WASHINGTON - More than one million refugees in 33 camps in Bangladesh suffer a tenuous, degrading existence and face a near-hopeless future, said the United Nations refugee agency’s chief in Bangladesh, in the 100th episode of The Straits Times’ Asian Insider podcast.

Child malnutrition is rising, with refugees barely surviving on 27 US cents (35 Singapore cents) a day, and armed groups in a border region rife with criminality have been causing “chaos” in the camps, said Mr Johannes van der Klaauw, representative in Bangladesh of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Mr van der Klaauw urged the international community to invest in the resilience and self-reliance of the refugees through education and skills training and livelihood opportunities.

“This is what they (the refugees) also want; they don’t want to remain dependent on external aid,” he stressed.

Buddhist-majority Myanmar does not recognise the Muslim Rohingya as citizens, claiming they are Bengali immigrants from Bangladesh. The Rohingya remain the largest stateless population in the world because their country of origin does not accept them as its nationals.

The Rohingya have been subjected to discrimination, persecution and successive pogroms – the worst was in August 2017 when, in just one week, over half a million were forced to flee Myanmar’s Rakhine state and cross the Naf River into Bangladesh in the largest single refugee exodus in the world. Some 9,000 lost their lives in that wave of violence.

In March 2022, the United States said it had determined that members of the Myanmar military “committed genocide and crimes against humanity against Rohingya”.

It was the eighth time since the Holocaust that the US has determined that genocide was committed.

As Bangladesh considers the presence of the Rohingya temporary, they can live only in precarious bamboo and tarpaulin shelters; the UN is not allowed to build anything more permanent.

Meanwhile, financial aid has dwindled to US$8 a month, per person. This means the Rohingya can barely afford a little rice and cooking oil and chilli, Mr van der Klaauw said. Acute malnutrition is rising, and so is insecurity.

“With one million people, there are always issues of criminality,” he said. “But nowadays, we see... armed groups from across the border (in Myanmar). They sow chaos and mayhem in the camps. They’re coupled with organised crime.

“This is a border area, traditionally always the scene of trafficking of drugs, people, all kinds of goods, and then gang violence. And... there are more and more killings in the camps, abductions, kidnappings.”

A large number of refugees are involved in services such as teaching and healthcare, he said – but that can no longer be taken for granted, he said.

“If we don’t get the funding, they are really in serious trouble,” he added.

In the same podcast, Mr Richard Horsey, senior adviser on Myanmar at the International Crisis Group, said the 2021 military coup in Myanmar had destroyed any hope the refugees had of returning to Rakhine state.

“The architect of their expulsion, the commander in chief of the armed forces, General Min Aung Hlaing... took power,” Mr Horsey said. The general has ruled Myanmar since the coup.

Meanwhile, donor fatigue and resource reduction are likely to continue and become even worse as the Rohingya drop out of international consciousness, he warned.

With issues such as the war in Ukraine, natural disasters, geopolitical tension between China and the US, and domestic politics heating up ahead of 2024 elections in the US and India, Myanmar – much less the plight of the Rohingya – has had to struggle for attention.

“Myanmar has been a low priority, to be honest, internationally, with other crises going on,” Mr Horsey said.

“That is a recipe for less resources... (and) as that happens, the government of Bangladesh is going to say, rightfully, why should (they) be left with the sole responsibility of taking care of this huge caseload.”

There needs to be more global thinking on how to address the crisis – including resettlement in third countries, and the right and ability to return to Myanmar if at all possible.

“How you put that together, that’s really... an extraordinarily difficult policy challenge,” he said.

“We have a really toxic situation here, and I think the broader region has a responsibility as well,” he added.

He noted that there are many Rohingya now living in places such as the Gulf states and Malaysia, but the governments of those countries still treat them as transients.

“Those governments have not followed through on their moral responsibility to say, ‘Okay, these people can’t go back to Myanmar... (and) we have to think about what we do for those populations’.

“That’s a topic that is very rarely heard (or) discussed, but it is a very, very important one,” he said.