The debate over refugee repatriation to Myanmar is entering a more difficult phase as the war in Arakan intensifies and the battlefield moves closer to Sittwe, the state capital.
On September 28, an airstrike near the India Market in Kyauktaw Township reportedly killed at least 50 people and injured 58 others. Many of the victims were market traders, shoppers, passersby, and cargo workers. Among those killed were women and children, including a pregnant woman and her baby. The attack also damaged the Kissapanadi Bridge and nearby shops.
The significance of the attack lies not only in its death toll, but also in where it happened. A market is a civilian space where people trade, earn livelihoods, obtain food, and move goods. When such a place becomes the scene of mass casualties, it demonstrates how deeply the war has entered civilian life.And Kyauktaw was not an isolated incident.
Civilian Protection Is at Risk in Arakan
Across Arakan, the conflict is entering a more volatile phase. Since September 4, fighting has intensified along the Sittwe-Ponnagyun axis, involving artillery, drones, airstrikes, rockets, and ground forces. Ponnagyun is strategically important because it connects Sittwe with northern Arakan, including Rathedaung, Buthidaung, and Maungdaw.
Civilians are feeling the consequences directly. Thousands of people from Ponnagyun and Rathedaung have reportedly fled their homes as fighting intensified. By late September, displaced families from several villages were sheltered in open fields and under forest cover, facing shortages of food and basic shelter.
Families are losing access to homes, livelihoods, transportation, and basic services. Fishing and other economic activities have been disrupted, while continuing fighting has made movement increasingly difficult.
The war is therefore creating the very conditions that make any discussion of large-scale return increasingly difficult.
War Moves Toward Sittwe
By late September, fighting had reached locations just outside Sittwe. Local reports identified active fighting around Warbo, Aungzayya, Khamaungtaw, and Kuntaung, while Sittwe itself remained under Myanmar military control. Artillery from military positions in Sittwe, together with naval and air attacks, has reportedly been used in fighting around the capital.
For civilians inside Sittwe, military control has not meant normality.
There have also been reports of forced recruitment in Sittwe, including among Muslim civilians, with some recruits reportedly sent to military positions and front-line areas. This adds another layer of insecurity for civilians already living under wartime conditions.
For people in the city, the ability to move, work, trade, and access basic necessities is increasingly affected by the conflict. If civilians already living in Sittwe are facing such pressures, refugees outside Myanmar have even greater reason to scrutinize any plan that would ask them to return to the same environment.
The Reality Behind Repatriation
The central issue is not whether refugees have the right to return home. They do. The issue is whether the conditions exist for them to return safely and remain there.
A sustainable return requires more than a place to live. It requires physical security, freedom of movement, access to food and healthcare, education, livelihoods, legal documentation, property rights, humanitarian assistance, and protection from renewed violence.
For that reason, any credible repatriation framework must recognize the political and territorial realities on the ground and engage with the authorities exercising effective control over areas where refugees may return, including the Arakan Army and its political wing, the United League of Arakan (ULA), in areas under their control.
Ignoring this reality would make any repatriation plan disconnected from the conditions returnees would actually face. At the same time, engagement with local authorities cannot replace international protection, independent monitoring, humanitarian access, or credible security guarantees.
On September 23, UNHCR said that nearly 1.2 million refugees remained in Bangladesh and that conditions for voluntary, safe, dignified, and sustainable return did not currently exist. The following day, the IIMM similarly warned that Arakan State remained extremely volatile and dangerous for all communities and was not yet conducive to safe, voluntary, dignified, and sustainable return.
Those assessments are important, but the realities on the ground explain why they matter.
When thousands of civilians are fleeing communities around Sittwe, when movement is restricted, when livelihoods are disrupted, and when a crowded market can become the site of a deadly airstrike, the meaning of “safe return” becomes difficult to separate from the wider conflict.
Repatriation Cannot Outrun the Conflict
The political and territorial reality of Arakan must also be recognized.
The Arakan Army exercises control over large areas, while the Myanmar military retains Sittwe and other strategic positions. Any serious repatriation framework must therefore reflect who actually exercises control over the places where returnees would live.
But territorial control alone cannot provide the guarantees that returnees need.
International actors should prioritize civilian protection, humanitarian access, freedom of movement, independent monitoring, and credible security arrangements. Refugees must also be able to make informed decisions based on the actual conditions in their communities of return.
The recent return of 1,476 Myanmar nationals from Malaysia offers another regional warning. UNHCR expressed concern because those returned may face serious risks in Myanmar and said it had not been able to determine whether their decisions to return were genuinely free and informed.
The Malaysian case is not the same as the potential repatriation of refugees from Bangladesh. But it highlights a broader principle: a border crossing does not by itself make a return safe, voluntary, or sustainable.
Arakan’s escalating war therefore requires repatriation to be judged by conditions on the ground, not by political timetables or the number of people transported across a border.
For those who have spent years waiting to go home, the promise of return should not become another source of danger.
A successful repatriation is not measured by how many people cross the border. It is measured by whether they can stay home once they get there.