“We heard explosions, gunfire, and people screaming,” said Ruhul*, recalling the moment when his township in Myanmar, Buthidaung, was attacked on the evening of May 17. “My family and I fled our home in the chaos, seeking safety in the nearby hills.”
After becoming separated from his parents, Ruhul hid for days in the jungle with his cousins and other young people, hungry and afraid.
“I stepped on two landmines—the first time I was unharmed, but the second explosion blew my foot off," he explained. Ruhul didn’t receive medical care until nine days later, when was able to cross the border into Bangladesh and reach a Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Cox's Bazar. There, he joined more than a million Rohingya people who have fled attacks over the decades.
Dynamics of an intensifying conflict
Since November 2023, intensifying conflict between the Myanmar Armed Forces and the Arakan Army has devastated Myanmar’s northern Rakhine state, where many Rohingya call home. The extreme violence—including the use of heavy weaponry, drone strikes, and arson attacks—has left entire villages razed and has killed, injured, and displaced large numbers of people. Both parties to the conflict are forcibly recruiting civilians to fight and stoking ethnic tensions between communities. The violence is impacting various ethnic groups living in Rakhine, but the Rohingya community—which has faced persecution for decades—again finds itself caught in the crossfire.
Mojibullah* is one of thousands of Rohingya community members recently displaced from Buthidaung, after homes and property were burned to the ground during a bout of violence between May 17 and 18. Many of those who fled had already been displaced a previous time.
“A mortar shell struck our home, killing my wife and injuring several others,” Mojibullah said. “We made the heartbreaking decision to leave for Bangladesh. Leaving behind our home, livestock, and crops was incredibly difficult.”
Twelve miles west of Buthidaung, intense clashes between the warring parties in Maungdaw also spiked in May, and have again escalated in August. Some of those caught in the clashes in Maungdaw are survivors of violent attacks in Buthidaung.
Treating the injured in Bangladesh
Between August 5 and 17, MSF teams in the camps of Cox’s Bazar treated 83 Rohingya patients with violence-related injuries, nearly half of whom were women and children. Many said they had crossed the border after fleeing the attacks in Maungdaw.
Teams at MSF’s facilities are receiving patients with gunshot wounds and landmine injuries—many left maimed and in critical condition. Some have life-threatening illnesses like HIV and tuberculosis (TB) and have not had access to medication, as they are no longer available in Rakhine. Several of our patients have described a perilous journey across the border, including crossing the Naf River. Because the border is officially closed, people are forced to pay huge bribes to authorities, armed groups, and smugglers in order to cross.
“The journey was marked by challenges at every turn,” said Mojibullah. “We encountered smugglers demanding exorbitant fees for a dangerous boat ride and we faced hostility from border guards upon arrival in Bangladesh. Despite our pleas for help, including the urgent medical needs of my grandchildren, we were pushed back to Myanmar.”
Violence rages in Rakhine
Meanwhile, in northern Rakhine, access to health care is almost nonexistent. Health facilities are nonfunctional, with many damaged by the fighting, stripped of medical staff who have fled, and left without supplies due to the inability to gain authorization to transport them as a result of conflict dynamics.
In June, MSF was forced to indefinitely suspend our medical humanitarian activities in Buthidaung, Maungdaw, and Rathedung townships after our office and medical store were burned down. Before this suspension, MSF witnessed attacks in highly populated areas like markets and villages as well as on health care facilities, threatening the lives of patients and health care workers. Any efforts taken by the warring parties to protect civilians and uphold their obligations under international humanitarian law have been negligible, if taken at all.
The toll of this disregard for human life is immense. Our teams in Bangladesh have received 115 war-wounded Rohingya patients in MSF facilities since July 2024, including men, women, and children. While newly arrived Rohingya people in Cox's Bazar have managed to escape the conflict zone and access some level of medical care, they are forced to hide for fear of deportation. At the same time, they face an increasingly precarious situation in the camps, where 1.2 million people are living behind barbed wire fences, with limited access to basic needs. Violence and kidnappings are on the rise in the camps, including forced recruitment to armed groups back in Myanmar. As a result, many Rohingya live in fear and anxiety over the fate of their families.
Trapped in violence and despair
The lives of Rohingya youth in Cox's Bazar
No reprieve for the Rohingya
Since finally reaching Bangladesh, Mojibullah has not yet found a reprieve from hardship. “My family and I are struggling to come to terms with the loss of loved ones and the uncertainty of our future,” he explained.
According to the UN, an estimated 327,000 people have been displaced in Myanmar’s Rakhine state and Paletwa township in Chin state since the conflict resumed in November 2023, bringing the total number of displaced people in these areas to more than 534,000. MSF is calling parties to the conflict to comply with their obligations under international humanitarian law and the principles of distinction, proportionality, and precaution. This includes protecting civilians from direct attacks and the effects of attacks, as well as the prohibition of indiscriminate attacks. We also ask the authorities and all actors on both sides of the border to urgently prioritize increased, impartial humanitarian and medical assistance to people in need.
*Names changed to protect privacy
