Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya in Bangladesh marked the seventh anniversary of their displacement from their homes in neighboring Myanmar on Aug. 25, 2024. It was a sad event for Myanmar’s long-persecuted Muslim minority, who have struggled with dire living conditions in the world’s most crowded refugee camps.

Since 2017, their status has been continually challenged both by intermittent hostility in Bangladesh and by the ongoing civil war in Myanmar, where the military government continues to repress the Rohingya homeland in Rakhine State.

But recent events in Bangladesh may offer a glimmer of hope for the Rohingya. Months of political unrest led to the ouster of authoritarian Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, whose government failed to find a solution to the refugee crisis.

The government’s new interim leader, Nobel Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, has pledged to defend the rights of refugees and work to ensure their eventual repatriation.

As a scholar who has written about the Rohingya crisis and spent time in refugee camps, I believe the odds are still stacked against the Rohingya. Policymakers must grapple not only with growing hostility among the local population in Bangladesh and the ongoing civil war in Myanmar, but also with an underappreciated third factor that poses a challenge to political resolution of the crisis: the ongoing and growing violence and infighting among Rohingya refugees.

Murder, rape and kidnapping

More than 750,000 Rohingya fled Myanmar in August 2017 after a brutal government crackdown. Since then, some 235 Rohingya have been killed in refugee camps in Bangladesh. There have also been dozens of cases of rape of Rohingya girls and women, and dozens of kidnappings reported by Bangladeshi authorities.

Killings of prominent refugee figures, including the 2021 killing of Mohib Ullah, a moderate Rohingya leader, have contributed to a surge in violence in the camp.

Such violence, coupled with dire humanitarian conditions, has created a security vacuum in the camp, which has been filled by various Rohingya armed groups, operating with divergent goals and methods but leading to territorial conflict that embroils the refugees residing there.

Armed groups in camps

Of the 11 known active Rohingya armed groups – some of which were involved in an insurgency in Rakhine state against the central Myanmar government before crossing the border – five are seriously implicated in violent activities in the camps.

The most notorious of these is the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army. Formed in northern Rakhine State in 2016, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army rose to prominence after attacks on Myanmar security forces in October 2016 and August 2017, prompting government crackdowns and an exodus of Rohingya.

Government forces have killed an estimated 25,000 Rohingya and forced more than 750,000 to flee the country, leading much of the international community to label the violence as genocide.

The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army’s attempt to seize control of Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh has led to a backlash from other groups fighting for a foothold, including the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation, a long-dormant group that was revived in Bangladesh in 2021 with the support of Bangladeshi security agencies.

Two other groups linked to drug and other illegal trade — the Master Munna Group, formerly affiliated with the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, and the Nobi Hossain Group, which is nominally affiliated with the Rohingya Solidarity Organization — have contributed to the infighting. Meanwhile, the Islami Mahaj group has sought to recruit members to the camp through its Islamist agenda.

Drug and narcotics trafficking

The displacement of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees has given criminal groups an opportunity to expand their operations. Since 2017, illegal trade across the Myanmar-Bangladesh border has flourished, as have weapons flows from Myanmar and India, smuggling of yaba pills – a type of methamphetamine – and other drugs, trafficking in women and children, and the illegal sale of aid goods.

Organizations like Master Munna and Nobi Hossain are involved in extortion, smuggling, and crime in refugee camps, fighting each other for dominance in a given territory.

While working in the camps, I have observed how panic can grip the refugee population, especially after high-profile killings, as residents fear reprisals and more clashes between armed groups. As a result, thousands of Rohingya have often moved from one camp to another in search of safety.

Fighting benefits Myanmar military

In addition to the toll this violence takes on victims, infighting — and criminal activity by armed Rohingya groups — are having political costs for refugees.

Myanmar has used the fighting as a pretext to blame Bangladesh for the ongoing unrest and to defend its treatment of the Rohingya as a legitimate security justification. In September 2020, Myanmar’s representatives at the UN General Assembly accused the Bangladeshi government of harboring “terrorists,” a charge that Bangladeshi diplomats have vehemently denied.

The violence has also intensified hostility among Bangladeshis towards refugees, who are increasingly seen as troublemakers and criminals.

Meanwhile, NGOs and aid workers are hampered in their ability to provide services to refugees and civilians in the camps. And an already weary donor community sees threats in the growing militancy and criminality in the camps.

Old tension takes on a new form

Tensions between different Rohingya refugee communities are nothing new. Before 2017, there were already problems between those registered with the UN refugee agency in Bangladesh and living in official camps and those who were not registered and lived in makeshift camps.

But recently I have observed open hostility between earlier generations of Rohingya refugees who fled to Bangladesh in 1978 and 1991-92 and the new arrivals in the 2017 exodus. What is different now, and especially alarming, is that these tensions began to erupt into deadly violence after 2017.

The violence and killings in the camps have affected, by my estimate, about 5,000 people. This is a tiny fraction of the 1.3 million Rohingya refugees overall – including those who fled before and during the 2017 exodus. But the actions of this minority have been incredibly damaging to the Rohingya and their future; they threaten vital regional and global support and make their eventual repatriation to Myanmar more uncertain.

The change of government in Bangladesh does present an opportunity for the Rohingya, especially if the new administration sticks to its promises to strengthen the country’s judicial institutions and protect minority groups. But the unrest in the camps will only deepen the problems the new government faces and could undermine support for resolving the Rohingya crisis.

There are fears this could condemn Bangladesh’s Rohingya minority to years of living in precarious and increasingly brutal conditions.

This article is a reprint from The Conversation, an independent, nonprofit news organization that provides facts and analysis to help you understand our complex world.

The author of the text is: Nasir Uddin, University of Chittagong.

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Nasir Uddin does not work for, consult, own shares in, or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article. He has also disclosed no affiliations beyond his academic duties.