, and local economies are all feeling the heat. The unceasing flow of refugees has strained border security, while the camps themselves have become breeding grounds for illicit activity. Radical networks have infiltrated the refugee settlements, luring disenfranchised Rohingya youth into drug trafficking, human smuggling, and armed violence. In the past two years alone, nearly 150 violent incidents have been reported within these camps—grim testimony to a growing lawlessness that local authorities are ill-equipped to contain.

The security lapse extends beyond the refugee camps.........

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