Betting for the conference, part of the annual week of high -level discussions of the UN General Assembly, could be higher: the reduction of the aid and intensification budgets of the conflict within Myanmar leaves one of the most persecuted minorities in the world in limbo.
Delegates are expected to address human rights and minority protections of Muslims Rohingya and other minorities, while exploring political, social and security measures to guarantee the safe, voluntary and worthy return of Rohingya and other refugees.
Meanwhile, the flow of those who flee has not decreased. The traumatized Rohingya continue to reach southern Bangladesh, adding new scars to a deep human suffering.
Incessant limbo
The Rohingya, a Muslim minority denied for a long time the citizenship and basic rights in Myanmar, fled the waves of violence that culminated in 2017 with what Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, then High Commissioner of Human Rights, described as a “example of ethnic cleaning text book”.
Crossing Bangladesh, they found an emergency shelter in what is now possibly the largest refugee settlement in the world in Cox’s Bazar.
But what began as a temporary response has metastasis in a prolonged crisis. Few Rohingya see a safe way back to Myanmar, where the ruling military board continues to chase minorities and face her own armed rebellion.
In Bangladesh, opportunities for education and work remain limited, while security incidents, traffic and tensions with reception communities intensify tension.
Amid the debris of the Kutupalong camp in southern Bangladesh, a child looks while the fires continue to burn one day after the fire. (March 2021)
Yunus: Collapse warning
When heading to the annual debate of the General Assembly on Friday, Muhammad Yunus, chief advisor of the interim government of Bangladesh, issued one of the most marked warnings so far.
“The UN Food Program (PMA) warns about a critical financing deficit. Without new urgent financing, monthly rations may have to reduce half of $ 6 per person, pushing the Rohingya more deeply in hunger and forcing them to resort to desperate measures,” he said.
He asked “improved contribution” of donors, but emphasized that the roots of the crisis are within Myanmar:
“The deprivation of the rights and persecution of the Rohingya, rooted in the cultural identity policy, continues in Rakhine. The investment of the marginalization process of the Rohingya cannot wait any longer,” he said.
“There must be a political solution to the problems that involve all those interested there, so that they become part of the Rakhine society with the same rights as equal citizens.”
Many leaders echoed these concerns, highlighting the difficult Rohingya situation as emblematic of broader conflicts that left unsolved in the midst of geopolitical paralysis.
The UN Secretary General, António Guterres, meets Rohingya refugee students in a camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. (March 2025)
Guterres: ‘We will not give up’
The UN Secretary General, António Guterres, who visited Bazar de Cox earlier this year, described the camps as “a marked reminder of the world’s collective failure to find solutions.”
He stressed that the main solution is the safe, voluntary and worthy return of Rohingya refugees to Myanmar, and asked all parties to exercise maximum restriction, protect civilians and create conditions for democracy to take root.
However, these conditions still do not exist, which makes the returns impossible for now.
Until they finish the conflict and systematic persecution, the UN chief urged the continuous international support to those who need protection in Bangladesh.
Displacement camp in the state of Kayah (Karenni), Oriental Myanmar. The continuous conflict has left millions throughout the country in the need for urgent help. (File photo)
Myanmar’s deepest political crisis
After a military coup on February 1, 2021, Myanmar has become violence and instability.
Thousands of civilians have been killed, millions displaced and more than half of the population requires humanitarian assistance. Natural disasters, including floods and earthquakes, have aggravated the tension in fragile infrastructure.
Ethnic minorities, including the Rohingya, Kachin, Shan and Chin, have been disproportionately affected.
The Army is accused of systematic violations of human rights, probably equivalent to crimes against humanity, including arbitrary detention, torture and extrajudicial murders. Schools, hospitals and places of worship have also faced indiscriminate attacks.
In Mandalay, a teacher is in the middle of the ruins of his former classroom, destroyed by the earthquakes of March 2025 that deepened civil suffering in Myanmar.
Hope, courage and resistance
Tom Andrews, a special human rights rapporteur in Myanmar, highlighted both the courage of those affected and the urgent risks they face.
“I see it in the people of Myanmar and the great courage they show. I am amazed at them. They are what gives me hope as an individual and trusts that one day this nightmare will end. That is my source of hope,” he said UN news Last November, after submitting its annual report to the General Assembly.
As world leaders meet in New York, defenders say that the real question is not only if new funds can be ensured, but if the political will exists to resolve a crisis that has come to embody the drift and global despair.