The Stateless Rohingya Blog

Rohingya migrants sit on a police van in southern Thailand. Pic: AP. By   Washington Post Editorial May 16, 2014 FOR SOME time now, tens of thousands of  Rohingya Muslims  have been  fleeing persecution  and economic deprivation in Burma, also known as Myanmar, by boat. While some go off to work and send money home, others have staked all on a permanent exodus, setting sail in search of better times. They don’t always find it. Hundreds have died at sea and others have been pulled into a growing vortex of human smuggling. In 2013,  Reuters published a series of remarkable articles  that added a new dimension to the Ro­hingya exodus. The news service said its investigation showed that some Thai naval security forces work with smugglers to profit from the fleeing Rohingya. In a July 17 dispatch , Reuters said the lucrative smuggling network transports the Ro­hingya mainly into Malaysia, a Muslim-majority nation that the Rohingya view as ...

Halima, 30, a pregnant mother of five, cooks rice at a camp in Sittwe, Burma. The U.N. and other groups are providing food for more than 115,000 displaced Rohingyas, but thousands more displaced must fend for themselves. Jason Motlagh Washington Post February 11, 2013 SITTWE, Burma — Abu Kassim clutched his stomach and heaved forward, replaying the moment his uncle was shot dead last summer, one of scores of people who were killed as sectarian violence engulfed western Burma. Abu Kassim, 26, and his ethnic Rohingya family have since survived on handouts in a makeshift camp on the fringe of this coastal city, unable to return home or look for work beyond military checkpoints. “There are no opportunities here for us, no hope,” he said. “We are prisoners.” Now, he’s convinced there is only one way out: to cross the Bay of Bengal by boat to join fellow Muslims in Malaysia. Abu Kassim is far from alone. Eight months after unrest between Arakanese Buddhists and Burma...