Remarks by the High Commissioner at the high-level event on the Rohingya crisis

Thank you so very much, Madame Ambassador.

Your Excellency, Prime Minister Rahman, Vice President Jallow, Excellencies, distinguished participants, members of the Rohingya community, colleagues, and friends,

Thank you to Bangladesh and Gambia for bringing us together.

The Rohingya people have endured years of persecution and displacement, and their situation remains one of the world's most protracted and complex displacement crises.

Nine years after the mass displacement of 2017, nearly 1.2 million Rohingya refugees remain in Bangladesh.

An entire generation is growing up in exile.

Conflicts continue in Myanmar. Conditions for voluntary, safe, dignified and sustainable return do not exist at the moment. Humanitarian resources are shrinking.

And people are increasingly risking their lives in search of a future.

We know all of this.

We have discussed this crisis year after year.

We have adopted resolutions. Held conferences. Made appeals.

And yet the fundamental situation has not changed.

So the question before us today is not whether the international community understands the Rohingya crisis.

It is whether we are prepared to act with the political determination required to solve it.

First, we must recognize the extraordinary responsibility Bangladesh has carried.

When people fled horrific violence in 2017, Bangladesh opened its borders and it has provided refuge to Rohingya fleeing earlier waves of violence, too.

Today, it continues to provide that refuge.

Other countries across the region have also provided protection over many years.

But generosity cannot become a permanent substitute for responsibility-sharing.

Bangladesh cannot be expected to carry indefinitely a crisis it did not create.

And humanitarian agencies cannot be expected to compensate indefinitely for the absence of a political solution.

The humanitarian response is already being stretched to its limits.

This year's appeal was reduced substantially - not because needs declined, but because we knew resources would not be there.

Even that reduced appeal remains significantly underfunded.

When funding disappears, needs do not disappear with it.

There is less food. Less education. Fewer opportunities. Greater pressure on health and other essential services. More desperation for families already living with extraordinary uncertainty.

Today, more than half of those living in camps in Bangladesh are children.

Think about what nine years means for them.

We have allowed generations to grow up believing that a refugee camp is the extent of what the world can offer to them.

And increasingly, people are searching for another way out.

This year alone, more than 5,800 Rohingyas have taken to the sea.

More than 800 have been reported dead or missing.

People do not put themselves and their children onto dangerous boats because they have good choices. They do it because they believe they have none.

So humanitarian support must be sustained.

But let us also be clear: Humanitarian assistance is barely keeping people alive. It is not resolving their displacement.

The ultimate solution to this crisis lies in Myanmar.

In our consultations, many Rohingya refugees have spoken of their hope to return home.

But return cannot simply mean crossing a border.

It must mean returning voluntarily, safely, and with dignity.

It also means returning with rights. Being able to move freely. To go to school. To work. To access services.

The ability to live alongside other communities without fear.

And, critically, to have a pathway to citizenship.

Without those conditions, there can be no sustainable return.

That requires political action.

It requires an end to violence and the protection of civilians. It requires meaningful humanitarian access inside Myanmar.

It requires addressing discrimination, statelessness, and denial of rights that drove displacement in the first place.

And it requires justice and accountability.

But while we work toward that future, we also have obligations to people living through this crisis today.

We cannot ask an entire generation to put their lives on hold until politics catches up.

Refugees need education. Skills. Livelihoods and greater self-reliance. And pathways to third countries for those who can benefit from them.

These are not alternatives to return.

They are investments in people so that, when return becomes possible, they can rebuild their communities rather than return having lost another decade of their lives.

This is also why responsibility-sharing matters.

We are grateful to the host countries, donors, and partners whose support has helped refugees and host communities throughout these years.

Donors must sustain humanitarian assistance.

But development institutions and international financial institutions must also strengthen their investment.

Countries must expand opportunities for education, employment, resettlement, and complementary pathways.

And the perspectives and experiences of Rohingya refugees must be integral to this work.

We need meaningful and sustained participation by members of the Rohingya communities in the discussions and decisions that affect their lives.

But I believe we need to go further.

We do not need another meeting that ends when we leave the room.

We need a process that continues after we do.

We need a more sustained platform to bring together host and neighboring countries, donor States and international financial institutions, civil society, and members of the Rohingya communities around a common agenda-the solution.

Its purpose is not to enable another forum for describing the problem.

It should be a mechanism for solving it.

This is an idea I believe we should explore in the coming weeks.

I will be speaking with relevant governments and members of the Rohingya communities and other partners on such platforms that we could build on, how we could add value, and how we can help turn our collective commitments into sustained actions.

The objective should be clear: support conditions for voluntary, safe, dignified, and sustainable return; strengthen self-reliance while displacement continues; and expand other opportunities, including third-country opportunities; and ensure that the responsibility carried by Bangladesh and other host countries is genuinely shared.

This is precisely the change we are trying to drive through the UNHCR 50 by 35 vision- moving beyond managing displacement indefinitely and putting solutions back at the center of the international response.

And there are few places where a shift is more urgently needed than here.

There has to be a solution to this problem. We have to work to make sure that people have the real option of returning home with dignity and safety, with their rights respected. This is a call for the international community, for the neighbours, to really work together to make sure that that can be possible.

To the members of the Rohingya communities here today, and to the refugees in Bangladesh and across the region: you have waited long enough.

You deserve a future beyond survival - the opportunity to learn, to work, to build your lives, and, when conditions allow - and hopefully soon - return home voluntarily, safely, with dignity and with rights.

Our responsibility is to help make that future possible.

Nine years on, we know what needs to change.

Let this be the year when the international community and partners stop asking how we sustain this crisis for another year and really start organizing seriously about how to end it. How to resolve it. This cannot go on for much longer.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.