Rohingya Muslim minority: The world's most forgotten people

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Tuesday 12 May 2015 - 12:48 Makkah mean time-23-7-1436 (File image) Myanmar, (IINA) - Around 1,600 Muslim refugees from Myanmar and Bangladesh were rescued off the coast of Indonesia on Sunday and detained in Malaysia on Monday. Malaysian officials said Monday that 1,081 Bangladeshi and Rohingya refugees landed on the country’s Langkawi Island. On Sunday, 600 “sad, tired and distressed” migrants were stranded off the coast of the Indonesian province of Aceh, Newsweek magazine reported. Also on Monday, another 400 were found aboard a ship, the BBC reports. Hundreds of those people are believed to be Rohingya, the ethnic Muslim minority in Myanmar who for decades have faced discrimination and persecution in the majority-Buddhist country. The United Nations classified them as one of the most persecuted refugee groups in the world. On her visit to the country earlier this year, Yanghee Lee, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, saw “no improvement” in the way the Rohingya were being treated. “The conditions in Muslim (internally displaced person) camps are abysmal, and I received heartbreaking testimonies from Rohingya people telling me they had only two options: stay and die or leave by boat,” she said in a statement. Myanmar’s President Thein Sein denies there have been human rights abuses against the Rohingya, calling such reports “pure fabrication.” In 1982, the Rohingya were stripped of their citizenship by the government of Myanmar, then known as Burma. The Burma Citizenship Law also restricted their access to education, services and freedom of movement, and allowed property to be taken arbitrarily Advocates fear violence and discrimination against the Rohingya is escalating, fueling a surge in treacherous boat journeys. Last year, more than 40 Rohingyas were massacred in the village of Du Chee Yar Tan by local men, the U.N. confirmed. Among the findings were 10 severed heads in a water tank, including those of children. Earlier this month, dozens of bodies were discovered in smugglers’ camps in Thailand. Many of the victims were believed to be Rohingyas.  SM/IINA