The ground beneath the Rohingya crisis has shifted once again-and this time, perhaps more dramatically than at any point since the genocide of 2017. Over the past week, the Arakan Army (AA), one of Myanmar’s most powerful ethnic armed groups, has launched a sweeping new offensive across critical areas of northern Rakhine State. In doing so, it has tightened its hold on territory that was once bitterly contested, transforming not only the military landscape but also the political and humanitarian future of the region.
Yet this escalation has been overshadowed by global attention on other conflicts-from Gaza to Ukraine to the South China Sea. As a result, one of the most consequential developments for nearly a million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh has unfolded with little international scrutiny. For those Rohingya still trapped inside Rakhine under severe restrictions, the implications are even more immediate and dangerous.
This offensive marks a turning point that could redefine whether repatriation is still possible, whether humanitarian access can survive, and whether Bangladesh can continue depending on assumptions that no longer match realities on the ground.
For years, the Arakan Army has been pushing steadily against Myanmar’s weakened military junta. But the gains made in recent days-particularly around Buthidaung, Maungdaw, and other northern townships-represent a qualitative leap. Communication blackouts, the collapse of remaining junta outposts, and intensified clashes have positioned the AA as the dominant authority in areas that once formed the heartland of Rohingya life.
This shift is far more than a series of battlefield victories. It represents the consolidation of political power. In Myanmar’s fragmented civil war, control of land determines governance, taxation, movement, humanitarian access, justice systems, and identity policies. By capturing these key areas, the AA has effectively become the de facto government of northern Rakhine.
For the Rohingya, this development carries profound consequences. Because for the first time since 2017, the future of their return is no longer shaped primarily by the Myanmar military junta or by diplomatic negotiations in Naypyitaw. It now depends on an armed group that has consistently refused to recognize the Rohingya as a distinct people.
Repatriation-the central pillar of Bangladesh’s Rohingya policy-now faces its toughest test. For years, Dhaka and international actors maintained the narrative that returns would be negotiated with the central government in Myanmar, whether under the junta or, in theory, under a future federal arrangement led by the National Unity Government.
But this assumption has collapsed. The junta controls only pockets of Rakhine. The National Unity Government has political legitimacy but lacks territorial control. The AA, by contrast, holds most of the land that matters for resettlement, movement, and security.
And the AA’s stance on the Rohingya is deeply troubling.
The group does not accept the term “Rohingya.” It frames the community as either foreigners or as collaborators with central authorities, and its governance model has repeatedly imposed harsh restrictions on identity, travel, and access to services. Although the AA has occasionally signaled limited openness to discussing returns, it has simultaneously enforced discriminatory practices that mirror some of the junta’s exclusionary policies.
This raises the central question: If the authority that commands the ground rejects the Rohingya’s existence as a people, who will guarantee their rights upon return?
Repatriation is not simply about crossing a border. It is about whether those returning will have citizenship rights, freedom of movement, access to livelihoods, and protection from violence. Without a rights-based framework-and without the AA’s acceptance of such a framework-repatriation risks becoming a façade that could recreate the very conditions that led to genocide.
The humanitarian situation inside Rakhine is deteriorating rapidly. The Rohingya who remain face a toxic environment shaped by extortion, forced labor, movement restrictions, and frequent intimidation by both junta forces and local armed actors. The new AA offensive has further destabilized these conditions.
Key aid routes have been cut. Communications have collapsed in several townships. Humanitarian organizations report that monitoring is nearly impossible, while civilians become invisible and unprotected in the fog of conflict. When fighting intensifies, the Rohingya-already marginalized-fall even further outside the world’s attention.
The nearly one million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh are also entering a new phase of vulnerability. Eight years into their exile, the camps in Cox’s Bazar have transitioned from emergency shelters to long-term settlements plagued by despair, recruitment by armed groups, rising criminality, and record-low food rations due to global aid cuts.
Bangladesh has long relied on the expectation that repatriation, though slow, was ultimately attainable. The AA’s battlefield dominance makes this narrative increasingly untenable. Indeed, the prospect of return is now more remote than at any point in the past decade.
Bangladesh now faces a strategic recalibration that it has long sought to avoid. Its policy has rested on two assumptions:
International pressure on the Myanmar military would eventually yield a repatriation agreement.
Bilateral agreements signed with the junta could still be implemented once the security situation improved.
Neither assumption is valid today. The junta no longer holds meaningful power in northern Rakhine. And the actor that does-the AA-is not a signatory to any repatriation agreement and holds views about the Rohingya that are far more ethnonationalist than many diplomats realize.
Dhaka’s choices are difficult and politically sensitive:
Engage quietly with the Arakan Army, despite its rejectionist ideology?
Deepen engagement with the National Unity Government, even though it lacks territorial authority?
Wait for another shift in battlefield dynamics, risking a permanent refugee crisis with no pathway home?
Inaction, however, is increasingly dangerous. The Rohingya population in Bangladesh is not static. Crime, radicalization risks, trafficking networks, and worsening living conditions are reshaping the camps. Meanwhile, the situation in Rakhine is evolving faster than Bangladesh’s policy formulations.
Dhaka needs a strategy rooted in present-day realities, not in diplomatic frameworks crafted eight years ago.
Rakhine State is not an isolated conflict zone. It sits at a crossroads of regional trade routes and borders Bangladesh’s vulnerable coastline. Instability in Rakhine has already fueled cross-border violence, trafficking, and displacement. As the AA’s authority grows, uncertainty over migration flows, insurgency, and criminal activity will intensify for Bangladesh, India, and even China.
Yet the international community continues to treat the Rohingya crisis as if time stopped in 2017. Funding has collapsed, political attention has faded, and humanitarian agencies operate on the margins of global priorities. But the crisis today is not frozen. It is dynamic, dangerous, and accelerating.
The AA’s latest offensive is not just another chapter in Myanmar’s civil war. It is a structural shift in authority over a region whose future determines whether the Rohingya ever see a pathway home. It deepens humanitarian suffering, undermines existing repatriation frameworks, and forces Bangladesh-along with the wider region-to reassess its assumptions before the crisis becomes irreversibly entrenched.
The world cannot continue ignoring this shift. The Rohingya cannot survive another cycle of neglect.
Their future depends on decisions made now, in the aftermath of this offensive-not years from today, when the window of possibility has long closed.
