Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh being forced to fight for same military accused of genocide against their people

Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh is a sprawling mass of humanity. 

It's a sea of makeshift bamboo shelters, home to more than one million Rohingya refugees - a mainly Muslim minority from Rakhine state in Myanmar.

Some 700,000 fled their homeland back in 2017 - after the Myanmar military massacred thousands.

The army was accused of genocide by the United Nations.

The Rohingya refugees didn't escape danger though.

Right now, violence is at its worst levels in the camps since 2017 and Rohingya people face a particularly cruel new threat - they're being forced back to fight for the same Myanmar military accused of trying to wipe out their people.

Militant groups are recruiting Rohingya men in the camps, some at gunpoint, and taking them back to Myanmar to fight for a force that's losing ground.

Jaker is just 19.

We've changed his name to protect his identity.

He says he was abducted at gunpoint last year by a group of nine men in Cox's Bazar.

They tied his hands with rope, he says, and took him to the border, where he was taken by boat with three other men to fight for the Myanmar military.

"It was heartbreaking," he tells me. "They targeted poor children. The children of wealthy families only avoided it by paying money."

And he says the impact has been deadly.

"Many of our Rohingya boys, who were taken by force from the camps, were killed in battle."

The situation in Cox's Bazar is desperate.

People are disillusioned by poverty, violence and the plight of their own people and the civil war they ran from is getting worse.

In Rakhine, just across the border, there's been a big shift in dynamics.

The Arakan Army (AA), an ethnic armed group, has all but taken control of the state from the ruling military junta.

Both the military and the AA are accused of committing atrocities against Rohingya Muslims.

Rahmad says he was forced to fight for the Myanmar military and says it was "heartbreaking to fight for those who had massacred our people".

Taken as a prisoner of war, Rahmad alleges the AA beat him and slashed his ear.

And while some Rohingya claim they're being forced into the fray - dragged back to Myanmar from Bangladesh, others are willing to go.

Read more from Sky News:
Bangladesh leader reacts to 'House of Mirrors' prison
Inside Bangladesh's 'death squad' jails
Sri Lanka rescues more than 100 people believed to be Rohingya refugees

Some are so aggrieved with the AA, they're willing to support their former persecutors.

Abu Zar is one of those willing to take up arms.

But not for the military or AA, he says.

Everyone praying in the mosque with him is prepared to go back to protect their own cause, he says - not anyone else's.

"We want to fight for our rights because we have been demanding justice for a long time. But the situation has become unbearable," he tells me.

It's estimated between 3,000 and 5,000 Rohingya have joined armed groups from this camp.

But the fight they are joining has become increasingly bloody.

In a cramped shelter, we meet Safura.

Five days ago she managed to get out of Myanmar, but she had to be carried part of the way.

Her legs are riddled with bullet wounds and the pain is severe.

Her son, Aman, who lies on the floor next to her, has had his foot blown off.

They were injured, she says, during an attack on her family home in the middle of the night.

"They entered our house and shot all my family members. My husband and mother-in-law were killed on the spot."

The military denies forcing Rohingya to the battlefield. But the camps tell a different story, one of surging violence and vulnerability.

(c) Sky News 2025: Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh being forced to fight for same military accus