Why Do Rohingya Continue to Risk Everything to Reach Malaysia?

A Rohingya Perspective on Displacement, Survival, and the Search for Human Dignity

By Ro Maung Shwe

A recent post published by the verified Facebook platform Public Health Malaysia sparked widespread discussion about the continued arrival of Rohingya refugees, reviving a question many Malaysians continue to ask:

“Why do Rohingya continue to come to Malaysia?”

The discussion generated thousands of reactions and comments, reflecting sympathy, concern, frustration, fear, and debate about national security, public resources, and humanitarian responsibility.

As a member of a stateless community that has endured decades of persecution and displacement, I believe this question deserves an honest and balanced answer. The word “choose” does not accurately describe the Rohingya experience. For many Rohingya families, Malaysia was never their first choice. In fact, for many, there was never a choice at all. Malaysia became a destination not because it was easy, wealthy, or especially welcoming, but because it represented something increasingly rare for stateless people: the possibility of survival.

The Rohingya Crisis Did Not Begin in Malaysia

To understand why Rohingya continue to arrive in Malaysia, one must first understand the crisis that forced them to leave their homeland.

For decades, the Rohingya have faced systematic discrimination, denial of citizenship, restrictions on movement, violence, and persecution in Myanmar. Following successive waves of displacement—particularly after the mass atrocities of 2017 and the renewed violence in northern Rakhine State in 2024—hundreds of thousands fled, primarily to Bangladesh.

Today, Bangladesh hosts approximately one million Rohingya refugees living in overcrowded camps, creating one of the world’s largest protracted refugee situations. Yet after nearly a decade of displacement, opportunities for education, employment, and durable solutions remain extremely limited.

For many refugees, prolonged uncertainty has created a painful question:

If we cannot return home, and we cannot build a future where we are, where do we go?

Malaysia: A Place to Survive, Not a Destination of Choice

Malaysia has become one of the principal destinations for Rohingya refugees over the past three decades. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Malaysia hosted approximately 215,600 registered refugees and asylum seekers as of February 2026, including 126,144 Rohingya refugees, making them the country’s largest refugee population. These figures do not include recent unregistered arrivals.

Many Rohingya do not see Malaysia as a land of prosperity. They see it as a place where survival remains possible.

Several factors explain why.

The Power of Community Networks

One of the strongest drivers of Rohingya migration is the existence of long-established community networks.

Over several decades, Rohingya families have built communities across Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Johor, Selangor, and other parts of Malaysia. Relatives, former neighbors, village elders, and friends often provide information, temporary shelter, emotional support, and help finding informal work.

When someone knows that a brother, cousin, or former neighbor has already managed to survive there, the fear of the unknown becomes slightly less overwhelming.

A Rohingya resident in Kuala Lumpur explained:

“We did not come because Malaysia is easy. We came because we had nowhere else to go. When we heard that people from our village were already here, we believed that perhaps we could survive too.”

Religion, Culture, and a Sense of Belonging

Religion and cultural familiarity also shape migration decisions.

As a Muslim-majority country, Malaysia offers an environment where many Rohingya Muslims feel culturally and spiritually connected. Access to mosques, halal food, religious education, and familiar social customs provides a sense of belonging that many displaced families struggle to find elsewhere.

This does not mean life in Malaysia is free from hardship. Many Rohingya continue to live in poverty, insecurity, and legal uncertainty. Yet for a stateless community, preserving identity and dignity remains deeply important.

Escaping a Life of Permanent Waiting

For more than one million Rohingya refugees living in camps in Bangladesh, life often feels like a state of permanent waiting.

Many young people have spent nearly their entire lives inside refugee camps. Educational opportunities remain severely limited. Employment is almost nonexistent. Humanitarian funding continues to decline. For many families, hope itself is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain.

One Rohingya father who previously lived in Cox’s Bazar explained his decision to leave:

“We knew the sea journey could kill us. But staying in the camp year after year without education, work, or hope also felt like losing our future. We were searching for dignity, not luxury.”

His words capture a reality shared by countless Rohingya families. For many, the decision to leave is not driven by economic ambition but by the absence of any meaningful future.

The Dangerous Business of Hope

Desperation creates opportunities for exploitation.

Human trafficking and smuggling networks continue to profit from the suffering of Rohingya refugees by presenting Malaysia as a destination of safety, employment, and opportunity. For families trapped between statelessness and hopelessness, such promises can become irresistible.

The consequences are devastating.

In recent years, hundreds of Rohingya have died or disappeared while attempting dangerous sea crossings through the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. International organizations documented nearly 900 Rohingya deaths or disappearances during maritime journeys in 2025 alone, making it one of the deadliest years on record.

For many Rohingya, the journey to Malaysia is not a search for a better life. It is a desperate attempt to avoid a future they believe offers no life at all.

Informal Employment and Daily Survival

Although refugees are not legally permitted to work in Malaysia, many survive through the informal economy. Construction sites, restaurants, factories, agriculture, markets, and daily wage labor have historically provided opportunities for Rohingya refugees to earn an income and support their families.

This reality reinforces the perception among many Rohingya that Malaysia offers, at the very least, a chance to rebuild life. Yet the absence of legal status comes at a heavy cost. Refugees remain vulnerable to exploitation, underpayment, arrest, detention, and abuse—conditions that have been repeatedly documented by human rights organizations.

For many, however, these risks are weighed against a far harsher alternative: prolonged dependency and uncertainty in refugee camps with little prospect of a stable future.

Public Health Malaysia and the Humanitarian Debate

The recent discussion initiated by Public Health Malaysia deserves recognition for attempting to examine the Rohingya issue through both humanitarian and public policy perspectives.

The platform acknowledged that vulnerable populations—including refugees, women, children, older persons, and survivors of violence—require humanitarian consideration and public health protection.

Protecting public health and protecting human dignity should not be viewed as competing objectives. Equally, acknowledging the suffering of refugees does not require ignoring the legitimate concerns of host communities.

A meaningful discussion must recognize both realities.

Malaysia’s Right to Protect Its Borders

Malaysia, like every sovereign nation, has the right and responsibility to regulate immigration, protect its borders, safeguard public resources, and maintain national security.

Recognizing the desperation of refugees does not mean irregular migration should be normalized. At the same time, understanding the Rohingya situation requires acknowledging that people flee because they are persecuted, stateless, and increasingly without alternatives.

These realities are not mutually exclusive. A state can uphold its sovereign responsibilities while responding to humanitarian crises with fairness, dignity, and compassion.

Rising Anti-Rohingya Sentiment

Recent months have witnessed growing anti-Rohingya rhetoric and online hostility in Malaysia, prompting concern from human rights organizations and civil society groups.

The Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (SUHAKAM) has warned against increasing hostility, discriminatory narratives, and the dehumanization of Rohingya communities. Human rights advocates have similarly cautioned that misinformation and hate speech risk deepening social divisions while placing already vulnerable refugees at even greater risk.

Constructive public debate requires balancing empathy with legitimate public concerns rather than reducing a complex humanitarian crisis to simplistic narratives or stereotypes.

This Is Not Simply a Migration Issue

The Rohingya crisis cannot be understood solely through the lens of migration.

It is rooted in decades of statelessness, systematic persecution, armed conflict, prolonged displacement, poverty, and the absence of durable political solutions. Human trafficking networks have exploited this desperation, while regional governments and the international community have struggled to establish sustainable pathways for protection and responsibility-sharing.

Viewed in isolation, the arrival of Rohingya refugees in Malaysia may appear to be an immigration issue. Viewed in its full context, it is the consequence of one of the world’s longest-running and most unresolved refugee crises.

As a Rohingya writer and observer, I believe the question should not simply be:

“Why do Rohingya come to Malaysia?”

Perhaps the more important question is:

“What conditions have become so severe that thousands of stateless people continue risking their lives at sea because they believe they have no other option?”

Until the root causes of the Rohingya crisis are addressed—including citizenship, protection, justice, accountability, and a durable political solution—the humanitarian pressures affecting Malaysia, Bangladesh, and the wider region will persist.

For many Rohingya families, Malaysia was never the first choice. It simply became the last remaining hope.

Ro Maung Shwe– Rohingya Writer, Journalist, Rohingya Advocate, Political Analyst and Humanitarian Observer