This has widely been compared to apartheid[43][44][45][46] by many international academics, analysts, and political figures, including Desmond Tutu, a famous South African anti-apartheid activist.

[71] In May 1946, Muslim leaders from Arakan met with Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, and asked for the formal annexation of two townships in the Mayu region, Buthidaung and Maungdaw, into East Bengal (present-day Bangladesh).

[citation needed] Two months later, the North Arakan Muslim League was founded in Akyab (present-day Sittwe, capital of Rakhine State), which also asked Jinnah to annex the region.

After Jinnah's refusal, proposals were made by Muslims in Arakan to the newly formed post-independence government of Burma, asking for the concession of the two townships to Pakistan.

[13][73] Led by Mir Kassem, the mujahideen began targeting government soldiers stationed in the region and capturing territory, in the process driving out local ethnic Rakhine communities from their villages, some of whom fled to East Bengal.

Burmese Prime Minister U Nu immediately sent a Muslim diplomat, Pe Khin, to negotiate a memorandum of understanding so that Pakistan would cease assisting the mujahideen.

Hundreds of ethnic Rakhine Buddhists began hunger strikes in Rangoon (present-day Yangon) in protest of the attacks and to encourage the government to respond.

The governments of Burma and Pakistan began negotiating on how to deal with the mujahideen at their border, and on 1 May 1961 the Mayu Frontier District was established in Arakan to appease the Rohingya.

[76] On 4 July 1961, 290 mujahideen in southern Maungdaw Township surrendered their arms in front of Brigadier-General Aung Gyi, who was Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Burma Army at the time.

[49] However, dozens of mujahideen remained under the command of Moulvi Jafar Kawal, 40 under Abdul Latif, and 80 under Annul Jauli; all these groups lacked local support and unity, which led them to become rice smugglers around the end of the 1960s.

[citation needed] Under Ne Win's military rule, Burmese authorities turned increasingly hostile towards the Rohingyas and implemented policies to exclude them from having citizenship.

Kawal appointed himself chairman of the party, Abdul Latif as vice-chairman and minister of military affairs, and Muhammad Jafar Habib, a graduate of Rangoon University, as secretary general.

RSO possessed a significant arsenal of light machine-guns, AK-47 assault rifles, RPG-2 rocket launchers, claymore mines and explosives, according to a field report conducted by correspondent Bertil Lintner in 1991.

[89] On 28 October 1998, the armed wing of the RSO and ARIF and formed the Arakan Rohingya National Organisation (ARNO), operating in-exile in Cox's Bazar.

[93] According to government officials in the mainly Rohingya border town of Maungdaw, the attackers brandished knives, machetes and homemade slingshots that fired metal bolts.

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

[102][103] In early August 2017, the Burmese military resumed "clearance operations" in northern Rakhine State, worsening the humanitarian crisis in the country, according to a report by the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) released on 11 October 2017.

[105] A one-month unilateral ceasefire was declared by ARSA on 9 September 2017, in an attempt to allow aid groups and humanitarian workers safe access into northern Rakhine State.

[106][107][108] In a statement, the group urged the government to lay down their arms and agree to their ceasefire, which would have been in effect from 10 September until 9 October (the one-year anniversary of the first attacks on Burmese security forces by ARSA).

[114] However, much of the agricultural land abandoned by Rohingya refugees have been seized by the government,[115] and a vast majority of them do not have any official documents certifying that they have lived in the Rakhine State prior to the violence, due to their statelessness.

Intense clashes broke out on 22 April around the Tha Htay hydropower plant in northern Thandwe Township, reportedly leading to the deaths of "dozens" of junta soldiers.

[126] On 7 June, clashes broke out between the Arakan Army and junta forces north of Thandwe, with fighting inching steadily closer to the city over the following days.

[129] On 26 June, the Arakan Army seized the headquarters of the junta's Battalion 566, forcing military troops to retreat to the town's airport and hotels inside the city.

[130] Militia reinforcements brought by the regime from across Myanmar, as well as shelling from navy ships offshore, were unable to stop the Arakan Army's continued progress in its offensive.

[156] The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated on 31 July 2018 that 128,000 Rohingyas were internally displaced inside of Rakhine State.

[27][28] At the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly in late September 2018, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina stated that her country was hosting at least 1.1 million Rohingya refugees, and asked international leaders to help support an "early, peaceful solution" to the humanitarian crisis.

[160] There remains an estimated 18,000 Rohingya asylum seekers in India, most of whom were smuggled into the country illegally and made their way to cities with significant Muslim populations like Hyderabad and Jammu.

[165] Following the August 2017 ARSA attacks and the subsequent crackdown by the military, photos were released by Burmese officials allegedly showing several Rohingyas setting fire to buildings in their own village.

An investigation by Reuters in August 2018 found that over a thousand derogatory posts and comments against Rohingyas and other Muslims were viewable on Facebook, despite the company's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, pledging to U.S. senators four months prior to hire more Burmese language reviewers to combat the problem.

[172] The report also stated that the military's intelligence arm began a campaign in 2017 to incite civil discord between Buddhists and Muslims, sending false warnings of future attacks via Facebook Messenger, purporting to be from news sites and celebrity fan pages.