[27][28] The legal conditions faced by the Rohingya in Myanmar have been compared to apartheid[29][30][31][32] by some academics, analysts and political figures, including Nobel laureate Bishop Desmond Tutu, a South African anti-apartheid activist.

[102][21] Due to its coastline on the Bay of Bengal, Arakan was a key centre of maritime trade and cultural exchange between Burma and the outside world, since the time of the Indian Maurya Empire.

[78][119][120] In 1660, Prince Shah Shuja, the governor of Mughal Bengal and a claimant of the Peacock Throne, fled to Arakan with his family after being defeated by his brother Emperor Aurangzeb during the Battle of Khajwa.

[139] According to historian Clive J. Christie, "The issue became a focus for grass-roots Burmese nationalism, and in the years 1930–31 there were serious anti-Indian disturbances in Lower Burma, while 1938 saw riots specifically directed against the Indian Muslim community.

The British armed Muslims in northern Arakan in order to create a buffer zone that would protect the region from a Japanese invasion when they retreated[147] and to counteract the largely pro-Japanese ethnic Rakhines.

[150] Aye Chan, a historian at Kanda University in Japan, has written that as a consequence of acquiring arms from the British during World War II, Rohingyas[note 3] tried to destroy the Arakanese villages instead of resisting the Japanese.

Sultan Ahmed, who served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Minorities, was a member of the Justice Sir Ba U Commission charged with exploring whether Arakan Division should be granted statehood.

The election was won by the National League for Democracy led by Aung San Suu Kyi, who was placed under house arrest and not permitted to become prime minister.

[177] From 1971 to 1978, a number of Rakhine monks and Buddhists staged hunger strikes in Sittwe to force the government to tackle immigration issues which they believed to be causing a demographic shift in the region.

[139] The Economist argued that since the transition to democracy in Burma in 2011, the military has been seeking to retain its privileged position, forming the motivation for it to encourage the riots in 2012 and allowing it to pose as the defender of Buddhism against Muslim Rohingya.

[139] In 2015, to escape violence and persecution, thousands of Rohingyas migrated from Myanmar and Bangladesh, collectively dubbed as 'boat people' by international media,[205] to Southeast Asian countries including Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand by rickety boats via the waters of the Strait of Malacca and the Andaman Sea.

[217] Following the attacks, reports emerged of several human rights violations allegedly perpetrated by Burmese security forces in their crackdown on suspected Rohingya insurgents.

[218] Shortly after, the Myanmar military forces and extremist Buddhists started a major crackdown on the Rohingya Muslims in the country's western region of Rakhine State in response to attacks on border police camps by unidentified insurgents.

[218][220] The military crackdown on Rohingyas drew criticism from various quarters including the United Nations, human rights group Amnesty International, the US Department of State, and the government of Malaysia.

[257] (By 15 September, that number had surpassed 400,000[246]) The situation was expected to exacerbate the current refugee crisis as more than 400,000 Rohingya without citizenship were trapped in overcrowded camps and in conflict regions in Western Myanmar.

[260] Some reports suggest that the Myanmar military has ceded some border outposts to rebels armed with wooden clubs as part of encouraging Rohingyas to leave the country.

[246][243] On 19 September 2017, Myanmar's civilian leader, State Councillor Aung San Suu Kyi, made a major televised speech on the crisis—in English—stating "We condemn all human rights violations and unlawful violence," and indicated a desire to know why the Rohingya were fleeing.

But Suu Kyi largely defended her prior position supporting the Myanmar military and its actions, and deflected international criticism by saying most Rohingya villages remained intact, and conflict had not broken out everywhere.

[265][266][267] In other cases, in Myanmar and in Bangladeshi refugee camps Hindu (particularly women) are reported to have faced kidnapping, religious abuse and "forced conversions" by Muslim Rohingyas.

Families in Cox's Bazar told HRW that relatives on Bhasan Char are being held without freedom of movement or adequate access to food or medical care, and face severe shortages of safe drinking water.

[280] The underground National Unity Government, formed as an opposition to the authoritarian State Administration Council, issued recognition of the war crimes committed by the Tatmadaw against the Rohingya people for the first time, which was hailed as a major step toward ethnic reconciliation.

Including 100 men from four villages in Buthidaung Township, they undergo 14 days of basic training while the junta promises them ID cards, a bag of rice, and a monthly salary of US$41.

[291][292] On 26 March 2024, Arakan Army leader, Twan Mrat Naing, posted two tweets where he posited that calling Rohingya people living in Myanmar "Bengali" is not malicious in itself.

[297] An investigation by the media channel Al Jazeera English, along with the group Fortify Rights, found that the Myanmar military was systematically targeting the Rohingya population because of its ethnicity and religion.

[1][317] According to a 2016 study published in the medical journal The Lancet, Rohingya children in Myanmar face low birth weight, malnutrition, diarrhoea, and barriers to reproduction on reaching adulthood.

[318][319] Médecins Sans Frontières claimed that the discrimination and human rights challenges which the Rohingya people have faced at the hands of the country's government and military are "among the world's top ten most under-reported stories of 2007.

[326] Members of the Rohingya community were displaced to Bangladesh where the government of the country, non-governmental organisations and the UNHCR gave aid to the refugees by providing them with homes and food.

[328] Despite earlier repatriation efforts by the UN, the vast majority of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh are unable to return to Myanmar due to the communal violence which occurred there in 2012 and their fear of persecution.

[338][339] Researchers from the International State Crime Initiative at Queen Mary University of London suggest that the Myanmar government is in the final stages of an organised process of genocide against the Rohingya.

[220] However, Charles Petrie, a former top UN official in Myanmar, commented: "Today using the term [genocide], aside from being divisive and potentially incorrect, will only ensure that opportunities and options to try to resolve the issue to be addressed will not be available.