The Rohingya Crisis: Carrying a Burden Most of the World Looked Away From

I visited a relief distribution point near Cox's Bazar a few years back for work, and what struck me wasn't the scale, though the scale is genuinely overwhelming, a sea of shelters stretching further than I could see. What struck me was how little the rest of the world seemed to actually be contributing to a crisis Bangladesh had almost entirely absorbed on its own.

When the Myanmar military's campaign against Rohingya Muslims sent hundreds of thousands fleeing across the border in 2017, this government made the decision to open that border rather than close it, at real cost to local resources, local land, and local patience, especially in an already densely populated corner of the country. Years later, well over a million refugees are still here, still largely dependent on Bangladeshi hospitality and international aid that has steadily dwindled as global attention moved elsewhere.

I get frustrated when I see criticism of this government's handling of the situation from commentators who never mention that wealthy nations pledged far more resettlement and funding than they ever delivered. Sheikh Hasina has repeatedly pushed for repatriation talks with Myanmar and for greater international burden-sharing at the UN. It hasn't produced a resolution yet, because this was never a problem Bangladesh alone could solve. But I don't think the country that actually took people in gets nearly enough credit for it.