The Stateless Rohingya Blog

Many Muslim Rohingya in Myanmar are still displaced after ethnic clashes drove them from their homes. Al Jazeera Andrew Stanbridge January  20,  2014  Sittwe, Myanmar -  A year and a half ago, an outbreak of violence between Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims here in Sittwe, Myanmar, started a struggle that drove nearly 150,000 Rohingya from their homes and into hastily put-together camps for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). Violent attacks continue to occur across Rakhine state, forcing more and more Rohingya into areas of refuge. Conditions inside the dusty camps are sparse. Those lucky enough to have been allocated official aid buildings live with 10 families in each long house. Those that are still waiting to be assigned space from the government are left to create makeshift shelters out of whatever they can salvage, whether it be empty food bags or dried rice stalks. Temperatures can vary drastically, from searing daytime heat to cold nig...

[Top image: A burned Rohingya mosque in the town of Sittwe, Myanmar.] BY ANDREW STANBRIDGE Roads and Kingdoms Blog January 13, 2014  Of all the challenges that Myanmar’s Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has stared down in her life, the one she faces in 2014 may be the one she fails. She seemingly willed her country to democracy, but as a freed opposition politician she has so far been unable—or, her critics say , unwilling—to help the most vulnerable members of Myanmar society, the Rohingya minority. A year and a half ago, an outbreak of violence between Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims in Sittwe, Myanmar, started a struggle that drove nearly 150,000 Rohingya from their homes and into poorly run Internally Displaced Person (IDP) camps. Photographer Andrew Stanbridge made multiple trips to Sittwe amidst the continuing violence to document the Rohingya’s problematic situation and uncertain future in Myanmar. In the Muslim neighborhood of Aung Mingalar, securit...