Plight of Rohingya with ‘no hope’ to lead ‘explosion’
Press Office, Chatham House :
Professor Muhammad Yunus, leader of Bangladesh’s interim government since the toppling of the Sheikh Hasina regime in 2024, visited Chatham House on 11 June to share his vision for the future of his country’s democracy.
During his conversation with Chatham House Director Bronwen Maddox he discussed the challenges his interim government faces, his desire to tackle corruption through reform and technology, the potential of his country’s enormous youth population, and the aims of his foreign policy.
Bangladesh is host to the world’s largest refugee camp (in Cox’s Bazar), home to Rohingya refugees. Addressing the plight of these refugees, Yunus said the only long-term solution was for them to go home to Myanmar as they could not be integrated into Bangladesh.
‘We are working very hard to make sure that we can repatriate those people to go back. In the meantime, we have problems. The US government stopped all the money, the USAID money suddenly disappeared. And what used to be $12 a month per person for food, suddenly that $12 disappeared.’
He said it went down to $6 and then $3 a month. ‘What do you do with $3 a month for food for a person?’ he added. Yunus warned of mounting frustration among the younger generation of Rohingya.
‘We have a whole new young generation coming up,’ he said, ‘and they have no hope, they don’t know who they are and what they are supposed to be doing. I said these will be very angry young people growing up.
How their anger will be expressed, we don’t know. Whichever way it will be expressed, it will be a big explosion, I can assure you right now. Please help us so that before that explosion point comes, we can take care of them, (so) they are happy with their lives.’
Earlier in the month, Yunus’s government announced that new elections will be held in April 2026. Speaking about the challenges Bangladesh faces in holding new elections, Yunus said he was trying to create a new Bangladesh, reforming institutions and putting on trial figures from the past who, he said, were responsible for killings, disappearances and other political violence. He added that a culture of corruption necessitated a new system.
Professor Yunus also ruled out participating in any new government formed after the election, saying: ‘no way’.