Bangladesh is set to convey its official stance to Myanmar on Tuesday regarding a "factually incorrect" statement issued by Naypyidaw’s military-backed administration concerning Rohingya refugees currently sheltered in Bangladeshi camps.

According to a source at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Myanmar’s Ambassador to Bangladesh, Kyaw Soe Moe, is scheduled to meet the relevant Director General at the ministry in Dhaka.

The diplomatic move follows a sharp reaction from the United Council of Rohingya (UCR), which firmly rejected and condemned the "misleading" August 15 press release from Myanmar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, describing it as "a calculated attempt to rewrite history, whitewash state-sponsored crimes, and evade the international community's calls for accountability."

In its press release, Myanmar claimed that Bangladesh supplied 828,824 names of internally displaced individuals for verification, with 426,545 names processed as of July 31, 2026.

Naypyidaw alleged that its screening identified 308,797 individuals with evidence of living in Rakhine State, 4,241 involved in terrorist acts, and 113,507 lacking proof of prior residence in Rakhine.

Citing these figures, Myanmar asserted: “Therefore, based on these figures, we are concerned about the accusations that all those living in Bangladeshi camps are from Myanmar. Similarly, we strongly object to the accusations that boat refugees and those arriving in other countries under ethnic names that do not exist in Myanmar are from Myanmar."

Myanmar also rejected claims that over one million refugees were displaced from Rakhine, asserting instead that around 540,000 people crossed into Bangladesh following the 2017 violence while more than 200,000 remained in northern Rakhine.

Refusing to recognize the Rohingya among the country's 135 official ethnic groups, Naypyidaw labeled them "Bengalis" to imply they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh while adding that it will continue collaborating with Dhaka to repatriate verified former residents once security in Rakhine stabilizes.

Denouncing Naypyidaw's claims and calling its verification process a "sham," the UCR issued a detailed rebuttal: “We address the Government of Myanmar's fallacies point by point: On Our Identity: We are Rohingya, not "Bengalis". Myanmar's continued refusal to acknowledge our ethnic identity is the root cause of our persecution. The term "Bengali" is a weapon of erasure. We are the indigenous Rohingya people of Rakhine State, with a documented history and culture spanning centuries and Myanmar government recognized the Rohingya as an indigenous ethnic minority of Myanmar.. We demand the world to restore our identity as Rohingya, and we reject any nomenclature designed to deny our existence and our rights to citizenship.”

The UCR further criticized Myanmar for cynically blaming the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) for the crisis, calling it a complete inversion of reality.

Emphasizing that the Tatmadaw's 2016 and 2017 "clearance operations" constituted a systematic campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing documented by the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission, the UCR stated: "These operations involved the mass rape of women, the torching of over 300 villages, and the summary execution of entire families. The isolated ARSA attacks were a desperate reaction to decades of apartheid, not the cause of our forced exodus. Myanmar's claim that their military acted in "defensive response" is an insult to the memory of the thousands massacred."

Rebuffing Myanmar's claim that only 540,000 people fled in 2017, the UCR highlighted that more than 700,000 Rohingya escaped across the border within weeks during the 2017 genocide, joining over 200,000 who had already fled previous waves of persecution in 1991–1992.

The group added that the 200,000 Rohingya remaining in Rakhine are "effectively interned in camps, denied freedom of movement, and stripped of all basic rights," noting that Myanmar cannot challenge verified UN statistics showing over one million displaced refugees.

Repatriation efforts have remained stalled despite a two-year repatriation framework agreed upon by Bangladesh and Myanmar in 2018.

Security conditions in Myanmar worsened significantly following the 2021 military coup that ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, sparking widespread armed conflict.

Renewed clashes in 2023 between the military and the ethnic Arakan Army—which has since captured extensive territory across Rakhine State—have forced additional waves of refugees to flee toward Bangladesh and other countries in a desperate effort to survive.

With Inputs from UNB