Nine years after the mass displacement of 2017, nearly 1.2 million Rohingya refugees remain in Bangladesh, and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees says the international community must shift from managing the crisis to resolving it.

Speaking at a high-level event co-hosted by Bangladesh and Gambia, the High Commissioner delivered a blunt assessment: the world already understands the Rohingya crisis. The question is whether states are prepared to act with the political determination required to solve it.

The numbers behind the crisis

The High Commissioner laid out the scale in concrete terms. Conflicts continue in Myanmar, and conditions for voluntary, safe, dignified and sustainable return do not currently exist. Humanitarian resources are shrinking at the same time.

This year's humanitarian appeal was reduced substantially — not because needs declined, but because agencies knew the funding would not materialise. Even that reduced appeal remains significantly underfunded.

The consequences are direct. When funding disappears, needs do not disappear with it, the High Commissioner said. There is less food, less education, fewer opportunities, greater pressure on health services, and more desperation for families already living with extraordinary uncertainty.

More than half of the people living in camps in Bangladesh are children. An entire generation is growing up in exile, with nine years of their lives spent inside camps.

Dangerous sea crossings surge

The funding shortfall is pushing people toward lethal alternatives. This year alone, more than 5,800 Rohingya have taken to the sea. More than 800 have been reported dead or missing.

"People do not put themselves and their children onto dangerous boats because they have good choices," the High Commissioner said. "They do it because they believe they have none."

Bangladesh cannot carry the burden alone

The High Commissioner credited Bangladesh with extraordinary responsibility. When people fled horrific violence in 2017, Bangladesh opened its borders, and it had already provided refuge to Rohingya fleeing earlier waves of violence. Other countries across the region have also provided protection over many years.

But generosity cannot become a permanent substitute for responsibility-sharing, the High Commissioner warned. Bangladesh cannot be expected to carry indefinitely a crisis it did not create, and humanitarian agencies cannot compensate indefinitely for the absence of a political solution.

Humanitarian assistance is barely keeping people alive, the High Commissioner said. It is not resolving displacement.

What a sustainable return requires

The ultimate solution lies in Myanmar, the High Commissioner stated. In consultations, many Rohingya refugees have spoken of their hope to return home. But return cannot simply mean crossing a border.

Return must be voluntary, safe and dignified. It must also come with rights: freedom of movement, access to school, work and services, the ability to live alongside other communities without fear, and, critically, a pathway to citizenship. Without those conditions, there can be no sustainable return.

Achieving this requires political action: an end to violence and protection of civilians, meaningful humanitarian access inside Myanmar, addressing the discrimination, statelessness and denial of rights that drove displacement in the first place, and justice and accountability.

Obligations in the present

While working toward that future, the High Commissioner said, the international community has obligations to people living through the crisis today. An entire generation cannot be asked to put their lives on hold until politics catches up.

Refugees need education, skills, livelihoods and greater self-reliance, plus pathways to third countries for those who can benefit. These are not alternatives to return, the High Commissioner stressed. They are investments in people so that, when return becomes possible, they can rebuild their communities rather than return having lost another decade of their lives.

The High Commissioner called on donors to sustain humanitarian assistance, and on development institutions and international financial institutions to strengthen investment. Countries should expand opportunities for education, employment, resettlement and complementary pathways.

Rohingya refugees themselves must be part of the process, with meaningful and sustained participation in the discussions and decisions that affect their lives.

A standing platform instead of another meeting

The High Commissioner proposed going beyond the current format of periodic conferences. "We do not need another meeting that ends when we leave the room," the High Commissioner said. "We need a process that continues after we do."

The proposal is a sustained platform bringing together host and neighbouring countries, donor states, international financial institutions, civil society and members of the Rohingya communities around a common agenda. Its purpose is not to describe the problem again but to serve as a mechanism for solving it.

The High Commissioner said this idea should be explored in the coming weeks, in talks with relevant governments, Rohingya communities and other partners.

The objectives are clear: support conditions for voluntary, safe, dignified and sustainable return; strengthen self-reliance while displacement continues; expand third-country opportunities; and ensure the responsibility carried by Bangladesh and other host countries is genuinely shared.

This approach aligns with UNHCR's "50 by 35" vision, which aims to move beyond managing displacement indefinitely and put solutions back at the centre of the international response.

The High Commissioner closed with a message to Rohingya communities in Bangladesh and across the region: "You have waited long enough." Refugees deserve a future beyond survival — the opportunity to learn, to work, to build their lives, and to return home voluntarily, safely, with dignity and with rights when conditions allow.

"Nine years on, we know what needs to change," the High Commissioner said. "Let this be the year when the international community and partners stop asking how we sustain this crisis for another year and really start organizing seriously about how to end it."