The world is getting crueller and nastier. People in Gaza are killed mercilessly as the Western powers are brazenly aiding one of the heinous genocides in modern time. Despite widespread and continuous protest from the nook and corners of the world, the killing goes on. The hapless people of Gaza saw scores dead and countless are injured even on the eve of the holy month of Ramadan.

In other parts of the world, another community may feel lucky to at least save their lives. The Rohingyas faced a diabolic genocide few years back and most of them fled to Bangladesh leaving their burnt houses and dead relatives.

Ever since, around a million Rohingyas, one of the most persecuted minorities in the world, took shelter in Cox’s Bazar, the coastal city of Bangladesh. These Rohingyas, who were denied citizenship in Myanmar as the junta snatched their birth rights, have not been granted refugee status in Bangladesh. The hapless people are confined in the camps as Forcibly Displaced Myanmar Nationals (FDMN).

As a result, they do not get any right to work or even live outside the camps. Before the Covid-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war, foreign aid came like an avalanche. The West could not solve the issue politically but at least supported the displaced people.

However, the flow is dwindling now as the years go by and the issue went into the back row for global humanitarian organisations and lost the political appeal. The Bangladesh government has very little capacity to negotiate the matter in the global arena. On the other hand, Myanmar gets strong support from China, who conversely controls Hasina’s regime largely, and India is also avoiding the matter.

The situation is not only grave for the Rohingyas but also for local people. Over the years, some infrastructural development was done with the aid money but they also created social cleavage among the local and Rohingya people. The latter are often used illegally as cheap labour and in criminal activities. That created grievance among local people.

Now, with the foreign money being evaporated, an inept regime and a million people trapped in a dense coastal city, the situation can be cataclysmic in near future.

The Boxer: The author is one of the indefatigable working-class Bangladeshis who have been trying to change the fate of the nation but were betrayed by the ruling elites and autocrats. The name is inspired by a character in George Orwell's 1945 novel Animal Farm.