[🇧🇩] Insurgencies in Myanmar. Implications for Bangladesh

[Saif]

Myanmar’s hollow election: Rohingyas’ fate and Bangladesh’s geopolitical stake

For Bangladesh, the geopolitical stakes are profound and multifaceted.

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Myanmar’s hollow election: Rohingyas’ fate and Bangladesh’s geopolitical stake

 

[Saif]

Temporary solutions do little to help Rohingya women

Every so often, news reports surface to remind us of the painfully perpetual existence of the Rohingya crisis in our very own backwaters.

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Temporary solutions do little to help Rohingya women

Begum, a 35-year-old mother of seven children, is marrying off one of her daughters, following the funding shortage, which shuttered thousands of schools in the refugee camps in June 2025. FILE PHOTO: REUTERS

Every so often, news reports surface to remind us of the painfully perpetual existence of the Rohingya crisis in our very own backwaters. It merely recedes from view from time to time. The headlines change, the focus areas shift, but the lives of the Rohingya at the centre of the news stories remain suspended in the same uncertain void—one shaped by displacement, abuse, repression and a future that continues to remain elusive.

The latest media reports from Al Jazeera and other international news outlets draw attention to a rise in early marriage among Rohingya girls, linking it to shrinking humanitarian aid, school closures, and the gradual dismantling of protection programmes in the refugee camps in Bangladesh. The concern is justified. The pattern is disturbing. But it is also unsurprising and predictable.

For Rohingya women and girls, vulnerability has been constant, layered, and cumulative. Long before aid reductions became the focus of international reporting, their lives were already defined by statelessness, restricted movement, limited access to education and work, and the persistent uncertainty of camp life. What we are witnessing now is not the emergence of a new crisis, but the intensification of an old one.

Early marriage, in this context, is frequently framed as a cultural practice of the Rohingya community resurfacing under pressure. It is an over-simplified explanation. By directly linking the problem to the Rohingya community, this narrative framing allows external actors to observe the situation from a safe distance with concern, while remaining unimplicated. Yet, such narratives hide more than they reveal. When families are forced to make decisions under conditions of protracted insecurity and exploitation, those decisions are rarely about culture or tradition. They are about real-life risks, survival, and the erasure of options.

When food rations are reduced and schools close, survival becomes a real threat. For many families, marrying off a daughter is seen not simply as an economic relief, but as a form of protection: from trafficking, from uncertainty, and from sexual violence in overcrowded camps, where privacy is scarce and accountability non-existent. In spaces where adolescent girls and young women face harassment day in and day out—many avoid going to the bathroom after dark in fear of criminal gangs—marriage is often seen as a shield, which is mostly illusory. That reality becomes visible later.

The tragedy lies not only in the act of early marriage itself, but in the conditions that make it appear reasonable. These conditions do not emerge spontaneously. They are created through flawed policy decisions, deteriorating funding crisis, and a humanitarian response that has mostly been sluggish at best.

What recurrent news reports on the crisis of Rohingya women suggest is the broader environment in which these marriages take place. Girls who remain unmarried are increasingly exposed to sexual exploitation, including coerced or paid sex work driven by hunger and desperation. Women take on informal, unsafe work—both inside and outside the camps—where abuse is common and recourse almost non-existent. Girls disappear from classrooms not only into marriages, but into domestic labour, factories, or shadow economies shaped by exploitation and fear.

Trafficking networks operate most effectively in such environments. Promises of work, safety, or marriage become tools of deception, drawing women and girls into situations of forced labour, domestic servitude, or sexual manipulation. These outcomes are often discussed as separate crises, each demanding its own response. In reality, they are interconnected expressions of the same systemic deprivation. When economic opportunities are denied and movement is restricted, exploitation does not arrive as an anomaly; it becomes an alternative.

Much of this unfolds quietly. Sexual abuse and exploitation are underreported not because they are rare, but because stigma, fear, and the absence of trustworthy reporting mechanisms keep them hidden. As protection services are cut, the few spaces where women might seek help shrink further and violence is often simply overlooked.

There is also a striking contradiction at the heart of the global humanitarian response to the Rohingya crisis. Internationally, there is no shortage of rhetoric about protecting women and girls, combating trafficking, and ending child marriage. These commitments feature prominently in policy statements and development agendas. Yet in practice, they appear remarkably shallow, vulnerable to shifting geopolitical priorities and donor agendas. Protection that depends on funding cycles is, by nature, temporary. And temporariness is precisely what Rohingya women can no longer afford.

These women are often portrayed as passive recipients of aid and abuse, but this portrayal does them a disservice. When education, skills training, or livelihood opportunities have been available, women have engaged with determination and purpose. They have demonstrated resilience through daily acts of endurance and adaptation. The problem has never been proper utilisation of available agency. It has been the steady erosion of the same.

What's more troubling is that prolonged crises often erode urgency. Practices that would once have provoked outrage, such as early marriage, forced labour, sexual exploitation, begin to appear as regrettable but expected realities of camp life. This normalisation is the outcome of concern without concrete action. For Rohingya women and girls, these gaps shape their futures and life trajectories in ways that are irreversible.

What is unfolding today at the Rohingya camps is not simply the result of displacement, uncertainty, or poverty taken separately. It is the outcome of a sustained failure to provide protection that is lasting, rights-based, and sensitive to gendered realities. Temporary solutions for the Rohingya community have long outlived their usefulness. It is more than evident that piecemeal actions cannot resolve a long-standing, large-scale crisis.

More reports on the Rohingya will continue to follow, for sure. More stories will be told, documenting preventable tragedies. The question, as always, is whether they will continue to compile a laundry list of consequences while leaving root causes largely unacknowledged, or whether collectively they will force a reckoning with the uncomfortable truth that this crisis persists not because solutions are unknown, but because responsibility has become too easy to defer.

For Rohingya women, the cost of that deferral is already being paid—quietly, repeatedly, and largely out of sight.

Tasneem Tayeb is a columnist for The Daily Star.​

 

[Saif]

Stateless Rohingya rue Myanmar's election from exile

Heavily restricted polls are due to start Sunday in areas of Myanmar governed by the military, which snatched power in a 2021 coup that triggered civil war.

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Stateless Rohingya rue Myanmar's election from exile
AFP Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh
Published: 26 Dec 2025, 20: 12

This photograph taken on 18 December 2025 shows Rohingya refugees walking along a market at the Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh's Ukhia. AFP

Myanmar's military portrays its general election as a path to democracy and peace, but the vote offers neither to a million Rohingya exiles, robbed of citizenship rights and evicted from their homeland by force.

"How can you call this an election when the inhabitants are gone and a war is raging?" said 51-year-old Kabir Ahmed in Bangladesh's Kutupalong, the world's largest refugee camp complex.

Heavily restricted polls are due to start Sunday in areas of Myanmar governed by the military, which snatched power in a 2021 coup that triggered civil war.

But for the Rohingya minority, violence began well before that, with a military crackdown in 2017 sending legions of the mostly Muslim group fleeing Myanmar's Rakhine state to neighbouring Muslim-majority Bangladesh.

The month-long election will be the third national poll since they were stripped of their voting rights a decade ago, but comes amid a fresh exodus fuelled by the all-out war.


Ahmed once served as chairman of a village of more than 8,000 Rohingya in Myanmar's Maungdaw township, just over the border from Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh.

After their eviction, the area is now a "wasteland", he told AFP.

"Who will appear on the ballot?" he asked.

"Who is going to vote?"

This photograph taken on 18 December 2025 shows Rehana Bibi, a Rohingya refugee, speaking with AFP at the Balukhali refugee camp in Bangladesh's Ukhia.AFP

'Send us back'
Today 1.17 million Rohingya live crammed in dilapidated camps spread over 8,000 acres in Cox's Bazar.

The majority came in the 2017 crackdown, which is now the subject of a UN genocide court case, with allegations of rampant rape, executions and arson.

Civil war has brought fresh violence, with the Rohingya caught between the warring military and separatist group the Arakan Army, one of the many factions challenging the junta's rule.

Both forces have committed atrocities against the Rohingya, monitors say.

Some 150,000 people fled the persecution to Bangladesh in the 18 months to July, according to UN analysis.

The UN refugee agency said it was the largest surge in arrivals since 2017.

Aged 18, Mohammad Rahim would have been eligible to vote this year -- if he was back home, if his country acknowledged his citizenship, and if polling went ahead despite the war.

"I just want the war to end and for steps to be taken to send us back to Myanmar," said Rahim, the eldest of four siblings who have all grown up in the squalid camps.

The Arakan Army controls all but three of Rakhine's 17 townships, according to conflict monitors, meaning the military's long-promised polls are likely to be extremely limited there.

The military has blockaded the coastal western state, driving a stark hunger and humanitarian crisis.

Rahim still craves a homecoming.

"If I were a citizen, I would negotiate for my rights. I could vote," he said.

"I would have the right to education, vote for whoever I wanted, and work towards a better future."

Fate 'unchanged'
Successive military and civilian governments in Myanmar have eroded the citizenship of the Rohingya, dubbing them "Bengali" as descendants of immigrants who arrived during British colonial rule.

A 1982 law excluded them from full citizenship -- unlike the other 135 ethnic groups recognised in Myanmar -- and they were issued separate ID cards.

This photograph taken on 21 December 2025 shows an aerial view of the Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh's Ukhia. AFP

They were then deprived of the right to vote in 2015, just as most other people in Myanmar won more freedoms and military rule was relaxed.

"Will anyone who wins recognise us as citizens?" asked 52-year-old refugee Rehana Bibi.

"We are not a concern for anyone in Myanmar," the mother of six lamented in her tarpaulin-covered hut.

"Whether military-backed candidates or others win, the fate of the Rohingyas will remain unchanged."

In July, for the first time since their influx began eight years ago, Rohingyas held an election for their representatives inside 33 camps in Cox's Bazar.

"We printed ballot papers and ran awareness programmes on democracy with the hope that someday we would return home and practise it there," said 33-year-old community leader Sayed Ullah.

Ahmed, the exiled village chairman, still dreams of an election back home.

"I was a teacher, but my people wanted me to lead them," he said. "I won three times straight."

"I am sure I would win again if only I got the chance," he said, his face lighting up.​

 

[Saif]

Teknaf, Ukhia border shaken in Myanmar explosion

The bordering areas along Teknaf and Ukhia upazilas in Cox’s Bazar and Naikhyangchari upazila in Bandarban were shaken in powerful explosions near the areas inside civil war-ridden Myanmar on Saturday night.

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Teknaf, Ukhia border shaken in Myanmar explosion
Our Correspondent . Cox’s Bazar 29 December, 2025, 00:01

The bordering areas along Teknaf and Ukhia upazilas in Cox’s Bazar and Naikhyangchari upazila in Bandarban were shaken in powerful explosions near the areas inside civil war-ridden Myanmar on Saturday night.

Panic gripped the areas as the explosions could be heard from the Whykong union of Teknaf upazila, Palangkhali and Rajapalang unions of Ukhia upazila and Ghumdhum union of Naikhyangchari upazila, said the locals and the members of the union councils.


In Whykong union, villagers said, the intensity of the explosions was felt at about 10:45pm on Saturday and the houses in the area trembled due to the explosions.

Abul Hasnat, a resident of the Unchiprang area of Whykong, said that a series of loud explosions suddenly shook the entire locality. Children and elderly people inside houses began screaming in fear, he added.

Another resident, Maulana Jasim Uddin, said that the explosions were so strong that he initially thought that it was an earthquake. Out of panic, he rushed outside with his family members to take shelter, he said.

He said that some of the inhabitants in his locality left home at night in fear but returned to their homes in the morning as no explosion could be heard later at night.

Teknaf upazila nirbahi officer Md Emamul Hafiz Nadim said that they, after receiving the information, contacted the Border Guard Bangladesh.

‘Residents of the border areas were also alerted and necessary measures were taken to ensure their safety,’ he said.

According to sources, clashes between Myanmar’s junta forces and the armed group Arakan Army are continuing in Rakhine State.

Sounds of gunfire could be heard earlier from Teknaf bordering areas on the nights following December 13 and December 17 due to intense fighting inside Myanmar.​

 

[Saif]

Myanmar’s pro-military party dominates elections according to official results

Myanmar’s pro-military party has a decisive lead in the first phase of junta-run elections, with the USDP winning 90 per cent of the lower house seats announced so far, official results published in state media showed...

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Myanmar’s pro-military party dominates elections according to official results
Agence France-Presse . Yangon, Myanmar 04 January, 2026, 12:43

Myanmar’s pro-military party has a decisive lead in the first phase of junta-run elections, with the USDP winning 90 per cent of the lower house seats announced so far, official results published in state media showed. | BSS photo

Myanmar’s pro-military party has a decisive lead in the first phase of junta-run elections, with the USDP winning 90 per cent of the lower house seats announced so far, official results published in state media showed.

The military grabbed power in a 2021 putsch that triggered civil war, pitting pro-democracy rebels against junta forces for control of the country.


Myanmar’s junta opened voting in the phased month-long election a week ago, with its leaders pledging the poll would bring on democracy. However, rights advocates and Western diplomats have condemned it as a sham and a rebranding of martial rule.

The dominant pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party has won 87 of the 96 lower house seats announced, according to partial results from the Union Election Commission released on Saturday and Sunday in state media.

Six ethnic minority parties picked up nine seats.

The winners of six more townships have yet to be announced in the first phase of voting. Two more phases are scheduled for January 11 and 25.

The USDP — which many analysts describe as a civilian proxy of the military — claimed an overwhelming victory in the first phase last week.

The massively popular but dissolved National League for Democracy of democratic figurehead Aung San Suu Kyi did not appear on ballots, and she has been jailed since the coup.

The military overturned the results of the last poll in 2020 after the NLD defeated the USDP by a landslide.

The military and USDP then alleged massive voter fraud, claims that international monitors say were unfounded.

The USDP also won 14 of the 15 regional and state constituency seats announced in the first phase, according to UEC results published in the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper.


The junta has said turnout in the first phase exceeded 50 per cent of eligible voters, below the 2020 participation rate of around 70 per cent.

 

[Saif]

Myanmar’s hollow election: Rohingyas’ fate and Bangladesh’s geopolitical stake

For Bangladesh, the geopolitical stakes are profound and multifaceted.

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Myanmar’s hollow election: Rohingyas’ fate and Bangladesh’s geopolitical stake

24 December 2025, 10:00 AM
SLOW READS

By ASM Tarek Hassan Semul

Myanmar's upcoming election is unfolding in a landscape where the state scarcely resembles a unified political entity. The military junta's attempt to stage national polls is driven by a need to project legitimacy at a time when its authority is deeply eroded. Large sections of the country, particularly along the northern, eastern, and western borderlands, are controlled by ethnic armed organisations and resistance forces. These groups have carved out autonomous zones with their own administrations, revenue collection systems, and security structures. China-brokered ceasefire agreements have contained battles in some areas, but they have not restored central authority. Instead, they have produced a patchwork governance order, with competing jurisdictions responding to different political patrons. In such a fragmented environment, an election becomes an exercise in performance rather than a mechanism for political settlement.


The Rohingya question and the politics of erasure


For the Rohingya, the election offers no meaningful pathway toward recognition, rights, or safety. Their exclusion from Myanmar's political community has been entrenched for decades and was violently reinforced by the 2017 mass atrocities that pushed nearly a million refugees into Bangladesh. The current electoral framework preserves this architecture of exclusion. No major political force in Myanmar – whether aligned with the junta or opposed to it – has articulated a vision for reintegrating the Rohingya into national life. The civil war has further marginalised their plight, pushing the question of citizenship and accountability to the outer edges of political discourse.

For Bangladesh, this political void has immediate implications. The prolonged instability inside Myanmar has stalled repatriation efforts and diminished the prospects for creating conditions conducive to a safe return. As host communities in Cox's Bazar shoulder the social and economic weight of the refugee population, it becomes increasingly clear that no progress is possible without structural change in Myanmar's political order. The election does not create that change; it simply reproduces the conditions that have locked the Rohingya crisis into a dangerous stalemate.

Rohingya camps at Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. File Photo: Anisur Rahman

China's expanding strategic footprint

Myanmar's internal conflict has become intertwined with China's strategic interests, making Beijing the most consequential external actor in shaping the country's trajectory. China's engagement is defined by a deliberate duality. It maintains formal ties with the junta to safeguard major infrastructure and energy projects, including pipelines and economic corridors that cut across contested terrain. Simultaneously, it maintains relationships with ethnic armed organisations that control border areas essential to Chinese trade and security. This multipronged approach allows Beijing to cultivate influence without committing to a political settlement. Its priority remains border stability, uninterrupted commercial activity, and the protection of long-term strategic assets.


This strategy reflects a broader regional pattern in which China prefers calibrated involvement over transformative engagement. Its deepening role in Myanmar signals to neighbouring states, including Bangladesh, that Beijing's approach to crises in its periphery is rooted in pragmatism rather than normative considerations. The geopolitical space China occupies in Myanmar is thus not simply a matter of influence; it is part of a wider reordering of power in mainland Southeast Asia.

India's security dilemma on its Eastern frontier

India faces a more complex challenge. Instability in Myanmar has reverberated across its northeastern borderlands, contributing to refugee inflows, illicit cross-border movements, and the resurgence of armed groups with long-standing grievances. New Delhi once viewed the Myanmar military as a critical partner for stabilising this frontier and for advancing connectivity projects central to the Act East policy. However, the military's weakening grip over territory has undermined this equation. Key infrastructure initiatives, including the Kaladan project and the trilateral highway, have been repeatedly disrupted by conflict and logistical insecurity. Local political sensitivities in Manipur and Mizoram further constrain India's ability to deepen engagement with Myanmar's military authorities.

An election campaign billboard for the Union Solidarity and Development party in Shan state. Photo: AFP/Getty Images

The upcoming election does little to resolve these pressures. Rather, it underscores the limits of relying on a regime that cannot assert control over its own territory. As India weighs its options, it confronts the uncomfortable reality that Myanmar's internal fragmentation directly impacts its regional ambitions and border management strategies.

ASEAN's constraints and the limits of regional diplomacy

ASEAN, long positioned as Myanmar's diplomatic anchor, has struggled to craft a coherent or influential response. The bloc's non-interference principle, coupled with internal political divisions, has hampered efforts to enforce its Five-Point Consensus or to pressure the junta toward substantive concessions. Some member states favour a tougher stance, while others prioritise stability and engagement. This divergence has produced a crisis of relevance for ASEAN, whose diplomatic interventions increasingly appear symbolic rather than effective. The election is unlikely to reverse this trend; instead, it highlights the bloc's structural inability to shape Myanmar's trajectory in a meaningful way.

Regional fatigue has also become evident. Years of conflict, humanitarian suffering, and stalled negotiations have created a sense of diplomatic inertia. While ASEAN remains formally engaged, its capacity to influence events inside Myanmar continues to diminish, leaving a vacuum into which other powers have stepped.

The military junta in Myanmar, which came to power by toppling the elected government in February 2021, seems to be in deep trouble. File Photo: REUTERS

Western pressure and its limits

Western governments maintain a normative stance on Myanmar, rejecting the junta's legitimacy and implementing sanctions targeting military-linked businesses and key individuals. However, the impact of these measures has been limited. The military continues to draw revenue from border trade, resource extraction, and channels supported by regional powers. Moreover, Myanmar does not occupy a central place in Western strategic priorities compared with broader Indo-Pacific calculations centred on China's rise. This imbalance between moral condemnation and strategic commitment has created space for the junta to endure, even as it faces international isolation.

Bangladesh in a complicated geopolitical landscape

For Bangladesh, the geopolitical stakes are profound and multifaceted. The crisis in Myanmar intersects with national security concerns, humanitarian responsibilities, and regional diplomatic pressures. Bangladesh must navigate a delicate balance: maintaining a working relationship with the junta for the sake of repatriation, engaging China and ASEAN to sustain diplomatic momentum, and coordinating with Western partners and UN agencies to keep the Rohingya issue on the global agenda. These competing imperatives require strategic flexibility rather than alignment with any single external power.

Instability in Myanmar also complicates regional visions for connectivity and economic integration. Bangladesh's aspirations to benefit from broader Bay of Bengal and Indo-Pacific frameworks depend on a stable neighbourhood. A fragmented state on its southeastern border disrupts these opportunities and forces Dhaka to adapt its strategic outlook.


Myanmar as a regional pressure point

Myanmar's election reflects a deeper reality: the country has become a pressure point in the geopolitical contestations shaping South and Southeast Asia. Its internal fragmentation invites external involvement, while its location at the crossroads of multiple strategic corridors ensures that regional and global powers cannot ignore its trajectory. For Bangladesh, India, China, ASEAN, and Western governments, Myanmar represents both a humanitarian challenge and a strategic variable.

Beyond the illusion of political normalcy

Myanmar's election is unlikely to alter the fundamental drivers of conflict within the country. It is an exercise in political theatre designed to project normalcy in a state where legitimacy is fractured and authority contested. Yet its implications extend far beyond Myanmar's borders. The crisis continues to shape regional security dynamics, redraw geopolitical alignments, and impose strategic burdens on neighbouring states—none more so than Bangladesh.

A clear-eyed understanding of these dynamics is essential. For Bangladesh and the region, the path forward lies not in hoping for rapid political transformation within Myanmar but in preparing for a prolonged period of instability that will demand sustained diplomatic engagement, strategic patience, and resilient humanitarian management.

ASM Tarek Hassan Semul, Research Fellow, Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS) and Cohort of the Indo-Pacific Young Leaders Program, Asia Pacific Foundation (APF), Canada.​

 

[Saif]

ICJ to begin public hearings on Rohingya genocide case Monday

Hearings will include examination of witnesses

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ICJ to begin public hearings on Rohingya genocide case Monday

Hearings will include examination of witnesses


By Star Online Report
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File photo

The International Court of Justice will begin on Monday public hearings on Rohingya genocide case.


The public hearings at the ICJ in The Hague will continue until January 29, according to a press statement.


“The hearings will be devoted to the merits of the case and will include the examination of witnesses and an expert called by the parties,” it said.

“Seeing Gambia’s landmark case against Myanmar finally enter the merits phase delivers renewed hope to Rohingya that our decades-long suffering may finally end,” said Wai Wai Nu, founder and executive director of the Women’s Peace Network, in a joint statement issued by the Human Rights Watch.


“Amid ongoing violations against the Rohingya, the world must stand firm in the pursuit of justice and a path toward ending impunity in Myanmar and restoring our rights,” Nu said.

On November 11, 2019, The Gambia filed the Rohingya genocide case against Myanmar with the ICJ.

In 2017, about 750,000 Rohingyas fled a military crackdown in Myanmar and took shelter in Bangladesh.


In its application, The Gambia alleged that Myanmar breached its obligations under the Genocide Convention and that it must cease forthwith any internationally wrongful act and perform the obligations of reparation in the interest of the victims of genocidal acts.

As a basis for the court’s jurisdiction, the applicant invokes Article IX of the Genocide Convention. The Application was accompanied by a request for the indication of provisional measures.


On January 23, 2020, the ICJ made an order indicating a number of provisional measures addressed to Myanmar.

Following the filing, Myanmar raised preliminary objections to the jurisdiction of the Court and to the admissibility of the Application.

By its judgement of July 22, 2022, the Court found that it has jurisdiction, on the basis of Article IX of the Genocide Convention, to entertain The Gambia’s Application.

Human Rights Watch, in a statement, said the Myanmar military has long subjected Rohingyas to atrocities, including the ongoing crimes against humanity of apartheid, persecution, and deprivation of liberty.

Since late 2023, Rohingya civilians have been caught in the fighting between the junta and the ethnic Arakan Army armed group. Both sides have carried out grave abuses, including extrajudicial killings, widespread arson, and unlawful recruitment.​

 

[Saif]

Top UN court to hear Rohingya genocide case against Myanmar

The Gambia brought the case accusing Myanmar of breaching the 1948 Genocide Convention during a crackdown in 2017.

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Top UN court to hear Rohingya genocide case against Myanmar
AFP The Hague
Published: 12 Jan 2026, 10: 18

Rohingya refugee children surround a street vendor at the Kutupalong refugee camp in Ukhia on January 11, 2026. AFP

Did Myanmar commit genocide against its Rohingya Muslim minority? That’s what judges at the International Court of Justice will weigh during three weeks of hearings starting Monday.

The Gambia brought the case accusing Myanmar of breaching the 1948 Genocide Convention during a crackdown in 2017.

Legal experts are watching closely as it could give clues for how the court will handle similar accusations against Israel over its military campaign in Gaza, a case brought to the ICJ by South Africa.

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims fled violence by the Myanmar army and Buddhist militias, escaping to neighbouring Bangladesh and bringing harrowing accounts of mass rape, arson and murder.

Today, 1.17 million Rohingya live crammed into dilapidated camps spread over 8,000 acres in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh.

From there, mother-of-two Janifa Begum told AFP: “I want to see whether the suffering we endured is reflected during the hearing.”

“We want justice and peace,” said the 37-year-old.


‘Senseless killings’

The Gambia, a Muslim-majority country in West Africa, brought the case in 2019 to the ICJ, which rules in disputes between states.

Under the Genocide Convention, any country can file a case at the ICJ against any other it believes is in breach of the treaty.

In December 2019, lawyers for the African nation presented evidence of what they said were “senseless killings... acts of barbarity that continue to shock our collective conscience”.

In a landmark moment at the Peace Palace courthouse in The Hague, Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi appeared herself to defend her country.

She dismissed Banjul’s argument as a “misleading and incomplete factual picture” of what she said was an “internal armed conflict”.

The former democracy icon warned that the genocide case at the ICJ risked reigniting the crisis, which she said was a response to attacks by Rohingya militants.

Myanmar has always maintained the crackdown by its armed forces, known as the Tatmadaw, was justified to root out Rohingya insurgents after a series of attacks left a dozen security personnel dead.

‘Physical destruction’

The ICJ initially sided with The Gambia, which had asked judges for “provisional measures” to halt the violence while the case was being considered.

The court in 2020 said Myanmar must take “all measures within its power” to halt any acts prohibited in the 1948 UN Genocide Convention.

These acts included “killing members of the group” and “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”.

The United States officially declared that the violence amounted to genocide in 2022, three years after a UN team said Myanmar harboured “genocidal intent” towards the Rohingya.

The hearings, which wrap up on January 30, represent the heart of the case.

The court had already thrown out a 2022 Myanmar challenge to its jurisdiction, so judges believe they have the power to rule on the genocide issue.

A final decision could take months or even years and while the ICJ has no means of enforcing its decisions, a ruling in favour of The Gambia would heap more political pressure on Myanmar.

Suu Kyi will not be revisiting the Peace Palace. She has been detained since a 2021 coup, on charges rights groups say were politically motivated.

The ICJ is not the only court looking into possible genocide against the Rohingya.

The International Criminal Court, also based in The Hague, is investigating military chief Min Aung Hlaing for suspected crimes against humanity.

Another case is being heard in Argentina under the principle of universal jurisdiction, the idea that some crimes are so heinous they can be heard in any court.​