The Rohingya are an ethnic minority of Myanmar that are being oppressed and scapegoated by the Buddhist majority of the country. The government of Myanmar are forcing the Rohingya out of the country or murdering them. Villages are being burned to the ground and hundreds of thousands of Rohingya are leaving the country as stateless peoples. The Myanmar military is fighting against the resistance Rohingya forces denying that they are targeting Rohingya citizens. Recently, the Rohingya who are a Muslim minority, were denied citizenship and weren’t recognized by the Buddhist government as citizens of the country.
This makes the Rohingya population officially stateless people. The majority Buddhist government recognizes the Rohingya as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. (Myanmar Rohingya, BBC). The conflict is growing and is currently classified as a humanitarian crisis or ethnic cleansing. Roughly 6,700 Rohingya and about 730 children under the age of 5 were murdered a month after the violence broke out, and it still is not considered genocide according to Medecins Sans Frontieres. This crisis is only worsening, and close to no UN action has been taken to stop it.
Who is Involved
What has been done so far?
The Refugees: The Rohingya people have been forced to flee their country of Myanmar as refugees and stateless people because their citizenship was stripped.
ARAKAN ROHINGYA SALVATION ARMY (ARSA): A faith group that goes out and murders Myanmar police in response to the constant violence of the nation.
Aung San Suu Kyi: The leader of the people of Myanmar responsible for overseeing military actions and mainly controlling the country. She has yet to address the atrocities being committed in her countries each day.
Myanmar Military: The army is one of the largest in its region. The army is responsible for destroying and bruning Rohingya villages and opposing the Rohingya people by murdering them. The army denies targeting the Rohingya people.
Bangladesh: The country neighboring Myanmar that is responsible for taking in many Rohingya refugees holding large makeshift cities of Rohingya.
Source for all bullets (Key players in the Refugee Crisis, The Strait Times)
Journalists have been reporting non-stop coming up with startling news and evidence
Aung San Suu Kyi has started the Union Enterprise for Humanitarian Assistance, Resettlement, and Development of Rakhine State with certain objectives in mind. Those are to provide help and assistance to the refugees in Bangladesh, bringing the refugees from (Layla Quran, What’s being done to help the Rohingya?)
Bangladesh back to Myanmar, and recreating the Rakhine state that was destroyed so the Rohingya can live there once more (Layla Quran, What’s being done to help the Rohingya?)
Private and Public entities fun operations in which multiple young people go into these villages of Rohingya (Layla Quran, What’s being done to help the Rohingya?)
Timeline
1948: Muslim rebellion fights back against Buddhist rule but fails
1962: Rights of Rohingya stripped and Rohingya forced out of country to Bangladesh
1982: New citizenship law passed identifying all ethnic group but the Rohingya making them stateless peoples
2010: Opposition leader and peace prize released from house arrest Aung San Suu Kyi
2012: Religious violence flares as hundreds of thousands of Rohingya are left homeless or evacuate by boat
2014: Myanmar conducts first census in three decades but the Rohingya were excluded
2015: In the first democratic elections since military rule, the Rohingya aren’t allowed to be candidates or vote
2016: Rohingya rebels attack officers at the border and kill 9 officers
2017: Myanmar military reacts to Rohingya rebel attacks by burning villages and triggering a mass exodus
2017: Suu Kyi condemned human rights violations but failed to address the acts of horror committed by Myanmar’s military
2017: Over 600,000 refugees have fled Myanmar to Bangladesh trying to escape the brutal violence back home
All info from source (Katie Hunt, Rohingya Crisis)