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 Britain’s colonization of Burma, and modern-day Myanmar’s refusal to recognize the existence of a people who have existed for thousands of years. The ethnic minority is considered “the most persecuted minority in the world” 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 Myanmar’s western coast. The Rohingya people are an ethnic group from Myanmar, once called Burma.
