The Forgotten: Protracted Refugee Crises Demand Our Attention

Global attention moves rapidly from one emergency to the next, leaving millions of refugees trapped in decades-long displacement. From Cox’s Bazar to Dadaab, protracted refugee crises reveal the human cost of political inaction and chronic international neglect.

While media spotlights chase new displacement emergencies, millions languish in what aid workers call protracted refugee situations, crises stretching across decades, where entire generations have known nothing but exile. These forgotten conflicts represent some of the most enduring humanitarian failures of our time (UNHCR, 2025b; Concern US, 2025).

The Mathematics of Abandonment

By mid-2025, there were 42.5 million refugees globally, with the vast majority trapped in protracted situations (UNHCR, 2025b). The average major refugee crisis now spans over two decades, more than an entire childhood. Children are born in camps, grow up behind wire fences, and raise their own children in the same temporary shelters their grandparents first entered. What were designed as short-term solutions have hardened into permanent structures of exclusion (Concern US, 2025).

Rohingya: Generations in Limbo

Since late 2023, over 150,000 Rohingya refugees have arrived in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, joining nearly one million people already confined within just 24 square kilometres (UNHCR, 2025c; UNHCR, 2025d). This marks only the latest chapter in a displacement story spanning generations. Denied citizenship by Myanmar since 1982, the Rohingya have faced systematic persecution that has driven repeated waves of forced migration for decades (Concern US, 2025).

More than half of the camp population is under 18, many born into statelessness and entirely dependent on humanitarian assistance (UNHCR, 2025d). Families live in bamboo and tarpaulin shelters that are highly vulnerable to monsoon floods and cyclones. In early 2025, funding shortfalls threatened to cut monthly food rations by more than half. This was a devastating reduction for people with no alternative means of survival (Concern US, 2025).

Desperation has driven increasingly dangerous choices. Sea journeys by Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh tripled in the first half of 2025, with over 1,000 people attempting perilous crossings as living conditions deteriorated (Save the Children, 2025). At the same time, the abrupt closure of learning centres left nearly 500,000 Rohingya children without access to formal education, deepening long-term exclusion and vulnerability (Concern US, 2025).

Afghanistan: Four Decades of Displacement

Afghan refugees represent one of the longest-running displacement situations in modern history. For more than 40 years, conflict has forced millions of Afghans into neighbouring Iran and Pakistan. As of 2025, Iran hosts approximately 3.47 million Afghan refugees, while Pakistan hosts around 1.75 million. Displacement here is measured not in years, but in entire lives (UNHCR, 2025a).

Recent years have brought unprecedented hardship. In 2025 alone, Iran and Pakistan unlawfully expelled more than 2.6 million Afghans, around 60 per cent of whom were women and children (Amnesty International, 2025). The UN refugee agency reported that 67 per cent of the 2.8 million recorded returns were forced, with many people sent back to a country they had never lived in or barely remembered (UNHCR, 2025a; Noory, 2025).

There were over 71,000 deportations between 1 and 15 June alone, according to humanitarian reporting (Noory, 2025). Individual cases underscore the human cost. Women’s rights activists and registered refugees have been forcibly returned despite documentation and resettlement eligibility. Under Taliban rule, severe restrictions on women’s employment have pushed families to rely increasingly on children for survival through street vending or begging (Amnesty International, 2025; Noory, 2025).

Somalia: Three Decades Suspended

Somalia’s refugee crisis stretches back more than three decades, primarily affecting Kenya and Ethiopia (UNHCR, 2025e). As of April 2025, Kenya hosted 849,625 refugees, with Somalis forming the majority, while Ethiopia sheltered over 276,000 Somali refugees (UNHCR, 2025e). Persistent conflict, drought, and famine have entrenched one of Africa’s most protracted displacement situations (Concern US, 2025).

Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya, established in 1991, has evolved into a semi-permanent city where generations have lived their entire adult lives in exile (UNHCR, 2025e). Many Somali refugees have spent over 30 years suspended between a homeland they cannot safely return to and host states unwilling to offer permanent legal status.

Funding shortages have had severe consequences. The World Food Programme was forced to cut rations to just 28 per cent of the minimum food basket, pushing families to the brink of starvation (Concern US, 2025). Climate change has further intensified vulnerability, as the Horn of Africa experiences recurring droughts that drive new displacement while straining already scarce water resources for both refugees and host communities (UNHCR, 2025e).

The Cruel Economics of Neglect

International attention tends to gravitate towards new crises, leaving long-standing refugee situations chronically underfunded (Concern US, 2025). The Afghanistan humanitarian appeal for 2025 received only 24 per cent of required funding, with Rohingya response plans facing similar shortfalls (UNHCR, 2025a; UNHCR, 2025d). In the first half of 2025, global resettlement arrivals were nearly three times lower than during the same period in 2024, as programmes were cut or suspended (UNHCR, 2025b).

The human consequences extend far beyond material deprivation. Protracted refugees face severe restrictions on movement, employment, and education. Adolescents transition into adulthood with no legal right to work, no pathway to citizenship, and no realistic prospect of return (Concern US, 2025). Prolonged uncertainty erodes mental health, while gender-based violence rises in overcrowded camps where protection systems remain overstretched (Concern US, 2025).

Burden Without Sharing

Host countries, often developing states grappling with poverty, climate stress, and limited infrastructure, bear disproportionate responsibility (Concern US, 2025). Bangladesh supports nearly one million Rohingya refugees despite limited fiscal capacity (UNHCR, 2025d). Pakistan and Iran hosted millions of Afghans for decades before resorting to mass deportations amid domestic pressures (Amnesty International, 2025; Noory, 2025). Kenya and Ethiopia continue to sustain large refugee populations while confronting their own development challenges (UNHCR, 2025e). The principle of international burden-sharing remains more rhetorical than real.

Solutions Require Political Will

Protracted refugee situations demand more than humanitarian relief. They require durable political solutions. Yet peace remains elusive in Myanmar, Afghanistan, and Somalia (Concern US, 2025). Return is impossible without safety and rights. Local integration faces political resistance from host governments, while resettlement offers hope to only a tiny minority. Less than one per cent of refugees worldwide are ever resettled (UNHCR, 2025b).

The world’s protracted refugee situations expose both the limits of humanitarian response and the failures of political resolve. While the international community mobilises swiftly for new emergencies, it allows millions to spend decades in camps, their futures constrained and their lives placed on indefinite hold. The forgotten crises of 2025 demand sustained attention, adequate funding, and genuine political engagement. Until then, millions will remain suspended, neither home nor settled, neither temporary nor permanent, neither refugees nor citizens. Just forgotten.

Bibliography

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