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Malaysia has started sending nearly 1,500 Rohingya refugees back to Myanmar, pressing ahead with a repatriation programme that the United Nations and human rights organisations warn is unsafe and potentially life-threatening for those being returned.
On Tuesday, dozens of buses under police escort arrived at a stadium near the Lumut naval base in northwestern Malaysia, according to the AFP news agency. Journalists were not permitted to enter the grounds. The refugees were expected to undergo processing before being moved to the base and placed on ships bound for Myanmar.
Malaysian authorities have characterised the returns as voluntary. The Home Ministry said two Myanmar naval warships and a hospital ship would be used to transport the group. The operation marks the first phase of a plan announced earlier this year.
Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said in July that Myanmar had agreed to accept 5,000 Rohingya, leaving unclear which individuals would be selected for return. The roughly 1,500 people sent back on Tuesday form part of that larger group.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) stated that it had no involvement in the operation. The agency cautioned that ongoing conflict and violence inside Myanmar mean the conditions required for safe and dignified returns do not currently exist. "Any refugee return must be voluntary, based on an informed decision, and take place in conditions of safety and dignity," the UNHCR told Reuters.
Malaysia's Home Ministry declined to respond directly to the UN warning, instead referring to its earlier position that the returns were voluntary.
Rights advocates have challenged the claim that people held in detention can genuinely choose to go back to a country they fled. Nay San Lwin, co-chair of the Arakan Rohingya National Council, described the operation in stark terms. "The genocide has never stopped. Sending Rohingya back to this is not repatriation," he told Al Jazeera. "It is sending people back to a killing field. We call on Malaysia to halt all returns of Rohingya to Myanmar until it is safe."
He pointed to intense fighting between Myanmar's military and rebel groups, including the Arakan Army, as evidence that return is untenable. According to Nay San Lwin, the military has lost control of much of the Rohingya homeland, and both the army and the Arakan Army are committing atrocities against Rohingya civilians caught in the middle.
Ro Mayyu Islam, founding chair of the Center of Rohingya Crisis Studies in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, also rejected the repatriation under present conditions. "Do not confuse repatriation with resolution," he told Al Jazeera. "Moving Rohingya from Malaysian detention centres to Myanmar does not solve the Rohingya crisis. Address the conditions that forced us to flee, and then make the return genuinely safe, voluntary and sustainable." He added that Rohingya are not asking to remain refugees indefinitely but are demanding the right to return home with citizenship, security, dignity and fundamental rights.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) urged Malaysia to halt the returns and to disclose who was being sent back and what specific risks each person faced. The organisation said refugees should not be returned to places they have fled and where their lives are at risk.
More than 160 civil society organisations have also called for the repatriation to stop, citing violence in Myanmar and the danger that Rohingya could be forced into armed groups. Their warning comes as Myanmar's military battles the Arakan Army in Rakhine state, the region from which many Rohingya originally fled.
Myanmar's government has promised "safe and dignified" returns. Malaysian Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil has said the country would not send people back if they faced persecution or threats to their lives.
The plight of the Rohingya dates back decades, but the crisis escalated sharply in 2017 when Myanmar's military launched a wave of violence that rights groups have described as genocide. That campaign triggered a mass exodus, with hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh, Malaysia, India and other neighbouring countries. Myanmar does not officially recognise the Rohingya as an ethnic community with local roots, instead labelling them "Bengalis" — effectively treating them as Bangladeshi migrants.
As of February 2026, Malaysia hosted more than 126,144 Rohingya refugees. Bangladesh remains the largest host, with more than 1.2 million. Malaysia is not a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and does not formally recognise refugee status, leaving Rohingya without legal protection and vulnerable to detention and deportation.
The returns follow mounting pressure on Rohingya in Malaysia. In July, authorities detained more than 100 people who had gathered outside the UNHCR office in Kuala Lumpur after facing eviction from an informal settlement in Penang. They were later released when officials confirmed they held UN documents, according to AFP.
For those who have already returned, the outlook remains uncertain. Ismail, a 25-year-old Rohingya, told AFP he left his job at a fish market in Malaysia amid arrests and growing hostility. Now unemployed in Yangon, he depends on relatives and still lacks full citizenship. "We are the most discriminated people," he said. In Rakhine, a Rohingya activist identified as Mohammad expressed fear that returnees could be sent to displacement camps in a region still affected by fighting and disease.
Anwar has said he intends to invite Myanmar's Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, who led the military during the 2017 crackdown, to Malaysia in connection with the repatriation push — a move likely to draw further criticism from rights groups.
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