Barriers to Return: Rohingya Perspectives on Citizenship, Safety, and International Accountability
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.65826/IJPCR.1.3.2026.57Keywords:
Rohingya Refugees, Repatriation, Statelessness, Safety, Security, AccountabilityAbstract
The Rohingya displacement crisis is one of the most mass migration crisis in modern history. Since 2017 military crackdown, more than a million Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh, resulting in a significant social dislocation, security issues, and an overall humanitarian crisis. Return is mostly unrealized although there have been bilateral and international efforts by both countries to facilitate safe, voluntary, and dignified repatriation efforts. This study addresses a critical research gap: a lack of refugee-centred research on the barriers to repatriation, especially the views of Rohingya on citizenship, safety, and international responsibility. Based on 50 semi-structured interviews and two focus groups (n=18) of Rohingya refugees in Coxs Bazar, Bangladesh, the research uses thematic analysis to derive five important themes including denial of citizenship and structural statelessness; militarized insecurity and fear of recurrence; lack of credibility in international accountability; material reconstruction deficits; and psychosocial rupture. The results show that refugees are not unconditionally but conditionally against repatriation, which means that they have to restore their full citizenship, demilitarize the Rakhine State, be subjected to credible international accountability, and be rebuilt in livelihood statuses. Such discoveries highlight how much there is a strong urgency to establish rights-based, structurally-grounded repatriation frameworks that put the agency of refugees at the centre.
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