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In the shadow of Myanmar’s civil war, a slower, quieter but no less brutal campaign is taking place. It has claimed the lives of at least 25 Rohingya through starvation and another seven from lack of medical care in just the past few weeks. The Washington Post and a devastating new report by the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK reveal a chilling reality: the military regime is now deliberately using starvation as a weapon of genocide against the Rohingya in Rakhine State.

This marks a new and horrifying phase in a long campaign of extermination. Having razed villages, murdered families, raped women and driven hundreds of thousands into exile in 2017, the military now targets those who remain, approximately 600,000 Rohingya trapped in an apartheid system in Rakhine, by cutting them off from food, medicine and all means of survival.

The June 2025 Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK report, titled “Starving to Death: The Latest Phase of the Rohingya Genocide,” documents the systematic and coordinated nature of this policy. It reveals that since the resumption of conflict between the military and the Arakan Army in November 2023, the junta has blocked humanitarian aid convoys from reaching Rohingya areas. The Rohingya are not allowed to flee, not allowed to fish and not allowed to work. Starvation is not a side effect of war. It is the strategy.

The nonprofit organization’s field investigators report that in townships such as Buthidaung, Maungdaw and Sittwe, the military has imposed total movement restrictions on Rohingya civilians. One mother described watching her children go to bed crying from hunger every night, unable to feed them anything more than a few spoonfuls of rice water. The elderly and sick die in silence, unable to access even basic medicines. As one witness stated: “The military are starving us to death. They are killing us without bullets.”

The military targets those who remain by cutting them off from food, medicine and all means of survival

Dr. Azeem Ibrahim

This is textbook genocidal behavior. The UN Genocide Convention clearly defines genocide as not only mass killings but also acts intended to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, including by inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction. The Myanmar junta is now doing exactly that in full view of the international community.

The Arakan Army, which now controls much of Rakhine State, has also played a troubling role in recent months. Though it had previously attempted outreach to the Rohingya community, the group has been implicated in mass burnings of Rohingya villages and forced displacement in areas it captured from the military. Neither side in this conflict offers protection to the Rohingya. Instead, the Rohingya are treated as a demographic nuisance to be cleansed and both parties appear to be participating in that effort, directly or indirectly.

This grim reality is unfolding at a time when global attention has shifted and aid is disappearing. US funding for Rohingya humanitarian programs has been slashed. With global crises from Ukraine to Gaza demanding donor attention, the Rohingya are falling off the priority list. Yet the consequences of this neglect are immediate and deadly. Starving children and dying patients are not just collateral damage of budget cuts. They are victims of deliberate political choices.

There is little reason to believe US or European funding will return to previous levels anytime soon. The broader international aid system is overstretched and increasingly politicized. So, the urgent question now is: What can be done to stop this slow-motion genocide?

First, the international community must recognize starvation as a war crime and an act of genocide. That recognition should come not only from UN bodies, but also from national governments with the legal tools to act. Countries with Magnitsky-style sanctions regimes, including the US, UK, Canada and EU members, should immediately impose new sanctions targeting the military commanders responsible for the siege of Rohingya areas. These should include asset freezes, visa bans and travel restrictions.

This grim reality is unfolding at a time when global attention has shifted and aid is disappearing

Dr. Azeem Ibrahim

Second, the Rohingya must be given access to lifesaving aid and international agencies must demand unimpeded humanitarian access to northern Rakhine. The World Food Programme and the International Committee of the Red Cross must urgently negotiate access to these areas, not just with the junta but also with the Arakan Army, which now controls most territory. If those negotiations fail, international donors should consider airdropping food and medicine to isolated Rohingya populations — a measure of last resort but one increasingly justified by the scale of the crisis.

Third, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and especially Malaysia and Indonesia, which have long been sympathetic to the plight of the Rohingya, must step up. ASEAN cannot continue to hide behind the fig leaf of “noninterference” while genocide unfolds within one of its member states. ASEAN’s humanitarian wing should immediately attempt to deploy a response team to assess conditions and pressure both the military and the Arakan Army to allow aid through.

Fourth, Bangladesh, which hosts nearly a million Rohingya refugees and continues to accept new arrivals, must not be left to carry this burden alone. Regional powers, including Gulf countries with growing influence in Asia, should establish a special fund for Rohingya emergency relief in Rakhine and Cox’s Bazar, administered by trusted international agencies.

Finally, justice must not be deferred. The International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice proceedings on Myanmar must accelerate. Evidence of starvation, forced displacement and denial of medical care should be urgently added to existing case files. Survivors must know that the world is watching and that impunity will not last forever.

It is easy to speak of “atrocity fatigue.” But this phrase is a luxury the Rohingya cannot afford. For them, this is not history or politics. It is a matter of life and death, every hour of every day.

If the world fails to act now, it will not be out of ignorance. It will be out of indifference. And that indifference will be written in the bones of Rohingya children buried in unmarked graves.

• Dr. Azeem Ibrahim is the director of special initiatives at the Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy in Washington, DC. X: @AzeemIbrahim