Displaced by conflict, threatened by fires and floods: a climate justice perspective on the Rohingya refugee crisis in Bangladesh

Abstract This article investigates the climate justice challenges faced by the Rohingya populations in Bangladesh. Drawing on forty semi-structured interviews with Rohingya refugees and members of the host community, this study highlights how fire, flooding, landslides, and waterlogging expose these communities to overlapping vulnerabilities. The Rohingya experience is illustrative of a broader displacement pattern in which people fleeing conflict are resettled into climate-vulnerable regions, as seen also in Darfur, Syria, and South Sudan. Their settlements, hastily established on deforested and degraded land, are highly susceptible to fires and monsoon hazards. These risks are intensified by structural inequities, resource scarcity, and limited adaptive capacity, raising urgent questions of distributive, procedural, recognition, and intergenerational justice. By situating the Rohingya case within global climate justice debates, this article provides insights into how systemic inequities intersect with environmental hazards in the lives of displaced populations.