18-DEC-2005
The Rakhine State of Burma, bordering Bangladesh, is inhabited by two main ethnic communities, the Rakhine Buddhist and the Rohingya Muslims. This Muslim minority (approx. 1.4 million), is ethnically and religiously related to the southern Bangladesh. Present in Burma since at least the twelfth century, this minority coexisted relatively peacefully with the Rakhine Buddhists. But after Burma’s independence in 1948, Muslims carried out an unsuccessful armed rebellion demanding an independent state within the Union of Burma.
18-NOV-2005
This resulted in a backlash against the Muslims residents of Arakan. The government efforts to drive them out of Burma, starting with the denial of citizenship. They need authorization to travel outside of their villages, their land is confiscated by the government for use by Buddhist settlers, their mosques are destroyed by the military and they are routinely subjected to forced labor. Facing this continuous persecution, the Rohingya have escaped to Bangladesh in large numbers, with the biggest influx in 1991 and 1992, when about 250,000 of them crossed the border.
18-DEC-2005
Yet trough UNHCR intervention and since the Bangladesh has rejected any possibility of reintegration for the Rohingya, more than 240,000 refugees have returned to Burma. But these refugees who make it to Burma find conditions there worst as before: violence, intimidation systematic contribution practices, compulsory labour, no freedom of movement, no freedom of religion. 90% of the returnees population is landless, 80% of them are illiterate, 64% of the children under 5 suffer from chronic malnutrition and a lack of proper health care has led to an infant mortality rate which is four times the Myanmar average.
http://www.antislavery.org/archive/submission/submission2005-CHRburma1.htm
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/engASA130071997?OpenDocument&of=COUNTRIES%5CBANGLADESH
http://www.refugeesinternational.org/content/article/detail/870/
