Faye Journal of International Humanitarian Action https://doi.org/10.1186/s41018-021-00098-4 Journal of International Humanitarian Action (2021) 6:13 RESEARCH ARTICLE Open Access A forced migration from Myanmar to Bangladesh and beyond: humanitarian response to Rohingya refugee crisis Malang Faye Abstract It is widely agreed that the Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar are currently named as the most persecuted minority in the world. The racial prosecution is triggered by the decades of longstanding insurgency between the Government of Myanmar and the Rohingya Muslims over the issues of religious and ethnic discrepancy. This article presents the measures taken by the international community to stop these mass killings. The article offers critical insights into strategies used by Myanmar’s government to suppress the Rohingyas. This study highlights the rights violation and humanitarian struggle faced by the Rohingya people and the humanitarian response to the crises by the international community. Keywords: Human rights, Refugee, Prosecution, Rohingya, Intervention Introduction Located in Southeast Asia, Myanmar is a least-developed country. The country was proclaimed as Burma by the 1947 constitution. The name was later changed to Myanmar by the then military junta. The 2008 constitution’s official name of the country is “The Republic of The Union of Myanmar” (Mohajan 2018). The population of Myanmar is estimated at 54.5 million people according to the UN 2020 midyear data. Myanmar’s population is equivalent to 0.7% of the total world population. The country’s total land area is 653,290 km2 (252,237 sq. mi) (Worldometer 2020). Myanmar is among the most diverse countries in the world. Throughout history, settlers from various ethnic backgrounds have moved around the great horseshoe of mountains which encircled the Irrawaddy river plain. The Myanmar 1974 constitution (now being revised) established seven ethnic minority states (the Chin, Kachin, Karen, Kayah (formerly Karenni), Mon, Rakhine (or Arakan), and Shan) and seven divisions, which are largely Correspondence: fayemalang@gmail.com School of Arts and Science, The University of The Gambia, Serrekunda, The Gambia inhabited by the majority Burman population (Smith 2002). These minority groups are estimated to make up at least one-third of Myanmar’s population and inhabit half of the land cover (Smith and Allsebrook 1994). Myanmar was annexed by the British during three wars which were carried out between 1824 and 1886. The British occupation of Myanmar lasted for over 60 years. Before the British occupation of Myanmar, interethnic harmony was in a very good shape, until the unwelcome meddling of British rule in the nineteenth century. During this period, ethnic tensions stuck between different communities, dangerously inflamed by the divide and rule tactics of the colonial government. This division set the various ethnic groups on extremely separate ways towards economic and political development, resulting in communal violence in many instances in their history. Nevertheless, Myanmar’s historians have pointed fingers to the British for favouring ethnic minorities during colonial rule and had equally damaging consequences for ethnic minority aspirations, as ethnic minority lands were divided into separate political districts, and none was administered based on nationality (Smith and Allsebrook 1994). © The Author(s). 2021 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.