Guest contributor
Shafiur Rahman
When Bangladesh’s new government, led by Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chairman Tarique Rahman, took office in February 2026, Rohingya diaspora organisations quickly issued congratulatory statements.
They welcomed what they described as a renewed opportunity for “safe, voluntary, and dignified” repatriation, recalling earlier periods under the BNP when large numbers of refugees were returned to Myanmar.
Inside the camps of Cox’s Bazar, however, the mood is more complex. For many Rohingya refugees, Bangladesh’s political transition does not simply signal diplomatic opportunity. It triggers memory and calculation.
‘We hope they will think about our future’
At the Transit Centre in Ukhiya, Rimas Khan speaks in the language of cautious hope.
“We believe the new government will think about our future,” she says. “They will think about accountability. They will focus on our rights and work on how to return us.”
But her emphasis is not only on repatriation. It is life now.
“Until that happens, we hope they will work something out for freedom of movement, income sources, and formal education. We hope we will not be returned without our rights. We experienced oppression and came here to save our lives.”
For Rimas, dignity in exile matters as much as promises of return. “Until we go back,” she repeats, “they must see to matters here – especially education, livelihood, movement and dignity.”
The repetition is telling. In the camps, return is imagined as conditional. Rights must precede movement.
Years of ration cuts, movement restrictions and shrinking services have sharpened demands for basic dignity in exile as much as for a political solution.
Days before the election, BNP leader Tarique Rahman said, “We will try to work on the issue so that these people can go back to their own land. The situation has to be safe for them to go back there. As long as it is not safe, they are very welcome to stay here.”
For some refugees, the statement offered reassurance. For others, it raised familiar questions – who decides when it is “safe,” and what safeguards would precede any return?
Nine years of silence
Nizam, who arrived during the 2017 exodus, describes the moment as both uncertain and hopeful.
“For nine years we suffered in silence,” he says. “Many decisions made by all the authorities were without our voices. Any change in political parties in Bangladesh matters deeply to us because we depend on their policies.”
He welcomes the possibility of renewed attention under the BNP. But hope is tempered by memory circulating within the community.
“Some community members are afraid that the BNP will hand over the Rohingya to the Arakan Army,” he says. “Some elderly people remember that Khaleda Zia’s government sent Rohingya back without rights, safety and security. They think her son might do the same.”
The history of 1978 and 1992, referenced by politicians and diaspora Rohingya groups as examples of decisive leadership, is recalled differently inside the camps.
‘Nothing will happen except spoken commitment’
Mujib Khan, also displaced in 2017, doubts that repatriation is even structurally possible at present. “There is no government in Arakan,” he says. “The Arakan Army has no solid foundation. I don’t think repatriation will happen.”
He expects symbolism instead. “People say Tarique Rahman will come to the camps and give a commitment, like Dr Mohammad Yunus did about celebrating Eid in Arakan in 2026. But nothing will happen except spoken commitment.”
For Mujib, the issue is not which party governs Bangladesh, but whether any actor can alter the political reality inside Myanmar’s Rakhine State.
Since the Arakan Army’s sweeping territorial gains against the junta in 2024–25, authority in northern Rakhine has fragmented further, leaving Rohingya communities exposed to overlapping controls and abuses.
A return to what?
Yunus Karim, who first fled in 1992, is more direct. “Whoever is selling sky-high dreams about the Rohingya, their real face has not changed,” he says.
“What they are saying now is exactly what they said before. But it was never reflected in practice.”
He recalls earlier repatriation drives with bitterness. The so-called “Zia Agreement” of 1978, he argues, is being invoked today in “a sweet and flattering tone.” In the present context, he says, “it would become a death trap.”
“We are unable to place any trust whatsoever in their declared proposals.”
For refugees who have crossed the Naf River multiple times, repatriation is not a diplomatic slogan. It is a lived risk.
Tarique Rahman’s assurance that Rohingya would be “very welcome to stay” until conditions are safe was widely noted in the camps. But for some refugees, the statement prompted further questions particularly about who determines when safety has been achieved.
As the genocide case against Myanmar proceeds at the International Court of Justice, some refugees worry that any verdict could be instrumentalised in Dhaka.
When asked about the new government, Jabeen, a Rohingya translator, turned the question back.
“Sir, what if we lose the International Court of Justice case? Will Bangladesh say we are not genocide victims, and that we have no special right to stay?” she asked.
“And Sir, if we win, Bangladesh could say genocide is over and the court has ordered our return and so we must go. Don’t both results enable Bangladesh to bypass the voluntary aspect of repatriation?”
Her questions reveal a more layered anxiety inside the camps: that international legal outcomes, whether favourable or unfavourable, may be interpreted politically, and that the principle of voluntary return could become elastic.
Ethnic armed groups
Not all responses focus on rights and services. An operative linked to the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) evaluates Bangladesh’s new government through a security lens.
“If Jamaat had come to power, it would have been good for us,” he says. “We cannot expect from BNP what we could have expected from Jamaat.”
He also expressed concern about Dr Khalilur Rahman, Bangladesh’s former National Security Adviser, the High Representative on the Rohingya file, and newly appointed Foreign Minister, who has been closely associated with Dhaka’s informal engagement with the Arakan Army in Rakhine State.
For ARSA, which has clashed violently with the AA in recent years, closer ties between Dhaka and the AA are viewed with trepidation.
“We will continue to engage with the BNP,” he says, “but we cannot expect weapons. We will have to purchase these.”
For armed networks, Bangladesh’s political shift is not about repatriation frameworks but about strategic space.
Diaspora diplomacy
Outside the camps, leading Rohingya diaspora organisations struck a markedly optimistic tone.
The Arakan Rohingya National Alliance (ARNA) congratulated the BNP on its “historic victory” and cited the 1978 and 1992 repatriations as evidence that decisive leadership can secure a return.
The Arakan Rohingya National Council (ARNC) similarly described 1978 as a moment of “firm diplomatic engagement,” while the Arakan Rohingya Union (ARU) expressed readiness to collaborate with the new administration.
All three emphasised “safe, voluntary and dignified” return with citizenship rights.
Yet none acknowledged the well-documented record that previous repatriations occurred amid coercion and insecurity, or that cycles of return were followed by renewed persecution and displacement.
Nor did they address present-day restrictions in the camps, security anxieties, or the armed contest for control inside Rakhine State.
Return to a successful policy or to a precarious past?
The contrast reveals a widening interpretive gap. For diaspora elites, the BNP return to power represents a possible revival of diplomatic initiative.
For many inside the camps, the same history evokes coercion, instability, and broken guarantees.
This divergence does not signal passivity among refugees. On the contrary, Rohingya camp residents appear acutely aware of Bangladesh’s political shifts and their implications.
They debate, speculate, recall precedents, and assess actors from Dhaka to the AA. They are astute political actors interpreting their own survival.
Some hope for expanded education and livelihoods while waiting. Some fear renewed pressure to return. Some calculate military realities. Others reject elite narratives altogether.
Bangladesh’s new government in Dhaka may see repatriation as a policy objective. Diaspora organisations may frame it as a diplomatic opportunity.
But inside the bamboo-and-tarpaulin settlements of Cox’s Bazar, refugees are asking a different question: Return on whose terms, and at what cost?
*Some names have been changed to protect identities.
Shafiur Rahman is a journalist and documentary filmmaker. He writes the Rohingya Refugee News newsletter, where he publishes reporting and analysis on displacement, repatriation and refugee rights.
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