Who are the Rohingya?

Aljazeera
By Al Jazeera Staff
Published On 18 Apr 2018

The more than one million Rohingya Muslims are described as the ‘world’s most persecuted minority’.

The Rohingya are an ethnic group, the majority of whom are Muslim, who have lived for centuries in the majority Buddhist Myanmar. Currently, there are about 1.1 million Rohingya in the Southeast Asian country.

The Rohingya speak Rohingya or Ruaingga, a dialect that is distinct to others spoken throughout Myanmar. They are not considered one of the country’s 135 official ethnic groups and have been denied citizenship in Myanmar since 1982, which has effectively rendered them stateless.

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Nearly all of the Rohingya in Myanmar live in the western coastal state of Rakhine and are not allowed to leave without government permission. It is one the poorest states in the country, with ghetto-like camps and a lack of basic services and opportunities.

Due to ongoing violence and persecution, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have fled to neighbouring countries either by land or boat over the course of many decades. 

 
Where are the Rohingya from?

Muslims have lived in the area now known as Myanmar since as early as the 12th century, according to many historians and Rohingya groups.

The Arakan Rohingya National Organisation said: “Rohingyas have been living in Arakan from time immemorial,” referring to the area now known as Rakhine.

Latest 

• On April 7, five Rohingya were rescued off the island of Sumatra.

During the more than 100 years of British rule (1824-1948), there was a significant amount of migration of labourers to what is now known as Myanmar from today’s India and Bangladesh. Because the British administered Myanmar as a province of India, such migration was considered internal, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).

The migration of labourers was viewed negatively by the majority of the native population.

After independence, the government viewed the migration that took place during British rule as “illegal, and it is on this basis that they refuse citizenship to the majority of Rohingya,” HRW said in a report issued in 2000.

This has led many Buddhists to consider the Rohingya Bengali, rejecting the term Rohingya as a recent invention created for political reasons.

 

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