Rohingya are a people of Myanmar (also called Burma). Before 2017, there were roughly 1 million Rohingya living in Myanmar. Most lived in the northern part of Rakhine State (formerly known as Arakan), near the border between Myanmar and Bangladesh. Rohingya people speak a dialect related to Bengali, a language spoken in Bangladesh. Myanmar does not recognize the Rohingya as legal citizens. Instead, the government considers them to be illegal immigrants. However, Rohingya have lived in Myanmar for generations. There, they have developed a distinct identity that includes strong ties to the Islamic faith.
Before British rule, Muslim peoples had lived in Northern Burma for centuries. Following three Anglo-Burman Wars with the United Kingdom, Burma became a province of India, which the British ruled, in 1885. The British government encouraged people to move from India to Burma. Many Muslim people moved to Rakhine from the Chittagong area (now a part of Bangladesh). Many were seasonal workers in agriculture. They merged with some of the Muslim groups living in Rakhine and absorbed their ethnic identity. These people began calling themselves Rohingya in the 1950’s to distinguish themselves as a Muslim ethnic group in the majority Buddhist state. Tensions and conflicts occasionally occurred between Muslim Rohingya and Buddhist Rakhine people.
In 1942, during World War II, Japan invaded and occupied Burma. The Rohingya were armed by the British to fight the Japanese. The British recruited Arakan Muslim groups to fight on their side. The Japanese in turn armed Rakhine Buddhists. The two sides clashed throughout the war, burning down enemy villages. After Burma won independence in 1948, the government acknowledged the citizenship of the various Muslim groups living within the country. In 1962, however, a new military government took over, and they refused to recognize the Rohingya as citizens. Persecution of the Rohingya increased after the Citizenship Law was passed in 1982. This law only granted citizenship to ethnic groups living in Burma before the first Anglo-Burman War (1824-1826). The Rohingya became a stateless ethnic group within Burma, where they are denied many rights and services by the government.
In 2012, rioting broke out between Rohingya and Rakhine Buddhists. More than 140,000 Rohingya fled from their homes and into relocation camps within Myanmar. Thousands of Rohingya fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh, Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia.
In 2017, Rohingya militants clashed with government forces in western Myanmar. Rakhine Buddhists joined the Myanmar military in attacks against Rohingya villages. More than 6,000 Rohingya people died. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled to refugee camps in nearby Bangladesh. In 2019, the International Court of Justice, the highest court of the United Nations, began a hearing into accusations that Myanmar’s military had conducted a campaign of systematic violence and genocide against the Rohingya. In 2020, the court called on Myanmar’s government to protect the Rohingya during the proceedings. In 2021, however, military leaders in Myanmar staged a coup and took over the nation’s government. In July 2022, the International Court of Justice indicated that it would move forward with the genocide case against Myanmar.
