International Rescue Committee report analyzing overcrowded camp conditions in Sittwe in Myanmar's Rakhine State, and their impact on health and protection

The world is celebrating the extraordinary rescue of the Wild Boars soccer team from a flooded cave network in the Mai Sai district of Thailand, but the incident has also shined a spotlight on a humanitarian crisis on the Thailand-Myanmar border that has been overlooked since the start of military rule in Myanmar in the 1960s.

This World Refugee Day, the IRC honored refugee changemakers, highlighting the remarkable – and everyday – ways that refugees influence art, food, ideas, policy and culture. The IRC in Silver Spring spoke with Su, a 14-year-old refugee from Myanmar resettled by the IRC, about her commitment to advocating for human rights in her home country.

In 2017, atrocities by the Myanmar military drove over 850,000 Rohingya across the border into Bangladesh, where they continue to live in temporary settlements today. Over the past four years, as conditions inside the refugee camps have deteriorated, the host community in Teknaf and Ukhiya—who generously welcomed refugees in 2017—have seemingly grown wary of their protracted presence. Intensifying environmental, economic and social impacts linked to continued Rohingya displacement have raised tensions, and studies since 2019 have documented declining social cohesion between refugee and host communities.  This study, undertaken by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), in collaboration with researchers at Dhaka University (DU), assesses the challenges and opportunities to social cohesion in the Rohingya context. The report maps out social tension across five issue areas: environment and ecology; labour market; cultural and political landscape; land; and the presence of the humanitarian community.