The Rohingya people (/roʊˈɪndʒə, -hɪn-, -ɪŋjə/; historically also termed Arakanese Indians[17][18]) are a stateless[19] Indo-Aryan people from Rakhine State, Myanmar. There were an estimated 1 million Rohingya living in Myanmar before the 2016–17 crisis.[1][20] The majority are Muslim while a minority are Hindu.[21][22][23][24][25] Described by the United Nations in 2013 as one of the most persecuted minorities in the world,[26][27][28] the Rohingya population are denied citizenship under the 1982 Myanmar nationality law.[29][30][31] According to Human Rights Watch, the 1982 laws "effectively deny to the Rohingya the possibility of acquiring a nationality. Despite being able to trace Rohingya history to the 8th century, Myanmar law does not recognize the ethnic minority as one of the eight "national races".[31] They are also restricted from freedom of movement, state education and civil service jobs.[31][32] The legal conditions faced by the Rohingya in Myanmar have been compared with Apartheid.[33][34][35][36][37][38][39]
The Rohingyas have faced military crackdowns in 1978, 1991–1992,[40] 2012, 2015 and 2016–2017. UN officials and HRW have described Myanmar's persecution of the Rohingya as ethnic cleansing.[41][42] The UN human rights envoy to Myanmar reported "the long history of discrimination and persecution against the Rohingya community... could amount to crimes against humanity,"[43] and there have been warnings of an unfolding genocide.[44] Yanghee Lee, the UN special investigator on Myanmar, believes the country wants to expel its entire Rohingya population.[45]
The Rohingya maintain they are among the indigenous communities of western Myanmar with a heritage dating back over a millennium, with influence from the Arabs, Mughals and Portuguese. The community professes itself as the descendants of people in precolonial Arakan and colonial Arakan; historically, the region was an independent kingdom between Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent. Rohingya legislators were elected to the Parliaments of Myanmar until persecution increased in the late-20th century. Despite accepting the term Rohingya in the past,[46][47] the current official position of the Myanmar government is that Rohingyas are not a national race, but are illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh. Myanmar's government has stopped recognizing the term "Rohingya" and prefers to refer to the community as Bengalis.[48] Rohingya campaign groups, notably the Arakan Rohingya National Organization, demand the right to "self-determination within Myanmar".[49]
Probes by the UN have found evidence of increasing incitement of hatred and religious intolerance by "ultra-nationalist Buddhists" against Rohingyas while the Myanmar security forces have been conducting "summary executions, enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests and detentions, torture and ill-treatment and forced labour" against the community.[50][51] According to the United Nations, the human rights violations against the Rohingyas could be termed "crimes against humanity".[51][52]
Before the 2015 Rohingya refugee crisis and the military crackdown in 2016 and 2017, the Rohingya population in Myanmar was around 1.1 to 1.3 million,[53][54][55][1][53] chiefly in the northern Rakhine townships, which were 80–98% Rohingya.[56] Over 900,000 Rohingya refugees have fled to southeastern Bangladesh[4] as well as to other surrounding countries, and major Muslim nations.[57][58][58][59][60][61] More than 100,000 Rohingyas in Myanmar are confined in camps for internally displaced persons.[62][63] Following a Rohingya rebel attack that killed 12 security forces, August 25, 2017, the military launched "clearance operations" that left over 3,000 dead, many more injured, tortured or raped, villages burned, and over 400,000 Rohingya (about 40% of the remaining Rohingya in Myanmar) fleeing to Bangladesh.