Rohingya people

Tensions mounted on Jan. 21 at refugee camps in Bangladesh holding hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims over an operation to send them back to Myanmar, from where they have fled following a military crackdown.

There is an irony to the phrase "European refugee crisis." If you are in Africa, the Middle East or South Asia, you know that the refugee crisis is felt most acutely in countries neighboring those in conflict. Now is the time for Europeans to address the seriousness of the issues we face. Greece is a good place to start, since it has been in the eye of the storm.

More than 100 Rohingya Muslims have crossed into Bangladesh from Myanmar in one day, with the latest refugees saying army operations are continuing in troubled Rakhine State, raising doubts about plans to send back 655,500 who had already fled.

Myanmar and Bangladesh have agreed to repatriate hundreds of thousands of displaced Rohingya within a two-year period, Dhaka said on Jan. 16, the first concrete timeline given for the refugees’ return despite many refusing to go back to their homeland.

Hamid Hussain, a 71-year-old Rohingya Muslim farmer, first fled Myanmar for Bangladesh in 1992. He went home the next year under a repatriation deal between the two neighbors, only to repeat the journey last September when violence flared once more.

In a makeshift bamboo clinic, small children struggle to draw breath through surgical masks, victims of a forgotten but deadly disease that has torn through the teeming Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh.

Turkish PM hands out food to Rohingya Muslims in refugee camp in Cox’s Bazaar

Turkey will continue to give necessary support to Rohingya refugees, Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım vowed during an official visit to Bangladesh on Dec. 19.

Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım on Dec. 18 praised the Bangladeshi government for its efforts in “lending a hand” to Rohingya Muslims targeted by neighboring Myanmar.

Disease, hunger and misery stalk the Rohingya living in Bangladesh’s refugee camps but despite the grinding hardship, few are willing to consider the alternative -- returning home under a deal struck with Myanmar.