Who are the Rohingya and what is happening in Myanmar?

Rebecca Ratcliffe

THE GUARDIN
Fri, 17 May 2024


Who are the Rohingya?

Described as the world’s most persecuted people, an estimated 600,000 Rohingya people live in Myanmar. They live predominately in Rakhine state, where they have co-existed uneasily alongside Rakhine Buddhists for decades.

Myanmar’s military governments have deemed the Rohingya illegal interlopers and subjected them to systematic discrimination, derogatorily referring to them as Bengali because of their darker skin and linguistic similarities to the people of neighbouring eastern Bangladesh.

But before the modern borders set after Myanmar’s independence from Britain, there were centuries of shifting frontiers between the historical Bengal and Arakan kingdoms and a long history of Persian and Arab commerce and political influence.

The Myanmar government treats them as stateless people, having stripped them of citizenship in 1982. Stringent restrictions have been placed on Rohingya people’s freedom of movement, access to medical assistance, education and other basic services.

What happened to them in 2017?

Violence broke out in northern Rakhine state on 25 August 2017, when militants attacked government forces. In response, security forces supported by Rakhine militia launched a “clearance operation” that killed at least 10,000 people and forced more than 700,000 to flee their homes, according to the UN.

Myanmar claimed the operations were in response to attacks by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (Arsa), an armed group which claims to fight for the rights of the Rohingya. However, a 2022 investigation by the nonprofit Commission for International Justice and Accountability revealed documents from several years prior showing plans to control and expel the Rohingya population.

The massacres, rapes and burning of villages were determined by the US to be part of a genocidal campaign and Myanmar is currently facing genocide charges at the International Court of Justice.Map Myanmar

Where are the Rohingya now?

The majority of the Rohingya now live in Bangladesh, where camps set up to host Rohingya escaping previous rounds of violence collectively host about 1 million Rohingya refugees. They arrived after long journeys, hiding in jungles and crossing mountains and rivers.

There has been no progress towards returning Rohingya to Myanmar, despite several attempts by Bangladesh to begin repatriations. Myanmar is no safer for the Rohingya than it was in 2017 and the government has not listened to their demands to have their citizenship restored.

Meanwhile, Bangladeshi authorities have made life in the camps uncomfortable, building a barbed wire fence that restricts Rohingya movement while also placing heavy limits on access to education and work.

The deteriorating conditions have seen many turn to traffickers to help them undertake dangerous migration routes to south-east Asia, where they believe they can live and work more freely than in the confines of the camps.

What’s the background to the story?

For decades ethnic tensions have simmered in Rakhine state, with frequent outbreaks of violence. An estimated 200,000 Rohingya fled military operations in 1978 and 250,000 in the early 1990s. Though many returned, refugee camps were established in Bangladesh that still exist today. In October 2016 nine police officers were killed by armed men, believed by officials to be Muslims. Amid the ensuing violence, 87,000 Rohingya Muslims fled to Bangladesh and government troops expanded their presence in Rakhine state.

At the time, a senior UN official alleged that the Myanmar government was seeking to rid the country of its Muslim minority – an accusation that has been made repeatedly by human rights groups. The government denied the charge.

The 2017 massacres followed a buildup of troops in Rakhine, which the military said was in response to finding seven Buddhists hacked to death, but Rohingya activists said was part of a longer-term plan to remove them from the country.

Around 600,000 Rohingya are thought to have remained in Rakhine, which has now become a major battleground between the military and the rebel Arakan Army, which says it fights for the rights of the Rakhine ethnic group. The Rohingya say they have become caught in between the two, being killed in the crossfire and pressured to fight for both sides.

What does the Myanmar government say?

The government has claimed that in 2017 it was targeting militants responsible for attacks on the security forces, and that the majority of those killed were terrorists. It also claimed the Rohingya burned their own villages – a claim questioned by journalists who reported seeing new fires burning in villages that had been abandoned by Rohingya people.

Before she was deposed by a military coup in 2021, the Nobel peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi disappointed her admirers by defending the military at the ICJ, rejecting the genocide claim and doubling down on the claim that it was responding to Arsa attacks.

The Rohingya have hoped for justice through international systems, but the ICJ case has progressed slowly. The military retook full power of the country in 2021 and now face rebellions on various fronts. The Rohingya are unsure how they would be treated under alternative governments, including the Arakan Army, because of the collaboration of their Rakhine Buddhist neighbours with the military in 2017.