The Rohingyas are widely considered to be the most persecuted people in the world. Though they have lived in what is now southwestern Myanmar for hundreds of years, the Burmese government denied the Rohingyas citizenship at the country’s independence from Britain. This statelessness, and the bigotry underlying it, has led to waves of violence, forced labor, rape, and murder. In August 2017, the persecution reached a fevered pitch. After a Rohingya separatist group the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (“ARSA”) killed twelve members of Myanmar’s security forces, the military retaliated with disproportionate brutality razing villages, raping women, and murdering thousands of innocent people. During this campaign, more than 725,000 of the 1.2 million Burmese Rohingyas fled across the border into Bangladesh.6 At least 6,700 Rohingyas, including at least 730 children under the age of five, were killed in the month after the violence broke out.
Elliot Higgins