Back in August 2017, over 740,000 Muslim Rohingya escaped a vicious military crackdown in northwestern Myanmar and entered Bangladesh as refugees, a country already with around 200,000 refugees following previous Rohingya evacuations from Myanmar. The U.N. has called the situation a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing.”

In the relatively small yet densely populated country of Bangladesh, residents have expressed their growing resentment towards refugees during the Coronavirus pandemic, something that has brought increasing uncertainty upon their chances of repatriation.

On the other hand, the Rohingya are outraged at how there has been no discussion of the issue by Myanmar, Bangladesh, and the UNHCR. Refugee leaders have expressed that they feel that their views have been subtly excluded from consultation ever since November 2017 when repatriation was first addressed.

An expansive settlement composed of plastic sheets and bamboo makes up Kutupalong camp, a center that is home to over 500,000 refugees and is currently the world’s largest refugee camp. People within this camp and those who work in the area surrounding it have described Kutupalong and centers like it as “slums”, and have said that there is fear that they will spread the Coronavirus, since social distancing “simply cannot be observed.”

Some authorities have remained optimistic, like Mahbub Alam Talukder, Bangladesh’s commissioner for refugee relief and repatriation. Talukder has credited the efforts coming from aid groups, established restrictions on movement, and has been tracking the number of confirmed cases, all in order to keep the number of deaths in refugee centers as low as possible.

Five Rohingya have died due to COVID-19 as of July 4, and there are now 54 confirmed cases within the camps, whereas surrounding areas have 60 deaths and 2,776 cases. However, the World Health Organization has predicted that Bangladesh has yet to peak, and that low testing within the camps is hiding the real numbers, seeing as population density among the refugees is at 70,000 per square kilometer.

In fact, researchers from Yale University have observed that one fourth of all camp residents have shown at least one symptom of Coronavirus.

Out of the hundreds of thousands of people in the camps, only 724 have been tested. Even though Talukder has stated that the outbreak in refugee camps has successfully been contained, it is extremely likely that some Rohingya avoided testing out of fear that they would test positive and be moved to an isolated island in the Bay of Bengal that is prone to natural disasters. It also doesn’t help that those who die in the camps aren’t tested for the virus.

Locals around the camps are increasingly irritable, claiming that Rohingya are coming into their communities to find jobs and to shop, however Abdur Rahim, a Rohingya community leader, has denied these claims, saying “We can’t move anywhere.” Some villages have gone as far as to create committees designed to distinguish outsiders and send them back to camps.

Not all Bangladeshis are as against the Rohingya as the majority seem to be, seeing as many people welcomed the last wave of Rohingya, however the empathy came after the urging of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed. According to locals, this “warmth” has faded over the years, and Bangladeshis are angry over the harm to forests and farmland, the perceived inflationary pressure over essentials, and decreased wages provoked by competition.

Granted, this anger is not new. Even before the pandemic, people in Ukhiya and Teknaf disliked humanitarian aid groups for helping refugees, yet turning a blind eye to the locals surrounding them living in poverty.

Esteemed professors and researchers such as A. Mushfiq Mobarak, economics professor at Yale University, and M.A. Razzaque, head of research at the Policy Research Institute of Bangladesh, have given their opinions over the matter.

Mobarak has said that the current reactions are just “a continuation of those [past] frustrations”, and Razzaque has said that the reaction is “undermining a particular community.” Razzaque has continually urged global agencies to increase aid for the Rohingya and for the locals in Bangladesh in a bid to reduce tensions.

Chowdhury Rafiqul Abrar, a professor of international relations at Dhaka University, has said that the Rohingya are unfairly being perceived as virus spreaders. He goes on to say that this resentment overlooks the fact that the Rohingya are survivors of genocide, and didn’t come to Bangladesh by choice.

Aside from being scapegoated for the spread of COVID-19, the Rohingya are also being reproached for a recent wave of crime. Cox’s Bazar (the district where Kutupalong camp is situated) has become a hotspot for abduction, robbery, methamphetamine smuggling, and even human trafficking.

According to District Police Chief A.B.M. Masud Hossain, the dilemma is connected to refugees of older age that first arrived in 1991 and are much more connected to the local community.

In the past month, police killed four suspects of robbery, two of whom were brothers who were some of the most wanted criminals back in Myanmar.

On the other hand, Bangladesh’s former minister A.K. Abdul Momen is much more concerned with the altered military operations in Rakhine and Chin in Myanmar. In these states, villages have been torched and bombed on several occasions, meaning that there are more people being internally displaced and fears of another mass departure.

Momen has also accused Myanmar of breaking its promise to create a safe and conducive environment as pledged in 2017 for a repatriation agreement involving the UNHCR. U.N. projections and the World Bank have both predicted that refugees may be displaced for 10 to 26 years if the efforts remain the same.

There have been attempts to send back low numbers of refugees at a time, but these were all unsuccessful. The Rohingya have consistently asked for confirmation of their citizenship, the intact return of their property, and for equal treatment under international law.

Back in January, Myanmar was brought up at the International Court of Justice in The Hague in order to address the atrocities that were perpetrated against the Rohingya. The Buddhist-majority country was summoned after the nation of Gambia filed a lawsuit.

Many experts agree that the international community needs to keep pressuring Myanmar to bring their nationals back, and that the government should stop taking “undue advantage” of the current Coronavirus pandemic.

The Foreign Minister has also made an excellent point by calling out the heinous double standards worldwide. Momen has called out the U.K., Singapore, Japan, Vietnam, and particularly the U.S. for “preaching human rights, yet bankrolling the oppressor.” He speaks to the flourishing trade between these countries and Myanmar in the past years.

Louise Donovan, the spokesperson for UNHCR in Cox’s Bazar has said that the U.N. and it’s partners have been observing tensions surrounding refugee camps. From these observations, they have been working alongside government authorities to reduce risks that refugees and host communities are up against. This is being carried out by thousands of volunteers deployed to build awareness through public service announcements and mass media outlets.

“While we understand fears associated with the spreading of the disease, discrimination can not be the answer.”

Nicole Epting, senior coordinator with the Inter Sector Coordination Group, a UN-led coalition of humanitarian groups

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