When more than 500 Rohingya were feared drowned in the Bay of Bengal last month, foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations gathering in Manila largely ignored the crisis. While renewed fighting between the United States and Iran drove crude prices up about 20% for the month and threatened shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, Myanmar — the source of the region’s worst humanitarian catastrophe and the crisis for which ASEAN bears the greatest responsibility — received only passing attention.

That failure has become even more apparent in the weeks since. Malaysia’s announcement that Myanmar had agreed to accept 5,000 Rohingya refugees, which Kuala Lumpur described as a diplomatic breakthrough, immediately drew scrutiny from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. The agency warned that conditions in Myanmar remain unsafe for returns and questioned whether any repatriation could truly be voluntary.

The ASEAN ministers and partners from Washington to Brussels met from July 20-24. But just five days before they convened, the U.N. reported that 530 were feared drowned after two overcrowded boats carrying Rohingya refugees disappeared in the Bay of Bengal. They were members of the stateless Muslim minority that Myanmar’s military drove from Rakhine State in 2017. Few aboard are expected to be found.

The easy explanation is the weather. Monsoon season is the worst time to attempt the crossing and everyone in the refugee camps knows it. But people do not board unseaworthy boats because they misjudge the tides. They board because remaining has become its own form of drowning — and because governments that once helped keep them alive have steadily withdrawn that support.

Consider what has changed in the camps this year. About 1.2 million Rohingya are confined to settlements around Cox’s........

© The Japan Times