Rohingya crisis went from bad to worse
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/09/06/how-burmas-rohingya-crisis-went-from-bad-to-worse/?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.90174b594999
Who are the Rohingya?
In a way, it depends on whom you ask — and that itself may be at the core of the conflict. To most of the world (and the minority themselves), the Rohingya are a Bengali-speaking and mostly-Muslim minority in Burma, the Buddhist-majority nation in Southeast Asia also known as Myanmar.
But the Burmese government says the Rohingya do not exist. In fact, they object to the very use of the word “Rohingya” at all, instead arguing that they are Bengali and entered what is now Burma during the time of the British Empire or later as illegal immigrants after Bangladesh's war for independence in 1971.
More than 1 million Rohingya are estimated to live in the country, mostly in the northern part of Rakhine state along the border with Bangladesh and India, and almost as many live outside of it. Though the word Rohingya only came to widespread use in the 1990s, there are records of similar words being used to describe people in what is now Rakhine state as far back as the 18th century. Some Rohingya people say they are descended from an 8th-century shipwreck that links them to Arabs or Persians farther west.
Who are the Rohingya?
In a way, it depends on whom you ask — and that itself may be at the core of the conflict. To most of the world (and the minority themselves), the Rohingya are a Bengali-speaking and mostly-Muslim minority in Burma, the Buddhist-majority nation in Southeast Asia also known as Myanmar.
But the Burmese government says the Rohingya do not exist. In fact, they object to the very use of the word “Rohingya” at all, instead arguing that they are Bengali and entered what is now Burma during the time of the British Empire or later as illegal immigrants after Bangladesh's war for independence in 1971.
More than 1 million Rohingya are estimated to live in the country, mostly in the northern part of Rakhine state along the border with Bangladesh and India, and almost as many live outside of it. Though the word Rohingya only came to widespread use in the 1990s, there are records of similar words being used to describe people in what is now Rakhine state as far back as the 18th century. Some Rohingya people say they are descended from an 8th-century shipwreck that links them to Arabs or Persians farther west.
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