2024–2026: a new and extremely dangerous phase

From late 2023, and especially during 2024–2026, the Rohingya people in Arakan entered a new and extremely dangerous phase. Fighting between Myanmar’s junta and the Arakan Army (AA) spread across much of Rakhine/Arakan, and the Rohingya were again trapped between armed actors that had both shown a willingness to use them as tools, view them with suspicion and subject them to serious abuses.

This new crisis must be understood in light of the Rohingya’s long history of persecution: the 1982 Citizenship Law that rendered them de facto stateless, the violence and segregation after 2012, the genocide campaign in 2017 and the continued denial of safe return. As armed conflict again spreads in Arakan, the Rohingya lack the protection that citizenship, rights and recognition should have provided them.

The junta’s forced recruitment of Rohingya

In 2024, the junta, which had previously carried out the genocide campaign against the Rohingya in 2017, began forcibly recruiting Rohingya men and boys for the war against the Arakan Army. This was especially brutal because the same state that denied the Rohingya citizenship, identity and basic rights was now trying to force them to fight and die for the military.

According to human-rights reports, many were taken away, threatened, sent for brief military training and then deployed to dangerous conflict areas. Human Rights Watch reported in April 2024 that Myanmar’s military had abducted and forcibly recruited more than 1,000 Rohingya men and boys from Rakhine State since February 2024. Fortify Rights also documented that Rohingya were subjected to unlawful forced recruitment and that some were transported from Bangladesh to Myanmar to be pressured into the junta’s military ranks.

For the Rohingya, this was a new form of exploitation of an already persecuted and stateless population. The junta denied them citizenship when they demanded rights, but tried to use them as soldiers when the military needed personnel. This also intensified dangerous tensions between Rohingya and Rakhine communities because the junta’s use of Rohingya as forcibly recruited soldiers could provoke collective retaliation by other armed actors.

The Arakan Army as the new dominant power

At the same time, the Arakan Army developed from a Rakhine insurgent group into the dominant power across large parts of Arakan. As the AA took control of much of the state, fear grew among the Rohingya that the group did not want an inclusive Arakan, but a territory from which the Rohingya would be removed, controlled or forced out.

Rohingya have reported restrictions on movement, confiscation of property, arbitrary arrests, forced labour, forced recruitment, threats and attacks on villages. Human Rights Watch reported in 2025 that the Arakan Army had imposed severe restrictions and committed grave abuses against the Rohingya population. Fortify Rights has also reported forced labour and abuses against ethnic minorities, including the Rohingya, in areas under AA control.

RCN therefore believes that the Arakan Army cannot be judged only by its role as an anti-junta movement. The group must be judged by its actual actions toward civilians, particularly the Rohingya. An armed actor that controls territory and a population has a responsibility to protect civilians, prevent collective punishment, ensure humanitarian access and respect international law.

Buthidaung: a symbol of the new catastrophe

Buthidaung became one of the clearest symbols of this new catastrophe. After Buthidaung Township fell under AA control in May 2024, large parts of the Rohingya areas in and around the town were burned down. Rohingya sources have reported that several thousand Rohingya homes, including an estimated more than 2,500 houses in Buthidaung town, were destroyed within a very short period.

International media and human-rights actors documented extensive fire damage, targeted destruction and mass flight. Reuters reported in 2024, based on witness testimony and satellite imagery, that Buthidaung was set on fire after the Arakan Army took the town, and that both the junta and the AA had subjected Rohingya civilians to serious abuses. To the Rohingya, this did not appear to be random fighting, but part of a pattern in which remaining Rohingya areas were emptied, burned and made uninhabitable.

The Hoyyar Siri massacre

The Hoyyar Siri massacre is one of the most serious documented examples of this development. Human Rights Watch reported in 2026 that the Arakan Army may have killed at least 170 Rohingya men, women and children in Hoyyar Siri on 2 May 2024, and that many more may have been killed or wounded. Survivors described civilians being shot as they tried to flee, families being killed, the village later being looted and burned, and residents who still have not been able to return.

For the Rohingya, Hoyyar Siri is not an isolated incident, but one of many violent episodes bearing clear signs of ethnic persecution and patterns resembling genocide. Two years after the incident, Human Rights Watch reported that survivors had still received no real justice and that many were living under severe restrictions and insecurity. This demonstrates why independent investigation and international monitoring are necessary.

Renewed flight to Bangladesh and dangerous sea routes

The flight from Arakan has therefore continued. Since 2024, tens of thousands of Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh because of violence, fear, forced recruitment, food shortages and abuses by both the junta and the Arakan Army. UNHCR reported in 2025 that Bangladesh had received up to 150,000 new Rohingya refugees during the preceding 18 months. In 2026, Reuters, citing UNHCR, reported that pressure on Bangladesh had increased after about 150,000 additional Rohingya had arrived since early 2024.

Many cross the border without formal registration and live in extreme insecurity in or around the already overcrowded camps in Cox’s Bazar. UNHCR has also warned that Bangladesh now hosts around 1.2 million Rohingya refugees, most of them in the camps in Cox’s Bazar. Other Rohingya try to flee onward by boat to Malaysia, Indonesia or other countries, often through dangerous human-smuggling networks.

RCN assessment: an acute protection crisis

The situation in Arakan shows that the Rohingya no longer face danger only from Myanmar’s military. They now also face serious danger from the Arakan Army, which in practice controls large parts of the areas where the remaining Rohingya live. RCN therefore believes that the international community must not view the AA merely as an anti-junta movement or a local administrative actor. The group must be judged by its actions toward civilians, particularly the Rohingya.

RCN believes that the current situation must be treated as an acute protection crisis. The Rohingya in Arakan need immediate international protection, humanitarian access, monitoring and independent investigation of all parties. The junta, the Arakan Army and any Rohingya armed groups must all be held accountable for abuses against civilians. The international community must not allow the history of 2017 to repeat itself in a new form, in which the remaining Rohingya in Arakan are gradually forced out through fear, violence, hunger, forced recruitment and the destruction of villages.

RCN believes this requires a clear international response: independent investigation, humanitarian access, protection of civilians, targeted sanctions against responsible actors and a political solution that recognises the Rohingya’s right to citizenship, security, property and full belonging in Arakan.