Why is Bangladesh saying it can no longer host Rohingya?
The Take
Al Jazeera
4.7 • 748 Ratings
🗓️ 2 September 2025
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Bangladesh has sheltered more than a million Rohingya refugees for eight years, since they fled ethnic cleansing in Myanmar. Now, the government says it cannot cope alone. As aid falls and pressure rises, what future awaits the refugees in Cox’s Bazar – and what will it take for them to return safely to Myanmar?
In this episode:
- Tony Cheng (@TLCBkk), Al Jazeera correspondent
This episode was produced by Tracie Hunte, Tamara Khandaker, and Marcos Bartolomé with Manny Panaretos, Kisaa Zehra, Melanie Marich, Farhan Rafid, and our guest host, Kevin Hirten. It was edited by Noor Wazwaz.
Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our video editors are Hisham Abu Salah and Mohannad al-Melhem. Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer. Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera’s head of audio.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Al Jazeera Podcasts. |
| 0:07.0 | Today, eight years after fleeing a genocide in Myanmar, can the Rohingya ever return home? |
| 0:18.0 | I want to go home with justice to get back my land and property. |
| 0:23.0 | I want to see peace there. |
| 0:24.8 | It's been eight years since I came here for the third time. |
| 0:28.0 | How much longer must we suffer? |
| 0:31.1 | Now home to one of the world's largest refugee camps. |
| 0:34.6 | Bangladesh says it can no longer support the more than one million Rohingya |
| 0:38.8 | who live there. |
| 0:42.0 | I'm Kevin Hurtin, and this is the take. |
| 0:49.4 | My name is Tony Cheng. |
| 0:53.0 | I'm a Bangkok-based correspondent for Al Jazeera English. |
| 0:58.0 | And I've just come back from Bangladesh, where we were reporting on a conference looking at the future of the Rohingya. |
| 1:05.5 | Tony Chang, welcome to the take. I want to start talking about Cox's Bazaar. Now, this is a city in southeastern |
| 1:13.2 | Bangladesh, and it's got these dual identities, right? On the one hand, it's a resort town. It's |
| 1:19.4 | home to the world's longest natural sea beach. But then on the other hand, it's also home to |
| 1:25.2 | one of the world's largest refugee camps. I mean, more than one million |
| 1:29.4 | Rohingya refugees who fled a genocide in Myanmar next door. So let's start there. Tell us a little |
| 1:36.4 | bit about Cox's Bazaar. What is it like there? Well, the city itself, it's a resort town. It's got, |
| 1:43.0 | you know, lots of hotels, lots of restaurants. |
| 1:47.7 | We arrived just as the monsoon rains were hitting, actually. So it was kind of a bit of a dramatic |
| 1:54.6 | arrival. And we drove through the town. We were heading down to where this conference was taking |
... |
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