PART 1
The Forcibly Displaced Myanmar Nationals (FDMNs) have become a great defining factor in the country’s present social, economic, and security landscape. The issue of FDMN existed earlier in the country. However, it turned into a humanitarian emergency in 2017. Later, it evolved into a critical, multifaceted, and protracted national challenge. Nearly a decade later, now the issue is no longer confined to a relief operation alone. It now intersects with climate vulnerability, local economy, law-and-order situation, regional stability, environmental stress, and diplomatic considerations. The situation is further aggravated by the question of food, water, and health security; hygiene and sanitation; healthcare, education, local emp, and other social securities. According to “Emergency Appeal on Rohingya Emergency” by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as updated last in December 2025, the 2017 military crackdown in Myanmar’s Rakhine State forced approximately 7,50,000 FDMN to flee to Bangladesh in just a matter of months. They joined earlier waves who had crossed the international boundary during operations in 1978, the early 1990s, and subsequent episodes of violence, the same report of UNHCR mentions. According to the Dhaka Tribune dated 12 November 2025, the total FDMN population in Bangladesh stands at roughly 11,68,398 including the newly arrived 1,36,518 between December 2024 and October 2025. Before 2017, around 2,12,000 FDMN were already living in Bangladesh. Among them, only 32,000 were formally registered. According to Somoy TV dated 10 September 2023, around 100 children are born in the FDMN camps every day. This has alarmingly increased the FDMN population inside Bangladesh and is raising concerns each day for the country.
To understand the present security context and its implications, one must look at the historical roots of the crisis. The FDMN population is from a Muslim ethnic minority of Myanmar’s Rakhine State. They have a distinct language, culture, heritage, and identity. Despite generations of presence in the Rakhine region, they were gradually excluded from Myanmar’s mainstream political framework. The 1982 Citizenship Law effectively rendered most of them stateless and void of identity. They were denied citizenship, freedom of movement, access to higher education, public services, healthcare, formal employment, land ownership, legal protection, birth registration, marriage rights, and meaningful political participation. Over decades, discrimination hardened into institutionalized exclusion from the national entity. Colonial-era migration patterns, post-independence identity politics, nationalist rhetoric, exclusionary citizenship laws, state-sponsored historical narratives, demographic anxieties, ethnic majoritarianism, and decades of military propaganda shaped the narrative that framed the FDMN as outsiders.
According to “Emergency Appeal on Rohingya Emergency” by the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as updated last in
December 2025, the 2017 military crackdown in Myanmar’s Rakhine State
forced approximately 7,50,000 FDMN to flee to Bangladesh
Military operations in 1978 and the early 1990s essentially triggered earlier refugee flows into Bangladesh. Since then, each episode deepened mistrust, deprivation, discrimination, insecurity, vulnerability, and reinforced their marginalization. By 2017, mass violence was not just an isolated event. It marked the culmination of their systematic persecution. Widespread reports of killings, sexual violence, village burnings, arbitrary arrests, torture, and the systematic destruction of civilian settlements pushed hundreds of thousands of them across the country’s border in search of safety.
Bangladesh responded promptly with remarkable humanitarian generosity despite its limited geographic and economic capacity. The FDMN camps in Cox’s Bazar, such as Kutupalong-Balukhali, are now among the largest and most densely populated refugee enclaves in the world. According to Reuters dated 27 September 2025, the FDMN population in Bangladesh exceeds 1.3 million by some estimates when the relocation efforts to Bhasan Char, combined with the unregistered individuals, are considered. Living conditions in the camps remained fragile throughout.
Most families reside in tightly packed shelters made of bamboo, wood, and tarpaulin. They remain very vulnerable to heavy rain, cyclones, landslides, flooding, fire outbreaks, disease outbreaks, and other climate-related hazards. Water, sanitation, hygiene, waste management, and other essential services are highly overstretched. Electricity is also highly limited and often dependent on small solar units, kerosene lanterns, and battery-powered lights. Food assistance has been reduced significantly due to declining donor contributions, and it is increasing food insecurity. Healthcare services provide basic treatment, maternal healthcare, child healthcare, vaccinations, emergency care, limited disease surveillance, nutrition support, and mental healthcare and psychosocial services.
However, shortages of staff, medicines, medical equipment, funding, and specialized healthcare services are common. Education is delivered mainly through informal learning centres and temporary learning centres run by non-government organizations (NGOs), along with community-based schools and madrasas in some places. These initiatives aim to safeguard a generation that is about to slip into oblivion. However, easy and rational access to those facilities is absolutely uneven. This is particularly true for adolescents. Opportunities for higher education are also extremely limited.
FDMN are not allowed to engage in formal employment. As a result, most of them depend entirely on humanitarian assistance or informal, low-paid work. Movement restrictions further constrain economic participation and financial solvency. These policies reflect Bangladesh’s position that the shelter is temporary and that long-term integration is not the country’s objective. However, the tension between humanitarian responsibility and national security concerns is increasingly evident. Humanitarian operations are coordinated under the Joint Response Plan (JRP). It covers both the FDMN population and vulnerable host communities. About 1.3 million people, as reported by Reuters on 27 September 2025, currently require some form of assistance. The 2025 JRP requests 934.5 million USD to reach 1.48 million people, including FDMN population sheltered in Cox’s Bazar and Bhasan Char and Bangladeshi host communities in Ukhiya and Teknaf. Persistent funding gaps threaten food rations, healthcare delivery, and protection services, raising the risk of instability driven by unmet basic needs.
(To be continued)
The writer is an army officer
