The Stateless Rohingya Blog

Young Rohingya girls stay at a primary school several kilometers outside of Sittwe, where hundreds of Rohingyas took shelter from a storm in May. (Photo: JPaing / The Irrawaddy) By Lawi Weng The Irrawaddy   January 13, 2014 RANGOON — Hundreds of Rohingya university students in Arakan State have been prevented from continuing higher education pursuits, with authorities saying their safety cannot be guaranteed more than a year after communal violence tore through the region. Universities in several Arakan townships were shuttered to all students in the immediate aftermath of the 2012 violence, but while Rohingya Muslims say their education has been put on indefinite hold, their Buddhist counterparts have since been allowed to continue their studies and some have gone on to graduate. Rohingya students from Sittwe and Buthidaung townships told The Irrawaddy on Monday that state authorities claimed that they could not provide security to Rohingya seeking to re-en

By Wakar Uddin Myanmar Times January 13, 2014 Myanmar is uniquely rich with an array of cultures, traditions and linguistic attributes. While diversity can be one of this country’s strengths, it has also sowed the seeds of discord for too long. Instead of helping Myanmar become a leader in Asia, it has held the country back, stifling development and creating chronic insecurity for its people. A Rohingya man sits in a mosque in Sittwe township shortly after it was damaged by a Buddhist mob in October 2012. Photo: Kaung Htet The precise identity and the composition of ethnic minorities in Myanmar have always been quite vague and often arbitrary. Although the government has officially put the number of ethnic minority groups at 135, many have challenged this number and the official list of categories. Some claim they have been left off the list; others say there are too many categories. The citizenship of one particular ethnic group, the Rohingya – of which I am a member