Rohingya hope Bangladesh can tackle crisis

The rain was relentless the night Mohammad Kaisar fled for his life from his home in Myanmar's Maungdaw township.

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Barefoot and exhausted, he trudged with his parents and four siblings on mud paths until they reached the Naf River. On a flimsy boat, they crossed into Bangladesh, joining around a million of the largely Muslim Rohingya minority, fleeing a military crackdown in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, That was in 2017. Eight years later, rain still lashes down on his simple shelter in the sprawling refugee camps of Cox's Bazar. But for the 98-year-old refugee, nothing has washed away his despair.

“War is raging. Hundreds are waiting at the border to enter Bangladesh. Every day, a new family from Rakhine takes refuge,” Kaisar told AFP by telephone, speaking outside his cramped hut in Balukhali camp. “How is it possible to return home? We were destined to stay in this crowded camp, sandwiched between small huts.”

Bangladesh is this week holding talks aimed at addressing the plight of Rohingya refugees, even as fresh arrivals cross over from war-ravaged Myanmar and shrinking aid flows deepen the crisis. The meetings in Cox's Bazar are taking place ahead of a UN conference in New York on September 30. Both Bangladesh and the UN want to provide stable conditions in Myanmar for the Rohingya to eventually return.