FN-källa: 27 400 rohingya har flytt till Bangladesh

Burma (officiellt Myanmar (svenskt uttal: /ˌmjanˈmaː/, burmesiskt uttal: [mjəmà]), även kallat Myanmar/Burma), formellt Republiken Unionen Myanmar (burmesiska: ပြည်ထောင်စု သမ္မတ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်‌), är en suverän stat och det till ytan största landet på det sydostasiatiska fastlandet. Det gränsar i norr till Kina, i väst till Bangladesh, till Indien i nordväst, i öst till Laos och i sydost till Thailand. Burmas sydkust sträcker sig längs Andamansjön och i sydväst finns Bengaliska viken. Rangoon var fram till 2005 landets huvudstad; den nuvarande är Naypyidaw. Burma blev självständigt från Storbritannien 1948 och blev en förbundsrepublik. Sedan en militärkupp 1962 fram till 2011 bestod landets styre av en rad militärjuntor som förde en medveten isoleringsstrategi, och Burma räknas idag som ett av världens minst utvecklade länder. Ett stort problem är landets stora produktion av heroin, samt spridningen av HIV och aids. Landets kultur är i huvudsak baserad på theravada-riktningen av buddhismen. I november 2010 genomfördes de första parlamentsvalen sedan 1990, och en ny regering tillträdde 2011 samtidigt som militärjuntan formellt upphörde att styra landet. Valet 2010 bojkottades dock av oppositionspartiet Nationella demokratiska förbundet, ledd av Aung San Suu Kyi. I november 2015 hölls nästa parlamentsval och Nationella demokratiska förbundet vann en majoritet av platserna i parlamentets båda kammare och makten att utse landets kommande president, vilket de gjorde 2016. Burma är medlemsland i Förenta nationerna (sedan 19 april 1948) och Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The Rohingya people (, , , or ) are Muslim Indo-Aryan peoples from the Rakhine State, Myanmar. According to the Rohingyas and some scholars, they are indigenous to Rakhine State, while other historians claim that the group represents a mixture of precolonial and colonial immigrations. The official stance of the Myanmar government, however, has been that the Rohingyas are mainly illegal immigrants who migrated into Arakan following Burmese independence in 1948 or after the Bangladesh liberation war in 1971. Muslims have settled in Rakhine State (also known as Arakan) since the 15th century, although the number of Muslim settlers before British rule is unclear. Despite debates concerning its origins, the term "Rohingya", in the form of Rooinga, first appeared in 1799 in an article about a language spoken by Muslims claiming to be natives of Arakan. In 1826, after the First Anglo-Burmese War, the British annexed Arakan and encouraged migrations from Bengal to work as farm laborers. The Muslim population may have constituted 5% of Arakan's population by 1869, although estimates for earlier years give higher numbers. Successive British censuses of 1872 and 1911 recorded an increase in Muslim population from 58,255 to 178,647 in Akyab District. During the Second World War, the Arakan massacres in 1942 involved communal violence between British-armed V Force Rohingya recruits and Buddhist Rakhine people and the region became increasingly ethnically polarized. After Burmese independence in 1948, the mujahideen rebellion began as a separatist movement to merge the region into the East Pakistan and continued into the 1960s, along with the Arkanese Independence Movement by Rakhine Buddhists. The rebellion left enduring mistrust and hostilities in both Muslim and Buddhist communities. In 1982, General Ne Win's government enacted the Burmese nationality law, which denied Rohingya citizenship, rendering a majority of Rohingya population stateless. Since the 1990s, the term "Rohingya" has increased in usage among Rohingya communities. Prior to the 2015 Rohingya refugee crisis and the military crackdown in 2016 and 2017, the Rohingya population in Myanmar was around 1.1 to 1.3 million They reside mainly in the northern Rakhine townships, where they form 80–98% of the population. Many Rohingyas have fled to neighbouring Bangladesh, to areas along the border with Thailand, and to the Pakistani city of Karachi. More than 100,000 Rohingyas in Myanmar live in camps for internally displaced persons, not allowed by authorities to leave. Probes by the UN have found evidence of increasing incitement of hatred and religious intolerance by "ultra-nationalist Buddhists" against Rohingyas while the Burmese security forces have been conducting "summary executions, enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests and detention, torture and ill-treatment and forced labour" against the community. International media and human rights organizations have often described Rohingyas as one of the most persecuted minorities in the world. According to the United Nations, the human rights violations against Rohingyas could be termed as "crimes against humanity". Rohingyas have received international attention in the wake of the 2012 Rakhine State riots, the 2015 Rohingya refugee crisis, and the 2016–17 military crackdown.