Rohingya Refugee Crisis: Hunger, Measles and Armed Gangs Inside Cox’s Bazar in Year Ten

COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh, October 25, 2026

Key takeaway: The Rohingya refugee crisis entered its tenth year in August 2026. Food rations were cut to tiers of $12, $10 or $7 per person per month under the World Food Programme’s April 2026 Targeting and Prioritization Exercise. Health authorities recorded 2,344 laboratory-confirmed measles cases and at least 12 deaths in the camps since January 2026. Protection monitors logged 470 serious security incidents affecting 592 refugees in the second quarter of 2026. One driver links all three: collapsing donor funding.

The Rohingya refugee crisis passed its tenth-year marker on 25 August 2026, a decade after military operations in Myanmar’s Rakhine State drove the mass exodus of 2017. Nearly 1.2 million Rohingya refugees remain in the Cox’s Bazar refugee camp complex and on the island site of Bhasan Char, according to UNHCR population reporting for 2026.

Three emergencies are now compounding each other. Funding shortfalls forced ration cuts in April 2026; the cuts drove households into negative coping behaviour, including child labour and debt; and that desperation has fed trafficking and armed-group recruitment pipelines. Running alongside it, an immunity gap built up over 2024 and 2025 converted extreme camp density into a sustained measles outbreak.

This explainer sets out the Rohingya crisis 2026 figures as published: the WFP October 2026 Bangladesh Country Brief, the WHO Cox’s Bazar Situation Report for September 2026, the IFRC measles update of October 2026, and the inter-agency Joint Protection Monitoring Report for the second quarter of 2026. Readers following the response over time can track developments through INQ Daily world affairs coverage.

About this report: Compiled by the INQ Daily international desk from humanitarian agency reporting published between June and October 2026. All figures are attributed to the issuing organisation and the month of publication. No figure in this article is the author’s estimate.

Transparency note: Camp-level data in the Rohingya response is revised as verification proceeds, and suspected case counts are syndromic rather than laboratory-based. Where agencies report differently, both numbers and both sources are stated.

The crisis in numbers, October 2026

The figures below are drawn from humanitarian agency reporting on the Rohingya refugee crisis published between June and October 2026. Camp-level data typically lags national data by several weeks, because case verification and protection incident validation both run behind the reporting period they describe.

The Rohingya refugee crisis in nine figures

• 1.2 million Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar and Bhasan Char — UNHCR, 2026
• Tenth year of displacement reached 25 August 2026 — UNHCR
• $12, $10 or $7 per person per month: the three food ration tiers introduced April 2026 — WFP
• More than one in three refugees projected to face crisis-level hunger in 2026 — WFP October 2026 Country Brief
• 188,000+ Rohingya women and children requiring targeted nutrition services — UNICEF and WFP, mid-2026
• 2,939 suspected and 2,344 laboratory-confirmed measles cases in the camps since January 2026, with at least 12 deaths — WHO and IFRC, October 2026
• 208,570 suspected measles cases nationwide between 15 March and 14 October 2026 — IFRC, October 2026
• 470 serious security incidents affecting 592 refugees in Q2 2026 — Joint Protection Monitoring Report
• 4,349 people attempted Andaman Sea crossings between January and May 2026, up 56% year on year — UNHCR

Suspected case counts are recorded on clinical symptoms alone and therefore sit well above laboratory-confirmed counts; the two series are not interchangeable.

Hunger: what the ration cuts did

Refugees are hungrier in 2026 because global funding for the response fell, and as a result the WFP ended blanket food assistance in April 2026 and split monthly transfers into three vulnerability-based tiers. The WFP Bangladesh Country Brief for October 2026 sets those tiers at $12, $10 and $7 per person per month.

The same brief projects that between September and December 2026, Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar and Bhasan Char will remain among the most critical acute food insecurity hotspots in Bangladesh, with more than one in three refugees expected to reach crisis-level hunger during 2026. The reason the transfer value translates so directly into hunger is legal rather than agricultural: refugees are barred from formal employment in Bangladesh, which means the WFP transfer is effectively the entire household income rather than a supplement to it.

At the $7 tier, the monthly allowance works out to roughly 23 US cents per person per day — a figure that has to cover the full calorie requirement of an adult or a child. Food price inflation in Bangladesh compounded the nominal reduction, because the same transfer value purchased less rice, pulses and oil in 2026 than the pre-cut ration did in 2025.

The Targeting and Prioritization Exercise explained

The Targeting and Prioritization Exercise, or TPE, is a needs-based vulnerability assessment the WFP introduced in April 2026 that assigns each refugee household to one of three monthly transfer values instead of giving every refugee an identical amount.

The structural criticism is straightforward: assessment error moves a household between tiers, which means a misclassification translates directly into lost calories for the people inside that shelter.

188,000 women and children needing nutrition care

More than 188,000 Rohingya women and children required targeted nutrition services according to UNICEF and WFP data from mid-2026, and the Global Report on Food Crises 2026 lists Cox’s Bazar as a high-vulnerability zone for acute malnutrition — the wasting and weight loss that follows sustained inadequate intake and that raises the risk of death from otherwise survivable infections. UNICEF Bangladesh reporting places children under five and pregnant and breastfeeding women at the centre of that caseload.

Because transfers no longer cover a full month of food for most households, families substitute income from wherever it is available, resulting in the behaviours documented by humanitarian monitors and journalists during 2026.

How households are closing the gap

• Trading surplus rations for healthcare and medicine (Inter Press Service, September 2026)
• Withdrawing children from learning centres for paid work
• Reducing meal frequency and portion size for adults to protect children
• Taking on camp debt against future transfers

Measles: a nationwide epidemic hits the camps

The Rohingya camps recorded 2,939 suspected and 2,344 laboratory-confirmed measles cases since the start of January 2026, with at least 12 deaths, according to WHO and IFRC updates published in October 2026. Nationally, Bangladesh recorded 208,570 suspected cases and more than 185,390 hospital admissions between 15 March and 14 October 2026, per the IFRC emergency update for October 2026.

The outbreak was driven by missed routine vaccinations across 2024 and 2025, compounded by the absence of supplementary campaigns in those years. That accumulated immunity gap would have produced clusters anywhere; because population density in the Cox’s Bazar camps ranks among the highest recorded in any settlement, the gap instead converted into sustained chains of transmission.

The WHO Cox’s Bazar Situation Report for September 2026 notes dengue transmission declining while measles continues to strain health facilities, which means bed capacity and isolation space — not diagnostic capability — are the binding constraint on the clinical response.

The vaccination response and why transmission continues

Emergency measles-rubella vaccination campaigns run by the Bangladesh government and humanitarian partners reached 94% of the 178,024 children targeted inside the camps by mid-2026, according to UNICEF reporting.

Transmission persists despite that coverage for structural reasons. Infants below routine immunisation age are not eligible for the campaign, and roughly 30,000 children are born in the camps each year according to response reporting, so births continuously replenish the susceptible pool. Consequently, a single high-coverage campaign reduces incidence without interrupting transmission chains, and WHO has flagged active transmission as a continuing threat to infants too young to be vaccinated.

Armed gangs and the collapse of camp security

Safety and security has been the leading protection concern reported by refugees for 12 consecutive quarters, and the second quarter of 2026 recorded 470 serious security incidents affecting 592 refugees, according to the Joint Protection Monitoring Report for Q2 2026.

The first quarter of 2026 recorded 455 serious incidents affecting 832 refugees, a 40% increase on the final quarter of 2025. The Q2 figure therefore represents a plateau at an elevated level rather than a return to earlier norms — incident volume held roughly flat while the number of refugees directly affected fell.

Armed groups fill a governance vacuum after dark, when humanitarian staff withdraw and police presence thins across a settlement of several hundred thousand people. As a result, extortion, targeted killings and forced recruitment operate with limited interruption, and refugees who refuse recruitment demands face reprisal inside the same shelter block.

Serious security incidents in Cox’s Bazar camps, by quarter

• Q4 2025: baseline against which Q1 2026 recorded a 40% increase — Joint Protection Monitoring Report
• Q1 2026: 455 serious incidents affecting 832 refugees
• Q2 2026: 470 serious incidents affecting 592 refugees
• 12 consecutive quarters in which safety and security ranked as the top refugee-reported protection concern

Who ARSA, RSO and ARA are

Three armed factions operate openly inside the camps, and because each pursues a different objective in Myanmar’s civil war, refugees are subject to competing extortion and recruitment demands rather than to a single armed authority.

Night raids and attacks on female-headed households

Physical violence accounts for 52% of reported gender-based violence cases, according to Q2 2026 protection reporting, and armed men enter shelters at night to commit gang rape, sexual assault and extortion.

Female-headed households are selected deliberately, because the absence of an adult male presence after dark lowers the risk to the attackers. Reporting rates sit well below prevalence: survivors who identify perpetrators living in the same camp block face direct reprisal, which means the recorded caseload understates the true scale rather than measuring it.

Sea departures and trafficking

More than 4,349 people attempted Andaman Sea crossings between January and May 2026, a 56% increase on the same period in 2025 according to UNHCR. Departures rose because the combination of tiered ration cuts and unchecked gang violence removed the viability of staying — the boats are a consequence of camp conditions, not an independent trend.

In late June 2026, two boats carrying more than 500 Rohingya refugees capsized. UN experts warned in both July and October 2026 that trafficking networks are recruiting directly inside the camps and exploiting the deterioration, as set out in OHCHR statements on Myanmar. The departure surge and the trafficking surge are therefore the same phenomenon measured from two ends: the recruiters are inside the camps and the losses are at sea.

Why repatriation is still frozen

No large-scale return has taken place in the Rohingya refugee crisis because the conditions for safe, voluntary and dignified repatriation do not exist in Rakhine State. The Rohingya remain stateless under Myanmar’s citizenship framework, and therefore return without restored legal status would reproduce the exact conditions that drove the 2017 exodus.

The territorial picture has also changed. The Arakan Army’s control of much of Rakhine State means Bangladesh has no counterpart authority with which a bilateral return agreement could realistically be implemented, and Myanmar’s civil war continues, resulting in active conflict across the areas of origin.

Bhasan Char, where a portion of the refugee population has been relocated, is a site inside Bangladesh rather than a durable solution — relocation redistributes displacement rather than ending it.

Preconditions for return that remain unmet

• Restoration of citizenship and legal status for a stateless population
• Verifiable security guarantees in areas of origin in Rakhine State
• A functioning counterpart authority able to implement a return agreement
• Freedom of movement and access to land, livelihoods and services on return
• Independent international monitoring of returns

Donor fatigue and what December 2026 looks like

The inter-agency Joint Response Plan for the Rohingya response has been chronically underfunded across successive years, and because pledges fell again in 2026, agencies prioritised the caseload rather than expanded it — the TPE is the operational expression of that funding position, not an independent policy preference.

The WFP October 2026 Country Brief projects that Cox’s Bazar and Bhasan Char will remain among Bangladesh’s most critical acute food insecurity hotspots through December 2026. That projection sets the baseline expectation: a fourth consecutive quarter of elevated malnutrition admissions is the central case rather than the worst case.

The Norwegian Refugee Council and UN Special Rapporteurs are among those pressing for restored funding and sustained political attention. Additional funding would restore ration values and nutrition programming relatively quickly. It would not restore citizenship, end the Rakhine conflict or dismantle the armed groups operating in the camps — those outcomes depend on political decisions taken outside Bangladesh.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Rohingya refugee crisis?

The Rohingya refugee crisis is the mass displacement of Rohingya from Myanmar’s Rakhine State, principally after August 2017, which left nearly 1.2 million stateless refugees in Bangladesh. Military operations in 2017 drove the exodus, and because Myanmar has not restored citizenship or legal status, the displacement has become protracted rather than temporary.

How many Rohingya refugees are in Cox’s Bazar in 2026?

Nearly 1.2 million Rohingya refugees live in Cox’s Bazar and on Bhasan Char as of 2026, according to UNHCR. Cox’s Bazar hosts the large majority. Births inside the camps, rather than new arrivals from Myanmar, now account for most population growth, which steadily increases the number of children dependent on rations and vaccination services.

Why are Rohingya refugees facing crisis hunger in 2026?

Because donor funding fell, the WFP replaced blanket food assistance with tiered, vulnerability-based rations in April 2026. The consequence is that more than one in three refugees are projected to face crisis-level hunger during 2026. Refugees cannot work legally in Bangladesh, which means the WFP transfer functions as the entire household income rather than as a top-up.

How much food money does a Rohingya refugee get per month?

$12, $10 or $7 per person per month, depending on the household’s assessed vulnerability tier under the WFP’s Targeting and Prioritization Exercise introduced in April 2026. The lowest tier works out to roughly 23 US cents per person per day, which has to cover a full daily calorie requirement.

How bad is the measles outbreak in Bangladesh and the Rohingya camps?

Bangladesh recorded 208,570 suspected measles cases and more than 185,390 hospital admissions between 15 March and 14 October 2026, with 2,939 suspected and 2,344 laboratory-confirmed cases and at least 12 deaths inside the Rohingya camps since January 2026. The driver was missed routine vaccination in 2024 and 2025, which created the immunity gap that camp density then amplified.

Which armed groups control parts of the Rohingya camps?

The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO) and the Arakan Rohingya Army (ARA) operate openly inside the camps. All three are documented in targeted killings, extortion and forced recruitment, including coercing refugees to fight in Myanmar’s ongoing civil war.

How much has violence increased in Cox’s Bazar camps?

Q1 2026 recorded 455 serious security incidents affecting 832 refugees, a 40% increase on the final quarter of 2025, and Q2 2026 recorded 470 incidents affecting 592 refugees. Safety and security has ranked as the top refugee-reported protection concern for 12 consecutive quarters, according to the Joint Protection Monitoring Report.

Why can’t the Rohingya go home to Myanmar?

Because the Rohingya remain stateless, Rakhine State remains an active conflict zone, and the Arakan Army now controls much of the territory, which means there is no counterpart authority able to implement returns. Humanitarian agencies require returns to be safe, voluntary and dignified; none of those three conditions currently holds.

Why are more Rohingya risking boat journeys across the Andaman Sea?

More than 4,349 people attempted Andaman Sea crossings between January and May 2026, up 56% year on year, driven by ration cuts and gang violence. The consequence was visible by late June 2026, when two boats carrying more than 500 people capsized. UN experts warn that trafficking networks recruit directly inside the camps.

What happens next in the Rohingya crisis?

The WFP projects that Cox’s Bazar and Bhasan Char will remain among Bangladesh’s most critical acute food insecurity hotspots through December 2026. Without restored funding the ration tiers hold and malnutrition admissions stay elevated, because no repatriation pathway currently exists to reduce the caseload the Rohingya refugee crisis places on the response.

What these figures do not show

Suspected and confirmed measles counts measure different things. Suspected cases are recorded on clinical symptoms and therefore exceed laboratory-confirmed cases; using the national suspected figure alongside the camp-level confirmed figure without that distinction overstates one and understates the other.

Protection incidents are under-reported. Gender-based violence and extortion are recorded at rates well below prevalence because survivors fear reprisal from armed groups living in the same camp blocks, which means the Q2 2026 figure of 470 serious incidents functions as a floor rather than a total.

Reporting lags and figures get revised. Camp-level data here is drawn from reports published between June and October 2026, and agencies update counts as verification proceeds. Where organisations report different numbers, this article states both and names each source.

Conclusion

The causal spine of year ten is short. Donor funding collapsed, which forced the WFP to cut rations to tiers in April 2026; the cuts pushed households into child labour, debt and the trading of food for medicine; and that desperation fed armed-group recruitment inside the camps and trafficking networks on the route to the Andaman Sea. Running in parallel, an immunity gap accumulated across 2024 and 2025 turned the extreme density of Cox’s Bazar into a sustained measles outbreak rather than containable clusters.

Published projections, not sentiment, set the outlook for the Rohingya refugee crisis: the WFP expects Cox’s Bazar and Bhasan Char to remain among Bangladesh’s most critical acute food insecurity hotspots through December 2026.

Last updated: 25 October 2026. For more reporting from the INQ Daily international desk.

References

1. World Food Programme — Bangladesh Country Brief, October 2026. https://www.wfp.org/countries/bangladesh
2. World Health Organization — Cox’s Bazar Rohingya Refugee Response Situation Report, September 2026. https://www.who.int/bangladesh/emergencies/Rohingyacrisis
3. International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies — Bangladesh measles outbreak update, October 2026. https://www.ifrc.org/emergencies
4. UNHCR — Rohingya emergency and population data, 2026. https://www.unhcr.org/emergencies/rohingya-emergency
5. Joint Protection Monitoring Report, Q2 2026, inter-agency Rohingya Response. https://rohingyaresponse.org/
6. OHCHR and UN Special Rapporteur statements on Rohingya trafficking, July and October 2026. https://www.ohchr.org/en/countries/myanmar
7. UNICEF Bangladesh — Rohingya humanitarian situation reporting, 2026. https://www.unicef.org/bangladesh/en/rohingya-refugee-crisis
8. Norwegian Refugee Council — Rohingya response statements, 2026. https://www.nrc.no/countries/asia/bangladesh/