We remember, in the 1960s, we had to declare our cameras or any electronic gadgets while entering India. This was a little strange to us as it is not done in any airport around the world. Interestingly, at customs, my wife had to sign a declaration describing the kind of jewellery she was carrying into Myanmar and the customs officer told my wife that she had to show her jewellery when exiting. The officer spoke good English and was very courteous. After an hour and a half, we were at Yangon airport - modern, very clean and surprisingly not crowded. A huge wave of Rohingya people began fleeing the violence in summer 2017, going to nearby Bangladesh.When I saw the advertisement of Biman-Bangladesh Airlines in the newspaper saying that they were opening a new route Dhaka-Yangon-Dhaka from 9th December, 2013, I decided to go on a short trip to Myanmar. In 2017, a group of Rohingya militants attacked the Myanmar army, sparking another wave of anti-Rohingya persecution.

Some Rohingya people have put up violent resistance. Myanmar has also imposed strict regulations on birth control and marriage, only allowing Rohingya in some townships in Rakhine State to have two children and restricting the marriages of some Rohingya. Rohingya people cannot access social services or education, and their movement outside of Rakhine State is closely restricted. Today, the Rohingya are considered illegal immigrants by Myanmar, and are not recognized under the law. Another targeted campaign, вЂњOperation Clean and Beautiful Nation,вЂќ pushed another 200,000 people out of the country. Rohingya people began fleeing to nearby Bangladesh in huge numbers. During вЂњOperation King Dragon,вЂќ Burmese military forces targeted the Rohingya people, and were accused of human rights abuses including rape, destruction of houses and villages, and mass arrests. When Myanmar became a military state in 1962, the Rohingya became victims of state-sponsored persecution. Myanmar refuses to recognize the term as one that refers to the regionвЂ™s Muslim minority. Though Myanmar recognizes 135 distinct ethnic groups, the Rohingya are not one of them. No rightsДЄs non-citizens, Rohingya people lack basic rights within Myanmar and are considered stateless. In 1982, Myanmar passed a citizenship law that denied the Rohingya people citizenship, too. Instead Myanmar worked to cast out the Rohingya people, excluding them from its constitution. Nor did it acknowledge the Rohingya-a name adopted by a group of the descendants of both Arakan State Muslims and later migrants to Burma. The government didnвЂ™t provide for a Muslim state, either. Myanmar gained its independence from Britain in 1948. But though Muslims had lived in Burma for centuries, and though Britain promised the Rohingya an autonomous state in exchange for their help in WWII, it never followed through, and the Burmese people resented what they saw as an incursion of uninvited workers. During that time, other Muslims from Bengal entered Burma as migrant workers, tripling the countryвЂ™s Muslim population over a 40-year period. Burma in turn was conquered by Britain in 1824, and until 1948 Britain ruled Burma as part of British India. Muslim settlers came to Arakan State, an independent coastal kingdom in what is now Myanmar, starting in the 1430s, and a small Muslim population lived in Arakan State when it was conquered by the Burmese Empire in 1784. The story of that persecution has its roots in BritainвЂ™s colonization of Burma, and modern-day MyanmarвЂ™s refusal to recognize the existence of a people who have existed for thousands of years. The ethnic minority is considered вЂњthe most persecuted minority in the worldвЂќ by the United Nations. Myanmar is a majority-Buddhist state, but the Rohingya people are primarily Muslim, though a small number are Hindu. Most live in Rakhine State on MyanmarвЂ™s western coast. The Rohingya people are an ethnic group from Myanmar, once called Burma.

Beautiful in myanmar language