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.