Bangladesh: ‘humanitarian corridor’ for Myanmar
Political parties from different shades of right, left, centrists, and Islamists are disturbed to hear from the media that Bangladesh has agreed to establish a ‘humanitarian corridor’ for the hungry people of war-torn Rakhine State in Myanmar.
The media in the country, quoting Foreign Affairs Ministry officials, have published sketchy information on the so-called humanitarian corridor. The Interim Government has yet to spell out details of the plan, which has raised suspicion which is now mixed with conspiracy theories.
The United Nations wants to dispatch food, medical supplies and other essentials to Rakhine, where silent famine persists.
The United Nations Development Program (UNDP), in an assessment report released in November 2024, painted a grave situation in the Rakhine state. It said the people caught in the civil war are experiencing a near famine and proposed that immediate food, medical aid, agriculture inputs, construction materials and other essentials need urgent attention from the international aid agencies.
The UNDP report stated that Rakhine is on the verge of an unprecedented disaster due to a combination of interlinked issues. Restrictions on goods entering Rakhine, both internationally and domestically, have led to a severe lack of income, hyperinflation, and significantly reduced domestic food production. Essential services and a social safety net are almost non-existent, leaving an already vulnerable population at risk of collapse in the coming months.
The report shows that Rakhine’s economy has become almost dysfunctional. Critical sectors such as trade, agriculture, and construction have halted. Export-oriented, agro-based livelihoods are disappearing as markets become inaccessible due to blockades by the junta.
UN warns that Rakhine faces the imminent threat of acute famine. The worst victims of a lack of food are millions of internally displaced persons (IDPs), including Rohingyas.
In the last couple of months, a fresh influx of Rohingya Muslims in Bangladesh has added to the already 1.2 million languishing in overcrowded camps in Cox’s Bazar, in Southeast Bangladesh.
However, there is no specific assessment of the number of IDPs in Rakhine, as they spread over the forests, hills and banks on the riverfront. The IDPs do not live in permanent shelters. They live in makeshift camps. The worst victims of internal displacement are children, women and elderly persons. They are suffering from severe malnutrition, communicable diseases and the absence of healthcare.
UN wants to address an unfolding humanitarian crisis in Rakhine and said it is only Bangladesh, its immediate neighbor separated by a kilometer-wide Naf River can save the hungry people, coupled with the absence of healthcare that has jeopardized their lives and living.
UN officials believe that Bangladesh is a trusted country that could extend help in facilitating supplies of food, medical and other essentials.
The United States Army Pacific (USARPAC) stationed in Hawaii is supposed to provide logistics and security for the IDPs in Rakhine state.
It is reported that the US military will be deployed for the logistics at the corridor at Silkhali, a small river port. The site has been secured by the Bangladesh Army, a no go for the civilians. The army would only facilitate logistics for the UN operation, said a senior government official, who is privy to the corridor.
UNDP report says that internal rice production is declining due to a lack of supplies of seeds, fertilizers, severe weather, and a rise in the number of IDPs that could no longer engage in agricultural production after the civil war erupted and repeatedly relocating to safer places has further exacerbated the miseries.
The UN estimates that with the near-total halt of trade, over 2 million people are at risk of starvation.
When UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres visited the camps and had Iftar (food for breaking the fast in Ramadan) with the refugees, he told the Bangladesh authorities that a “humanitarian corridor” needed to be opened to reach the hungry people.
Before leaving Dhaka after a visit to Cox’s Bazar Rohingya camps, in mid-March, Guterres said he had discussed with Bangladesh authorities the possibilities of a humanitarian corridor would connect inside Myanmar as a means of creating conditions for Rohingya repatriation to Rakhine with the rebel Arakan Army which has captured except for few places resisted by the Myanmar military troops.
He said it would, however, require the “authorization and the cooperation of the parties to the conflict” in Rakhine, where the Myanmar junta is fighting the rebels, which has further caused frustration, pain and agony for the IDPs.
On the other hand, Tarique Rahman, the supremo of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), said from his London office, cautioned the Interim Government that such a decision can only be taken by the parliament.
Presently, there is no parliament, and the upcoming election is scheduled for the first half of 2026, after the Ramadan and Eid holidays. Therefore, the hungry people in Rakhine will have to wait for at least a year until an election is held in Bangladesh and a parliament begins to function.
Meanwhile, top US officials visiting Bangladesh a fortnight ago held secret meetings in Bangladesh with hybrid representatives of the United League of Arakan (ULA), a political wing of AA and Chin National Front (CNF), the political umbrella of Chin National Army.
The Chin National Army is a Chin ethnic armed organization in Myanmar. The armed wing of the Chin National Front (CNF) was founded on 20 March 1988.
The CNA and ULA are members of the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), a coalition of opposition groups that aims to establish a federal system in Myanmar or achieve levels of autonomy and peace among the country’s various ethnic minorities.
Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, under house arrest and accused of sedition, is incommunicado. The former senior leaders of her party who could evade arrest and have gone underground safely are earnestly working with the ethnic rebels under the banner of UNFC.
Bangladesh Foreign Adviser Touhid Hossain told journalists that the Interim Government agreed in principle with the UN proposal on the corridor, but certain conditions must be met for its implementation.
A day later, BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir slammed the interim government for making such a move without consulting the political parties.
“An interim government has no authority to make such a policy decision,” reads the statement by President Mohammad Shah Alam and General Secretary Ruhin Hossain Prince of the Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB).
The CPB questioned that the West’s sudden interest in the Rohingya issue was “part of a broader imperialist conspiracy”.
The Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami’s Ameer (chief), Shafiqur Rahman said the humanitarian corridor requests that the government make the issue transparent to the nation because it might involve many security issues.
Radical Islamic platform Hefazat-e-Islam Bangladesh’s fiery leader, Secretary General Mamunul Haque, opposing the move, said, “Imperialist powers are trying to implement their agenda by using Bangladesh. As a patriotic force, Hefazat-e-Islam does not support this in any way.”
In response to the political party leaders’ concerns regarding the premature humanitarian corridor, said Shafiqul Alam, press secretary to the Chief Advisor Prof Muhammad Yunus.
To pacify the political parties, the government quickly said nothing had been finalized regarding the corridor. But said that the government would be willing to provide logistic support should there be UN-led humanitarian support to the state of Rakhine. Khalilur Rahman, the National Security Adviser in charge of Rohingya issues, told French news agency AFP.
First published in the Stratheia Policy Journal, Islamabad, Pakistan, 4 May 2025
