DHAKA: Bangladesh has stepped up vigilance on its border with Myanmar, where at least 18,000 Rohingya Muslims have crossed in recent months to escape escalating violence in Myanmar's western Rakhine state, officials in Dhaka said.
The influx of refugees from Myanmar has been increasing as fighting escalates between the ruling junta's troops and the Arakan Army, a powerful ethnic militia that recruits from the Buddhist majority.
“Thousands of Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh and many are waiting to cross. The situation is serious,” said a State Department official, who did not want to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The new arrivals join more than a million Rohingya refugees already living in overcrowded camps in Cox's Bazar district after fleeing a military crackdown in Myanmar in 2017. They have little hope of returning to Myanmar, where they are mostly denied citizenship and other basic rights.
The number of arrivals has more than doubled from a government estimate earlier this month, even as Bangladesh has repeatedly said it cannot take in more Rohingya refugees as resources are already stretched thin.
“Border vigilance has been increased, but managing our 271 km border with Myanmar is challenging, especially without a security counterpart on the other side,” said another government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The official said many Rohingya are desperate and looking for ways to cross into Bangladesh.
The government had yet to decide whether to register those who had recently entered and were living in refugee camps, a State Department official said.
“If we decide to register them, it could open the floodgates, and we can't afford that,” he said. “But at the same time, how long can we ignore this problem? That's the real question.”
The head of Bangladesh's interim government, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, has called for rapid resettlement of Rohingya in third countries as a long-term solution, but a foreign ministry official said progress on resettlement has been limited.
“Since its resumption in 2022 after 12 years, around 2,000 people have gone through the resettlement program,” he said, adding that the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland are among the countries accepting refugees.