Rohingya Refugees Left Excluded as Myanmar Pushes Ahead With Election

Rohingya Refugees Left Excluded as Myanmar Pushes Ahead With Election
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Myanmar’s military is pressing ahead with a tightly controlled general election, but the vote holds no prospect of participation or representation for the Rohingya population living in exile, Arab News reported. Around 1.17 million Rohingya refugees currently reside in overcrowded and deteriorating camps across 8,000 acres in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, the world’s largest refugee settlement.

The polls, scheduled to begin Sunday in areas under junta control, come four years after the military seized power in a 2021 coup that plunged the country into civil war. Rohingya communities were stripped of voting rights more than a decade ago and were forcibly displaced in a 2017 military crackdown in Rakhine state, an operation now the subject of a genocide case at the UN’s top court.

Renewed fighting has triggered further displacement, with UN data showing about 150,000 Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh in the 18 months to July. Ongoing conflict between the military and the Arakan Army has deepened humanitarian conditions in Rakhine, where polling is expected to be extremely limited.