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Questions for exploration:
What emotions does this video evoke?

Does this video remind you of any other ethnic groups that are subjected to extreme hardship?

What questions might you have after watching this video clip?

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rohingya muslims flee burning villages - cnn video

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Rohingya Muslims flee burning villages - CNN Video

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Bangladesh border guards take a CNN crew on patrol to witness Rohingya villages burning on the Myanmar side of the country's border. Alexandra Field reports.

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Photos caption: "Mushida Begum lies in her father's arms after she was hit by a vehicle while trying to get food." photo taken by Poppy McPherson.

Questions for exploration:
What do you see in this image?
What do you think happened before they got to this point?
What would you do if you were being denied food?
How does this image make you feel about what's happening to the Rohingya Muslims?

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Listen to Umme, a twelve year old, tell the story of having to flee their home with their family. They had said, "They were burning villages and we couldn't move. We couldn't go to the forest or fish, so we couldn't eat. That's why we fled here."

Questions for exploration:
What did you see throughout the video?
How did this video make you feel?
Do you think there is anything you could do to help Umme and their family?

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Where Did Rohingya Children Come From? Why Did They Flee? | UNICEF USA

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Below is a link for a National Geographic article regarding the internally displaced Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar. The Rohingya lost their citizenship in Myanmar and Bangladesh back in 1982 and are considered illegal immigrants in these countries. The government denies that they have inflicted violence upon these people, which includes the burning of villages and raping of women. This is a great secondary source but includes many photographs and quotes that could be used as primary sources.

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The Rohingya Muslim minority has fled repression in Myanmar for generations. In neighboring Bangladesh, refugee camps offer asylum, but life there remains bleak.

Photographs by William Daniels

Since this article was published, the Myanmar military has escalated its attacks on Rohingya villages, spurring more than hundreds of thousands Rohingya to flee their homes as of September 11 and stream toward the overcrowded refugee camps in Bangladesh. On Aug. 25, Rohingya militants attacked security forces, killing at least a dozen. The army has responded in brutal fashion, according to refugee accounts, burning villages and killing hundreds.

"Dance!" shouted the army officer, waving a gun at the trembling girl. Afifa, just 14 years old, was corralled in a rice paddy with dozens of girls and women-all members of Myanmar's Rohingya minority. The soldiers who invaded her village that morning last October said they were looking for militants who had carried out a surprise attack on three border posts, killing nine policemen. The village's men and boys, fearing for their lives, had dashed into the forests to hide, and the soldiers began terrorizing the women and children.

After enduring an invasive body search, Afifa had watched soldiers drag two young women deep into the rice paddy before they turned their attention to her. "If you don't dance at once," the officer said, drawing his hand across his throat, "we will slaughter you." Choking back tears, Afifa began to sway back and forth. The soldiers clapped rhythmically. A few pulled out mobile phones to shoot videos. The commanding officer slid his arm around Afifa's waist.

"Now that's better, isn't it?" he said, flashing a smile.

The encounter marked only the beginning of the latest wave of violence against the estimated 1.1 million Rohingya who live, precariously, in Myanmar's western Rakhine state. The United Nations considers the Rohingya one of the world's most persecuted minorities. Muslims in a nation dominated by Buddhists, the Rohingya claim that they are indigenous to Rakhine, and many are descended from settlers who came in the 19th and early 20th century. Despite their roots, a 1982 law stripped the Rohingya of their citizenship. They are now considered illegal immigrants in Myanmar as well as in neighboring Bangladesh, the country to which as many as half a million have fled.

Five years ago, clashes between Buddhist and Muslim communities left hundreds dead, mostly Rohingya. With their mosques and villages torched, 120,000 Rohingya were forced into makeshift camps inside Myanmar (also known as Burma). This time the assault was unleashed by the Burmese military, the feared Tatmadaw, which ruled over Myanmar for five decades before overseeing a transition that led last year to a quasi-civilian government.

What began ostensibly as a hunt for the culprits behind the border post attacks turned into a four-month assault on the Rohingya population as a whole. According to witnesses interviewed by the UN and international human-rights groups, as well as National Geographic, the army campaign included executions, mass detentions, the razing of villages, and the systematic rape of Rohingya women. Yanghee Lee, the UN's special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, believes it's "very likely" the army committed crimes against humanity.

The full extent of what happened in northern Rakhine state is not yet known because the government has not allowed independent investigators, journalists, or aid groups unfettered access to the affected areas. Satellite imagery at the time showed Rohingya villages destroyed by fire. Amateur video appeared to show charred bodies of adults and children lying on the ground in the torched villages. Rights groups say hundreds of Rohingya have been killed. One incontrovertible truth is that the army assault triggered the exodus of more than 75,000 Rohingya into overcrowded refugee camps across the border in Bangladesh. Nearly 60 percent are children. (An estimated 20,000 or more Rohingya have been displaced within Myanmar's borders.)

Before the soldiers left Afifa's village that day, she says they set fire to the harvest-ready rice fields, looted houses, and shot or stole all of the cattle and goats. The devastation and fear compelled Afifa's parents to split the family into two groups and escape in different directions-to improve their odds of survival. "We didn't want to abandon our home," Afifa's father, Mohammed Islam, told me five months later, when five of the family's 11 members staggered into Balukhali, a refugee camp in Bangladesh. "But the army has only one aim: to get rid of all Rohingya."

It wasn't supposed to turn out this way. More than a year ago, Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi became Myanmar's de facto leader, and international human-rights groups-as well as many Rohingya-hoped she would help move Rakhine toward peace and reconciliation. The daughter of Myanmar's independence hero and martyr, General Aung San, she is celebrated for her fearless resistance to the country's military dictatorship. After enduring more than 15 years under house arrest, Aung San Suu Kyi led her National League of Democracy to a sweeping electoral victory in 2015. (A clause in the military-drafted constitution prevented her from becoming president, so a loyal underling serves as president while she runs the government as "state counselor.")

"We had a very big hope that Suu Kyi and democracy would be good for us," says Moulabi Jaffar, a 40-year-old Islamic cleric and shop owner from a village north of Maungdaw, sitting in his shack in Balukhali camp. "But the violence only got worse. That came as a big surprise."

Despite her reputation as a human-rights icon, Aung San Suu Kyi has seemed unwilling or unable to speak about the violence against the Rohingya, much less bring perpetrators to justice. When reports of army atrocities emerged late last year, she broke her silence-not to rein in abusive soldiers but to scold the United Nations and human-rights groups for stoking "bigger fires of resentment" by dwelling on the testimonies of Rohingya who had fled to Bangladesh. It doesn't help, she said, "if everybody is just concentrating on the negative side of the situation." Aung San Suu Kyi has yet to visit northern Rakhine. But in a BBC interview in April, she said, "I don't think there is ethnic cleansing going on."

Aung San Suu Kyi remains an immensely popular figure in Myanmar, where 90 percent of the population is Buddhist and the military still wields enormous power. But her role in shielding the army from scrutiny in Rakhine has tarnished her global reputation, even prompting a letter from 13 Nobel laureates upbraiding her for failing to protect the rights of the Rohingya. "Like many in the international community, we expected more of Suu Kyi," says Matthew Smith, co-founder of Fortify Rights, a Bangkok-based human-rights group. "She is operating in a delicate situation politically, but that doesn't justify silence or wholesale denials in the face of mountains of evidence. The army launched an attack on a civilian population, and nobody has been held accountable."

Myanmar set up three commissions to look into the turmoil in Rakhine state, but none is independent. The army's report, released in May, proclaimed its innocence-except for two minor incidents, including one in which a soldier borrowed a motorbike without asking. A member of the main government inquiry dismissed reports of atrocities and contended that Burmese soldiers couldn't have raped Rohingya women because they are "too dirty." That commission's final report, issued in early August, was another blanket denial, contending that "there is no evidence of crimes against humanity or ethnic cleansing." Aung San Suu Kyi says her government will accept outside guidance only from an international commission chaired by former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan. Its report is also due this month, but its mandate is to make policy recommendations-not to investigate human-rights abuses.

In June, when a newly formed UN fact-finding mission sought to investigate human-rights violations in Myanmar, including Rakhine, Aung San Suu Kyi's government refused to grant visas to the team members. "We don't accept it," she said, arguing that the mission could exacerbate divisions between Buddhists and Muslims. When Lee, the UN special rapporteur, returned to Myanmar in July, she and Aung San Suu Kyi shared a warm embrace-before Lee excoriated the government for blocking her access and intimidating witnesses, the same tactics used by the military junta. "In previous times, human rights defenders, journalists, and civilians were followed, monitored, and surveyed, and questioned-that's still going on."

Afia, her father, and siblings spent five months on the run inside Myanmar, sticking mostly to the forests to avoid the military, often going days without food. On their first attempt to cross the Naf River, which separates Myanmar and Bangladesh, a Burmese patrol boat opened fire, capsizing their boat and killing several refugees. It would be three months before they risked the crossing again.

I met Afifa in March on the day that half of her family finally reached Balukhali camp, where more than 11,000 new arrivals have turned the forested hills into a dusty hive of bamboo huts and black tarpaulins. Afifa wore the same soiled brown shirt she wore the day she danced for the soldiers five months before. "It's all I have," she says. Another family from their home village of Maung Hnama offered food to eat and a safe place to sleep, but Islam wept quietly. His wife and their five other children were still in hiding in Myanmar.

The refugee camps that line Bangladesh's border are a short drive from the Bangladeshi resort of Cox's Bazar. Tourists there cavort on the wide beach, taking grinning selfies in the surf, while a few miles away, hundreds of thousands of refugees marinate in grief and neglect. In Kutupalong, a sprawling camp with some 30,000 Rohingya refugees, the wood and bamboo dwellings radiate from the center like rings on a tree, each layer marking a wave of violence the Rohingya have fled.

Rozina Akhtar, 22, has lived here since she was seven years old. With no real hope of leaving-"we have no passports, no ID cards, so what can we do?"-she tries to help new arrivals adjust to their lives as refugees. "We can't reject them," she says. "These are our sisters and brothers." Akhtar helps newcomers get medical care, plastic tarpaulins, and food rations, but what they really need are jobs. Men can occasionally get day jobs, fishing, harvesting rice, or laboring in the salt flats for a dollar or two a day, but many of the women beg for money along the road outside the camp.

Under a sprawling fig tree in Kutupalong, new arrivals gather to talk about the atrocities they endured in Myanmar. Nur Ayesha, 40, pulls back her headscarf to reveal bleached-white burn scars across her forehead; soldiers set fire to her house while she was still inside, she says. Residents of Kyet Yoe Pyin say the Burmese soldiers who firebombed their houses also gunned down six women and a man who had stayed behind to attend the birth of a baby-the mother included.

Minara, an 18-year-old in a black burqa, speaks about her missing family members before revealing that Burmese soldiers gang-raped her and several other young women in her village. Her voice barely rises above a whisper. As we talk, Minara, who, like many victims, didn't choose to reveal her last name, bites the edge of her sleeve, pulling it over her face. By the end, only her eyes, darting back and forth, are visible. "We're too scared to go back," she says.

On a hill back in Balukhali camp, I meet a 14-year-old boy, Ajim Allah, getting his hair combed by a friend. Ajim shows me his shriveled left arm, shattered, he says, by a police bullet when he emerged from a madrassa last October; three of his friends died of gunshot wounds that night, he says. In a hut nearby, Yasmin, 27, recounts how soldiers burst into her home in Ngan Chaung village and took turns raping her at knifepoint in front of her five-year-old daughter. "When my daughter screamed, they pointed guns at her and told her they'd kill her if she made any more noise," she says. The worst moment came after the soldiers left. Yasmin says she went out to look for her eight-year-old son, who had fled when the soldiers came into the village. She found him lying in a rice paddy, a bullet hole in his back.

The Rohingya are caught between two countries-and welcome in neither. More than 500,000 Rohingya now live in Bangladesh. Only 32,000 are officially registered, however, and no new Rohingya refugees have been registered since 1992-an apparent attempt to dissuade more Rohingya from seeking refuge in Bangladesh. That strategy hasn't worked, but it means that there are close to half a million undocumented Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh with no right or access to employment, education, or basic health care.

Bangladesh, already poor and overpopulated, shows no enthusiasm for hosting the Rohingya. Conditions in the camps are miserable, but the government has declined many offers of humanitarian aid. It has even floated a plan to move the refugees to a remote island in the Bay of Bengal. The radical proposal seemed designed to keep Rohingya away from the tourist hub of Cox's Bazar-and to push refugees to return to Myanmar. Many Rohingya, however, are too traumatized to go back to Rakhine, an area historically known as Arakan. One rape victim I spoke to recalled the chilling words of her army attacker: "He kept saying, 'This kind of torture will continue until you leave the country.'"

A few years ago, many Rohingya men, including Yasmin's husband, risked a perilous sea journey to seek construction work in Malaysia or Indonesia. With no citizenship and no passport, travel had to be undertaken illegally. Smugglers packed the refugees onto unregistered ships and cycled them through secret jungle camps, beating or starving to death the ones whose families didn't pay exorbitant smuggling fees. A crackdown on human trafficking in Southeast Asia has closed off that route, leaving a lot of Rohingya men languishing in the refugee camps without any way to make a living. The mixture of despair and marginalization, experts warn, is a recipe for radicalization. Many refugees seek solace in religious faith. In the camps, clusters of young men armed with holy Korans go door to door, urging refugees to pray more devoutly. Out of sight, locals say, is something more ominous: A newly formed militant group, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, is reportedly trying to recruit refugees to join a nascent insurgency against the Burmese army and its local government collaborators.

The last time I saw Afifa, she was sweeping a rectangular patch of dirt on a hill near the refugee camp's edge-the site of the family's new shelter. Her father had borrowed $30 from a fellow refugee to buy a horse-cart full of bamboo poles and strips, and he'd already erected the thickest poles at the corners. Islam, a former Arabic teacher, was dressed in a white skullcap and a clean cream-colored tunic, getting ready to attend midday Friday prayers-the jumu'ah -for the first time since he left his village five months before.

Just down the sandy path from their plot, barefoot men in sarongs scrambled to secure the bamboo scaffolding of Balukhali's new mosque. It would be another week before the structure was finished, with palm fronds as the roof, but the muezzin sounded the call to prayer and dozens of bearded men in white caps gravitated to a small carpet in the center of the mosque. Islam found a spot in the first row and bowed in front of the imam, who stood on a red plastic stool. Later, as Islam walked back from the mosque, he smiled: "I feel better now."

The misery, however, has continued. In late May, a cyclone ripped through southern Bangladesh, destroying the family's shelter and thousands of others in the camps. Nobody died in Balukhali, and Afifa's mother and other siblings have since made it to Bangladesh, easing the girl's anxiety. Still, food remains scarce, the monsoon rains continue, and there are troubling reports of renewed violence in Rakhine from both sides-military operations by the Burmese army and occasional attacks by Rohingya militants. In this predicament, it's unclear when, or if, Afifa and her family will ever have a place to call home.

As one neighbor lamented: "Bad days for us never end."

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Rohingyas have fled violent repression in Buddhist Myanmar for generations. In neighboring Bangladesh, refugee camps offer asylum, but life there remains bleak.

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Questions for exploration:
-What do you see in this photograph?
-What do you think is going on in this photograph?
-How does this photograph make you feel?
-What needs do you think these people in the photograph are lacking?
-How do you think these people came to live in these conditions?

Photograph taken by the Anadolu Agency, a Turkish news agency company.

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Questions for exploration:
-What do you think is going on in this photograph?
-Who do you think is on the signs of the protestors? Why?
-How can we promote peace in our lives? In our community? In the world?

Photograph by Reuters

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Below is a map that has the migration routes of the Rohingya people. Restrictions on marriage, employment, family planning, education, and religion are some reasons in which the Rohingya Muslims are chasing to flee Myanmar.

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Here is a slide show of photos that show the pain an impact of the "ethnic cleansing" of the Rohingya Muslims just since 2018. This is not an issue that happened in the past and is now done, it is continuing as we speak. In the slide show you notice the most powerful aspect is the amount of children you see and then read to find out that children make up 60% of the refugee population.

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Introduction

Discriminatory policies of Myanmar's government since the late 1970s have compelled hundreds of thousands of Muslim Rohingya to flee their homes in the predominantly Buddhist country. Most have crossed by land into Bangladesh, while others have taken to the sea to reach Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand.

Renewed violence, including reported rape, murder, and arson in 2017, triggered a massive exodus of Rohingya amid charges of ethnic cleansing against Myanmar's security forces. Those forces claimed they carried out a campaign to reinstate stability in the western region of Myanmar.

Who are the Rohingya?

The Rohingya are an ethnic Muslim minority who practice a Sufi-inflected variation of Sunni Islam. There are an estimated 3.5 million Rohingya dispersed worldwide. Before August 2017, the majority of the estimated one million Rohingya in Myanmar resided in Rakhine State, where they accounted for nearly a third of the population. They differ from Myanmar's dominant Buddhist groups ethnically, linguistically, and religiously.

The Rohingya trace their origins in the region to the fifteenth century, when thousands of Muslims came to the former Arakan Kingdom. Many others arrived during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when Rakhine was governed by colonial rule as part of British India. Since independence in 1948, successive governments in Burma, renamed Myanmar in 1989, have refuted the Rohingya's historical claims and denied the group recognition as one of the country's 135 ethnic groups. The Rohingya are largely considered illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, even though many trace their roots in Myanmar back centuries.

Neither the central government nor Rakhine's dominant ethnic Buddhist group, known as the Rakhine, recognize the label "Rohingya," a self-identifying term [PDF] that surfaced in the 1950s, which experts say provides the group with a collective political identity. Though the etymological root of the word is disputed, the most widely accepted theory is that Rohang derives from the word "Arakan" in the Rohingya dialect and ga or gya means "from." By identifying as Rohingya, the ethnic Muslim group asserts its ties to land that was once under the control of the Arakan Kingdom, according to Chris Lewa, director of the Arakan Project, a Thailand-based advocacy group.

What is the legal status of the Rohingya?

The government refuses to grant the Rohingya citizenship, and as a result the vast majority of the group's members have no legal documentation, effectively making them stateless. Myanmar's 1948 citizenship law was already exclusionary, and the military junta, which seized power in 1962, introduced a law twenty years later stripping the Rohingya of access to full citizenship. Until recently, the Rohingya had been able to register as temporary residents with identification cards, known as white cards, that the junta began issuing to many Muslims, both Rohingya and non-Rohingya, in the 1990s. The white cards conferred [PDF] limited rights but were not recognized as proof of citizenship. Still, Lewa says that they did provide some recognition of temporary stay for the Rohingya in Myanmar.

In 2014 the government held a UN-backed national census, its first in thirty years. The Muslim minority group was initially permitted to identify as Rohingya, but after Buddhist nationalists threatened to boycott the census, the government decided Rohingya could only register if they identified as Bengali instead.

Similarly, under pressure from Buddhist nationalists protesting the Rohingya's right to vote in a 2015 constitutional referendum, then-President Thein Sein canceled the temporary identity cards in February 2015, effectively revoking their newly gained right to vote. (White card holders were allowed to vote in Myanmar's 2008 constitutional referendum and 2010 general elections.) In the 2015 elections, which were widely touted by international monitors as free and fair, no parliamentary candidate was of the Muslim faith. "Country-wide anti-Muslim sentiment [PDF] makes it politically difficult for the government to take steps seen as supportive of Muslim rights," writes the International Crisis Group.

Muslim minorities continue to "consolidate under one Rohingya identity," says Lewa, despite documentation by rights groups and researchers of systematic disenfranchisement, violence, and instances of anti-Muslim campaigns [PDF].

Why are the Rohingya fleeing Myanmar?

The Myanmar government has effectively institutionalized discrimination against the ethnic group through restrictions on marriage, family planning, employment, education, religious choice, and freedom of movement. For example, Rohingya couples in the northern towns of Maungdaw and Buthidaung are only allowed to have two children [PDF]. Rohingya must also seek permission to marry, which may require them to bribe authorities and provide photographs of the bride without a headscarf and the groom with a clean-shaven face, practices that conflict with Muslim customs. To move to a new home or travel outside their townships, Rohingya must gain government approval.

Moreover, Rakhine State is Myanmar's least developed state, with a poverty rate of 78 percent, compared to the 37.5 percent national average, according to World Bank estimates. Widespread poverty, poor infrastructure, and a lack of employment opportunities in Rakhine have exacerbated the cleavage between Buddhists and Muslim Rohingya. This tension is deepened by religious differences that have at times erupted into conflict.

What's caused the recent exodus?

Clashes in Rakhine broke out in August 2017, after a militant group known as the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) claimed responsibility for attacks on police and army posts. The government declared ARSA a terrorist organization and the military mounted a brutal campaign that destroyed hundreds of Rohingya villages and forced nearly seven hundred thousand Rohingya to leave Myanmar. At least 6,700 Rohingya were killed in the first month of attacks, between August 25 and September 24, according to the international medical charity Doctors Without Borders. Myanmar's security forces also allegedly opened fire on fleeing civilians and planted land mines near border crossings used by Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh.

Since the start of 2018, Myanmar authorities have reportedly cleared abandoned Rohingya villages [PDF] and farmlands to build homes, security bases, and infrastructure. The government says this development is in preparation for the repatriation of refugees, but rights activists have expressed concern these moves could be intended to accommodate other populations in Rakhine State.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has described the violence as ethnic cleansing and the humanitarian situation as catastrophic. Rights groups and other UN leaders suspect acts of genocide have taken place. At an emergency UN Security Council meeting, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said Myanmar authorities have carried out a "brutal, sustained campaign to cleanse the country of an ethnic minority," and she called on members to suspend weapons provisions to the military. Other Security Council members, including Russia and China, have resisted increasing pressure on Myanmar's government because they say it is trying to restore stability.

Sectarian violence is not new to Rakhine State. Security campaigns in the past five years, notably in 2012 and 2016, also resulted in the flight of tens of thousands of Rohingya from their homes.

Where are the Rohingya migrating?

Bangladesh: Most Rohingya have sought refuge in nearby Bangladesh, which has limited resources and land to host refugees. More than 950,000 people are refugees in the country, many unregistered, according to estimates from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. The World Health Organization projects the birth of sixty thousand babies in Bangladesh's crowded camps in 2018. Meanwhile, the risk of disease outbreak in camps is high, with health organizations warning of possible outbreaks of measles, tetanus, diphtheria, and acute jaundice syndrome. Moreover, more than 60 percent of the available water supply in refugee camps is contaminated, increasing the risk of spread of communicable and water-borne diseases. Vulnerable refugees have turned to smugglers, paying for transport out of Bangladesh and Myanmar and risking exploitation, including sexual enslavement. In November 2017, Myanmar and Bangladesh signed a deal for the possible repatriation of hundreds of thousands of refugees, though details remain vague; on the rights that would be granted to the Rohingya, locations for resettlement, and assurances that pogroms would not recur. The repatriation of Rohingya, first slated for January 2018, has been delayed.

Malaysia: As of November 2017, 150,000 Rohingya were in Malaysia, according to the United Nations, though tens of thousands of others are in the country unregistered. Rohingya who arrive safely in Malaysia have no legal status and are unable to work, leaving their families cut off from access to education and health care.

Thailand: Thailand is a hub for regional human smuggling and serves as a common transit point for Rohingya. Migrants often arrive there by boat from Bangladesh or Myanmar before continuing on foot to Malaysia or by boat to Indonesia or Malaysia. The military-led Thai government has cracked down on smuggling rings after the discovery of mass graves in alleged camps where gangs held hostages. But some experts say that while punishing traffickers disrupts the networks, it does not dismantle them.

Indonesia: The Rohingya have also sought refuge in Indonesia, although the number of refugees from Myanmar there remains relatively small because they are treated as illegal immigrants. Indonesia has rescued migrant boats off its shores and dispatched humanitarian aid and supplies to Bangladesh's camps. Indonesian President Joko Widodo pledged more help during a visit to refugee camps in Bangladesh in January 2018.

Has civilian leadership changed the Myanmar government's policies?

In 2016, Myanmar's first democratically elected government in a generation came to power, but critics say it has been reluctant to advocate for Rohingya and other Muslims for fear of alienating Buddhist nationalists and threatening the power-sharing agreement the civilian government maintains with the military.

Some observers saw the establishment in August 2016 of an advisory commission on ethnic strife led by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan as a positive development. However subsequent outbreaks of violence have curbed this optimism.

Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar's de facto leader, has denied that ethnic cleansing is taking place and dismissed international criticism of her handling of the crisis, accusing critics of fueling resentment between Buddhists and Muslims in the country. In September 2017, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate said her government had "already started defending all the people in Rakhine in the best way possible." In December, the Myanmar government denied access to the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, and suspended cooperation for the remainder of her term.

How is the region responding?

Protesters have at times gathered in cities in Pakistan, India, Thailand, Indonesia, and Bangladesh to condemn the killing and persecution of Rohingya. Bangladesh's foreign minister condemned the violence in Rakhine as "genocide" in September 2017 and Indonesia and Malaysia called on the Myanmar authorities to halt their campaign and bring an end to the violence. Yet governments in Southeast Asia lack established legal frameworks to protect refugees' rights, and the ten members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have not coordinated a response to the deepening crisis.

Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, and Thailand-all ASEAN members-have yet to ratify the UN Refugee Convention or its protocol. ASEAN itself has been mostly silent on the plight of the Rohingya and on the growing numbers of asylum seekers in member countries, largely because of its members' commitment to the principle of noninterference in each other's internal affairs. "They aren't going to take collective action on Myanmar, with Myanmar as one of its members," says CFR's Joshua Kurlantzick.

How have others responded?

In December 2016, U.S. President Barack Obama lifted sanctions against Myanmar, saying it had made strides in improving human rights. The move came amid a crackdown on Rohingya and was criticized by some as premature. A year later, new U.S. sanctions were imposed against a Myanmar general for his alleged role in the military's attacks in Rakhine. Meanwhile, countries including the United States, Canada, Norway, and South Korea, as well as international donors, have upped their humanitarian assistance as the flow of Rohingya to Bangladesh has grown, and in early 2018 a team of UK medics led an emergency response to help stem the spread of disease in camps. The United Nations has requested $951 million in immediate relief funds [PDF] for 2018.

Advocacy groups including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Arakan Project, and Fortify Rights continue to appeal for international pressure on Myanmar's government. In April 2018, the International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor sought jurisdiction over alleged war crimes that forced the exodus of Rohingya to Bangladesh.

Still, resentment of the minority group has run deep for generations. Without overhauling " a culture of pervasive prejudice " and ensuring that Rohingya are treated as human beings, the situation in Rakhine State is unlikely to improve, says journalist and author Francis Wade.

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What Forces Are Fueling Myanmar's Rohingya Crisis?

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Discriminatory policies of Myanmar's government since the late 1970s have compelled hundreds of thousands of Muslim Rohingya to flee their homes in the predominantly Buddhist country. Most have crossed by land into Bangladesh, while others have taken to the sea to reach Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand.

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- Rohingya Muslims: "the world's most persecuted minority".
The Rohinga Muslims have been raped, tortured, and killed. They have lived their lives traveling between countries that have no desire for them. As humans they have no rights. In the South Eastern nation of Myanmar, previously known as Burma. war and hardship have broken out between security forces and Rohinga militants. This left hundreds dead and entire villages demolished.
- The Rohingya are a Muslim ethnic minority that have lived in Myanmar for centuries. The Rohingya face daily clashes with the countries security forces, which are predominately Buddhist. Even Buddhist monks have been found to incite violence upon the Rohingya. Some Rohingya muslims live in Bangladesh and Malaysia, where they work illegally. The government in Myanmar refuses to recognize the Rohingya as citizens. The United Nations and other activists groups have accused the government of ethnic cleansing. Today, the Rohingya do not have access to the same resources and services that Myanmar's do. Additionally, they are not allowed to leave their villages in Rakhine without government approval.