COMMENT | Amid the pomp and pageantry of the Asean Summit 2025 in Malaysia, hidden from sight are 179,400 Myanmar refugees sheltering in Malaysia, according to UNHCR – with Rohingyas making up more than half the number.

The Feb 1, 2021, military coup staged by junta leader Min Aung Hlaing, which deposed the democratically elected government and state counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, has plunged the country into a civil war and left the junta controlling just over half the country.

Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), had won more than 82 percent of the votes during the November 2020 election, three months before the coup.

The civil war sent thousands of its citizens fleeing to neighbouring countries. This was after the 2017 violence in Rakhine state saw nearly one million Rohingya flee to neighbouring Bangladesh, with small groups later seeking refuge around the region.

The growing number of refugees underscores Myanmar’s worsening crisis which has cost...