Qualla: Kutupalong Refugee Camp

Kutupalong Refugee Camp: Introduction

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit DFID - UK Department for International Development, CC BY 2.0. From the air, it looks like the hillside is moving. Thousands of bamboo-and-tarpaulin shelters crowd every ridge and gully across what was once forested land near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. This is Kutupalong -- the world's largest refugee camp, home to nearly 950,000 Rohingya people as of 2024. The camp did not grow by design. It grew by catastrophe, wave after wave of people fleeing ethnic and religious persecution in neighboring Myanmar, each surge adding new layers of shelters onto slopes already stripped of trees. What began informally in 1991 after the Burmese military's Operation Pyi Thaya -- cynically named "Operation Clean and Beautiful Nation" -- has become a permanent settlement that no one calls permanent, a city-sized humanitarian emergency entering its fourth decade.

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Image: DFID - UK Department for International Development | CC BY 2.0

Kutupalong Refugee Camp: The August Surge

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit U.S. Embassy Dhaka, Public domain. For years, Kutupalong and the nearby Nayapara camp held a combined population of roughly 34,000 registered refugees. Then came 25 August 2017. Myanmar's military, joined by local civilians, launched a coordinated campaign of attacks against Rohingya communities in Rakhine State. ...

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Image: U.S. Embassy Dhaka | Public domain

Kutupalong Refugee Camp: A Forest Erased

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Maaz Hussain (VOA), Public domain. Kutupalong's expansion came at a staggering environmental cost. By late 2019, more than 8,000 acres of forest had been destroyed -- over 6,000 acres cleared for living space, and nearly 2,000 acres consumed as firewood and building material, primarily bamboo. The ecological losse...

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Image: Maaz Hussain (VOA) | Public domain

Kutupalong Refugee Camp: Surviving, Not Thriving

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Maaz Hussain (VOA), Public domain. In 2019, researchers from the International Food Policy Research Institute surveyed 2,100 refugees and concluded that the Rohingya at Kutupalong were "surviving, not thriving." The food supply met minimum calorie requirements but was monotonous -- rice, lentils, and nutrient-fort...

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Image: Maaz Hussain (VOA) | Public domain

Kutupalong Refugee Camp: Fire, Disease, and Disconnection

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Maaz Hussain (VOA), Public domain. Kutupalong's density made it vulnerable to cascading disasters. In May 2020, a fire starting from a gas-cylinder shop destroyed 330 shelters and damaged 300 more. In March 2021, a far worse blaze killed at least 15 people, injured 560, left 400 missing, and displaced over 45,000 ...

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Image: Maaz Hussain (VOA) | Public domain

Kutupalong Refugee Camp: No Way Forward, No Way Back

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken, CC BY-SA 2.0. Bangladesh's government has tried repeatedly to reduce Kutupalong's population. Repatriation to Myanmar failed because refugees refused to return to a country that still denied them citizenship, their land, their property, and their safety. On the second anniversary of the August...

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Image: Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken | CC BY-SA 2.0