About 800,000 Rohingya live in Myanmar, according to the UN, mostly in western Rakhine state, which has been swept by fierce sectarian violence in recent days.
Speaking a Bengali dialect similar to one in southeast Bangladesh, the Sunni Muslim Rohingya have long been treated as "foreign" by the government and many Burmese, a situation activists say has fostered rifts with Rakhine's Buddhists.
Unwanted both by Myanmar and neighbouring Bangladesh - where there are an estimated 300,000 Rohingya - many live in abject poverty with few if any rights or means to support themselves.
Images of squalid camps and reports of perilous attempts to flee to other countries in rickety boats have drawn international attention to their plight in recent years, but their living conditions have scarcely improved.
Myanmar has a multitude of ethnic groups, many of whom have conducted sporadic armed rebellions since independence from Britain in 1948.
But the Rohingya are not officially recognised, partly because of a 1982 law stipulating that minorities must prove they lived in Myanmar prior to 1823 - before the first Anglo-Burmese war - to obtain nationality.
Representatives of the Rohingya say their people were in Myanmar long before then.
"As well as being stateless, Myanmar's Rohingyas are confronted with other forms of persecution, discrimination and exploitation," the United Nation's refugee agency (UNHCR) said in a report published in December.
Such measures included forced labour, restrictions on freedom of movement, lack of land rights, education and public services, it said.
"The Rohingya are virtually friendless amongst Myanmar's other ethnic, linguistic and religious communities," the UNHCR report said.
They are also subject to a rule, embedded in marriage licences, that they are only permitted to have two children, according to rights groups.
Two huge waves of refugees, of approximately 250,000 people each, flooded across the border into Bangladesh in 1978 and 1991-92. Large scale repatriations ensued, with the UN questioning the "voluntary" nature of the moves.
Bangladesh sees the Rohingya people as a major burden on its strained finances and the refugees are blamed for all sorts of crimes in the southeast of the country, ranging from petty theft to drug trafficking.
In recent years, Rohingya migrants have undertaken dangerous voyages by boat towards Malaysia or Thailand, whose navy has in the past been accused of towing them back out to sea.
Around one million Rohingya are now thought to live outside Myanmar, including communities in Pakistan and around 400,000 in Gulf states, according to the UNHCR.
In Rakhine state, they are concentrated mainly in three districts - Maungdaw, Buthidaung and Rathedaung - and many view them with hostility as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, referring to them as "Bengali".
That animosity extends outside the state and even includes key figures in Myanmar's democratic movement, long supported by the West.
"We want to say clearly that Rohingya are not one of the Myanmar ethnic nationalities," Ko Ko Gyi, a prominent former political prisoner and student activist, told AFP on Saturday.
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the un should take action now what they doing should be help the helpless family becouse they now lake of food so immedately see about a place for live in wright now meadhi
Pakistanis (Biharis): Stateless and "friendless" in Bangladesh (about 300,000 of them, for the last 40 years)
Bangladesh is a country which encourages illegal immigrants......if cannot feed why produce.......
We all love cats. Keep a cat captivated in a room for 2 days without any food and drink, and after that open the door to look into them. What do expect to find? When I can't feed my child, when I have to give bribe to someone with cost of the medicine for my mother, do you think that I should act like someone from the most socialized countries?
Plight of Rohingya is no different from the Biharis who were stranded in Bangladesh . Stranded Biharis were not accepted in Bangladesh, Pakistan and India and became stateless persons.Can we say that a minority albeit illegal immigrants has stayed in for generations can be denied acceptance as a citizen? There are two conflicting issues. The majority gets threatened by influx of illegal immigrants which changes the composition of the society and then you have the illegal immigrants who are economically desperate to cross borders by any means. To term a desperate ethnic group as terrorist is not consistent with humanitarian principles and Buddhism. Rohingyas are no different from Kachins and Shan minorities who are in conflict with Burmese central state . This issue of illegal migration is world wide phenomenon and particularly effects the first world . Bangladesh needs to address its population problem . It has the one of the highest density in the world. The present population growth in Bangladesh is not sustainable with the limitation of resources which are available. Bangladesh population bomb is now a problem to all the adjoining regions
The Guardian reports that there is long-standing tension between the Rohingyans and the Burmese. They report that "the unrest was triggered by the rape and murder last month of a Buddhist girl, allegedly by three Muslims, and the lynching of 10 Muslims on 3 June in apparent retaliation. There are long-standing tensions between the two groups."
If only Burma granted citizenship to the Rohingya people - one of the world's most repressed communities - perhaps this violence wouldn't have occurred in the first place!!
Myanmar is a multi-culture country made up with eight major ethnic groups and over 100 minor ethnic groups. All people living in Myanmar live in peace with all religions and never discriminate to minorities. In the case of Rohingyas, they are not one of the ethnic groups of Myanmar but are the illegal immigrants of Bengaladish. Myanmar people never mistreated to them but the Rohingyas are killing the native Arakaneses and burning down many Arakan villages in the recent riots. The recent riots are not the religious conflict but the terriost attack of the Rohingyas. There are plenty of proofs, photos & videos, that will clearly show the Rohingyas are the ones attacking the Arakans and the Arakans have to flee from their native land, their properties destroyed, their houses burnt down. In order to bring "Peace" in the whole world, no one should support terrorism. No media should minipulate the truth & lie to the world. Stop supporting the terrorists & their terrorism as it might one day risk the whole world peace. Any one who are in doubt of this truth, you are welcome to Rakhine region of Myanmar (BURMA) to see for yourself & only believe what you see with your own eyes. For those who cannot come, please feel free to ask any Myanmar friend or any Myanmar you see on facebook or twitter, they all will say the same truth. Please do not believe what are on the news. Don't get deceived by lies. Millions of Myanmar around the world will say the truth. Myanmar people are not racists. We lived in peace with all races & religions for hundred of years. We respect all race & religion. We love peace but we are against Terrorism. Please be wise and check the news u read or hear before you believe. Please help Myanmar to fight against Terrorism & to bring Peace.
"“We want to say clearly that Rohingya are not one of the Myanmar ethnic nationalities,” Ko Ko Gyi, a prominent former political prisoner and student activist, told AFP on Saturday"
The article doesn't even try to dispute or support what Mr. Ko Ko is saying. So I am not any wiser in understanding if rohingya are just Bengali migrants or not even after reading the article.
Rohingyas are not a single ethnic group. They have their origins in Bengal and are distinct from Mongoloid population in Burma. Population explosion in Bangladesh with its high attendant migration across the border has raised ethnic tension in neighboring countries as in North Eastern states in India and Burma. Bangladesh refuses to accept the fact that most of these illegal migrants across the borders are Bangladeshi in origin