- ‘The Rohingya crisis’ is a tragedy that was in the making for over several decades and concerns the plight of hundreds of thousands of people belonging to the Rohingya- community in Myanmar’s Rakhine State.
- Rohingya belong to Muslim sect, they are descendants of Arab traders who have been in the region for generations.
- Myanmar is predominantly Buddhist country & does not recognise this community as its citizens and considers them “illegal immigrants” from Bangladesh.
- Militants suspected to be from the Arakan-Rohingya Salvation Army attacked military and police outposts.
- Recent violence in Rakhine State has displaced several hundred thousand Rohingya within Myanmar and driven out some 700,000 of them to neighboring Bangladesh after the military launched a bloody crackdown triggered by militant attacks on security posts in late August 2017.
- The United Nations (UN) has described the violence against the Rohingya community as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing.”
- The crisis has also acquired a security dimension with concerns being raised over the infiltration of Islamic extremism amongst the Rohingyas, who have grown increasingly desperate over their plight.
- The massive refugee outflow has created a serious humanitarian crisis that carries implications on regional stability and security.
- The Rohingya-Muslim community are doubly disadvantaged.
- Unlike the rest of the other ethnic minorities, the Rohingyas are regarded as “illegal immigrants”.
- The Rohingya suffer from the general negative sentiment against Muslims and are easy targets of vitriolic attacks and pronouncements from ultra-nationalist Buddhist forces.