For decades, the Rohingya people — a minority ethnic group in Myanmar — have been the target of violence and brutality under Myanmar's military regime. In 2017, the military launched a targeted campaign of attacks. Since then, at thousands of people have been killed and over 730,000 were driven into refugee camps in Bangladesh.

In March 2022, the U.S. State Department formally recognized this situation as a genocide. August of this year marked the fifth year of this ongoing genocide which has created one of the largest iterations of today's global refugee crisis. 

There have been a number of concerted efforts to rid the country of the Rohingya through campaigns of unspeakable violence. Human Rights Watch, along with other human rights organizations and watchdogs, report that these campaigns of terror have included mass killings, gang rapes, and relentless torture at the hands of the Burmese security forces. 

In 1982, the Burmese, military-controlled government enacted the Burmese Citizenship Act which defined a total of 135 recognized "national races." This allowed military and government persecution to escalate, and the Rohingya people have been treated as if they are "illegal immigrants" or "stateless" in a country in which many of them were born and have deep ancestral roots. 

To better understand the history and current plight of the Rohingya, we spoke with Raïss Tinmaung, founder of the Rohingya Human Rights Network and Canada Coordinator for the Free Rohingya Coalition. His parents fled persecution in Myanmar in 1978. We also hear from Shayna Bauchner, a researcher at Human Rights Watch in the Myanmar division.