by Mijan Ahmed
At dawn on 9 May 2025, a boat carrying Rohingya refugees capsized in regional waters. A second vessel sank the following day. Of the 514 people on board the two boats, only 87 were found alive. An estimated 427 were dead or missing. The scale of the loss marked the deadliest maritime disaster for the Rohingya that year, but the pattern itself was not new. These journeys have become a recurring feature of a crisis that has shifted, over time, from mass displacement to something more enduring and less visible: a condition of containment.
Between January and May 2025, 3,100 Rohingya embarked on dangerous sea and river journeys, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The International Organization for Migration estimated that by the end of the year, at least 5,160 people had attempted such crossings on 131 boats. These numbers do not reflect isolated acts of desperation. They point to a sustained movement shaped by structural conditions that leave few alternatives.
The common framing of these journeys as irregular migration obscures more than it explains. For the Rohingya, movement is not simply a matter of choice, nor is it reducible to the operations of smuggling networks. It is produced by a set of constraints that operate across borders: confinement in camps, insecurity within those camps, ongoing conflict in Myanmar, shrinking humanitarian support, and the absence of legal pathways for mobility. To understand why Rohingya continue to risk death at sea, it is necessary to examine these conditions as a system rather than as a series of discrete pressures.
The starting point lies in Bangladesh, where nearly one million Rohingya refugees remain in camps after fleeing violence in Myanmar. These camps are often described as spaces of protection, and in certain respects they are. They provide access to basic services, including food assistance, healthcare, and shelter. But they are also spaces of restriction. Freedom of movement is limited, livelihood opportunities are constrained, and daily life is governed by administrative controls that leave little room for long-term planning.
This combination—basic survival without meaningful mobility—creates a condition that can be described as managed immobility. Refugees are kept safe in a narrow sense, but they are also prevented from building viable futures. Over time, this condition produces its own pressures.
Security conditions inside the camps further complicate the picture. In the first quarter of 2025 alone, monitoring reports recorded 398 serious incidents affecting 634 refugees across camps in Cox’s Bazar. These included 176 abductions, 118 serious physical assaults, and 55 cases of extortion. Such figures challenge the assumption that the camps offer stable protection. For many residents, insecurity is not confined to the circumstances they fled. It is embedded in the environment where they now live.
At the same time, the economic basis of survival in the camps is becoming increasingly fragile. In March 2025, the World Food Programme warned that, without additional funding, monthly food rations for over one million Rohingya would be cut from $12.50 to $6 per person. The reduction was implemented in April. By April 2026, assistance had been restructured further under a tiered system, with some refugees receiving as little as $7 per month. These figures are not abstract budget adjustments. They translate directly into reduced caloric intake, heightened malnutrition risks, and increased dependence on informal and often exploitative coping strategies.
Humanitarian agencies have consistently warned that such cuts carry broader consequences. Reduced assistance does not only affect immediate well-being. It alters decision-making. When basic needs can no longer be met within the camps, the perceived risks of leaving begin to shift.
The argument that dangerous journeys are driven by desperation is not rhetorical. It is supported by the convergence of these factors: insecurity, restricted mobility, and declining material support. As conditions deteriorate, the threshold for undertaking high-risk movement lowers.
Yet the situation cannot be understood solely from the perspective of Bangladesh. The pressures that shape Rohingya movement are transnational, rooted in conditions both in the camps and in Myanmar itself.
In Rakhine State, where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya remain, the environment is defined by ongoing conflict and systemic discrimination. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has reported that renewed hostilities since late 2023 have intensified suffering, while country assessments indicate that Rohingya continue to face movement restrictions, arbitrary detention, and, in some cases, forced recruitment by armed actors.
Medical evidence underscores the severity of these conditions. In August 2024, Médecins Sans Frontières reported treating 39 people for violence-related injuries in just four days after they crossed into Bangladesh from Myanmar. Since July of that year, the organization had received 115 war-wounded Rohingya patients. These cases illustrate a critical point: for some, movement is not a strategy for economic advancement or resettlement. It is a means of survival.
The lack of access to adequate healthcare reinforces this dynamic. When treatment is unavailable or inaccessible in Myanmar, crossing a border becomes the only option. But such crossings are rarely straightforward. They are shaped by the same constraints that govern other forms of Rohingya mobility: legal restrictions, administrative barriers, and the risk of interception or detention.
Taken together, these conditions point to a broader structural problem: the absence of safe and lawful pathways for movement. Whether for work, asylum, or medical care, Rohingya have limited access to mechanisms that would allow them to move without resorting to irregular routes. This absence is not incidental. It is a direct consequence of statelessness.
Denied citizenship in Myanmar and lacking recognized legal status across much of the region, Rohingya movement is consistently treated as irregular. This categorization has practical consequences. It limits access to formal migration channels, constrains the ability to seek asylum in a predictable manner, and exposes individuals to enforcement measures that prioritize border control over protection.
The regional response to maritime arrivals reflects this tension. Countries such as Indonesia have provided temporary refuge, allowing boats to disembark and offering short-term assistance. But these responses are largely ad hoc. Indonesia is not a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention, and regional mechanisms for responsibility-sharing remain underdeveloped. As a result, each arrival is managed as an immediate problem rather than as part of a coordinated protection framework.
This reactive approach becomes particularly evident in the aftermath of maritime disasters. Search and rescue operations are mobilized, survivors are assisted, and international attention briefly intensifies. But the underlying conditions that produce these journeys remain unchanged. Without structural interventions, the cycle repeats.
The framing of Rohingya sea journeys as a migration issue, rather than as a protection failure, contributes to this cycle. It shifts focus toward border enforcement and smuggling networks, while leaving the conditions that drive movement largely unaddressed.
A more accurate interpretation is that these journeys represent a form of forced mobility. They are not forced in the immediate sense of physical coercion at the point of departure. But they are produced by a convergence of constraints that narrow the range of viable options to the point where high-risk movement becomes rational.
This interpretation aligns with the evidence. UNHCR and IOM have emphasized that maritime movements are driven by deteriorating conditions and lack of alternatives. Medical organizations have highlighted the role of insecurity and lack of access to care. Humanitarian data shows how aid reductions intensify vulnerability. None of these factors operate in isolation. They reinforce one another.
The concept of containment is central to understanding this dynamic. In Bangladesh, containment takes the form of camp-based restrictions on movement and livelihoods. In Myanmar, it takes the form of legal exclusion, surveillance, and conflict-driven displacement. Across the region, it is reinforced by policies that limit access to legal mobility.
The result is a system in which the Rohingya are effectively confined across multiple spaces. They are unable to return home safely, unable to move freely within host countries, and unable to access regular migration pathways. Under these conditions, the decision to undertake a dangerous journey is not an anomaly. It is a predictable outcome.
Recent trends suggest that the risks associated with these journeys are increasing. The scale of the May 2025 disaster indicates that maritime routes are becoming more lethal. At the same time, aid contractions in Bangladesh are likely to intensify pressures to leave. Reports of continued arrivals in Indonesia in 2025, including hundreds of people disembarking in Aceh and North Sumatra, indicate that the movement is ongoing.
The role of medical mobility is also becoming more pronounced. The movement of war-wounded individuals across borders highlights a dimension of the crisis that is often overlooked. For some Rohingya, the choice is not between staying and migrating for opportunity. It is between staying without care and moving in search of treatment, regardless of the risks involved.
This convergence of factors points to a broader transformation in the Rohingya crisis. What began as a crisis of mass displacement has evolved into a crisis of protracted immobility punctuated by high-risk movement. The camps are no longer temporary spaces awaiting resolution. They have become semi-permanent environments that sustain life while limiting possibility.
Addressing this situation requires a shift in perspective. Efforts that focus solely on humanitarian assistance, while necessary, do not address the underlying drivers of movement. Nor do policies that prioritize containment without providing alternatives.
Three areas are particularly critical. The first is mobility. Without the development of safe and lawful pathways for movement, including for work, education, and medical care, the reliance on irregular routes will continue. The second is protection within the camps. Reducing insecurity and expanding livelihood opportunities are essential to stabilizing conditions and reducing pressure to leave. The third is the broader political framework, particularly the question of citizenship in Myanmar. As long as Rohingya remain stateless, their vulnerability will persist across contexts.
These are not new recommendations. They have been articulated in various forms by international agencies, humanitarian organizations, and policy actors. What remains lacking is implementation at the scale required to alter the current trajectory.
The persistence of Rohingya sea journeys is often framed as a failure of individual decision-making or as a problem of smuggling networks. Both interpretations miss the point. The issue is structural. It lies in the conditions that make such journeys necessary.
The boats leaving the shores of Bangladesh and Myanmar are not simply carrying migrants. They are carrying the consequences of a system that restricts movement, limits opportunity, and denies legal belonging. As long as that system remains in place, the journeys will continue, and so will the risks.
The question is not why Rohingya take to the sea. The question is why the conditions that leave them with little alternative remain unresolved.
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