The Rohingya Revisited

Written by:  Regina Paulose

Nearly a year ago, I wrote an article outlining reasons why the ICC should take action in Myanmar (also known as Burma) in order to stop continued religious and ethnic violence towards the Rohingya. During 2013, not surprisingly, the anti-Muslim violence in Myanmar has continued.[1] In fact, violence has spread beyond targeting the Rohingya and against the larger Muslim population.[2] Although, the majority displaced from the violence are still the Rohingya.

The human rights abuses against the Rohingya in Myanmar have continued, which includes but is not limited to extrajudicial killings, random imprisonment,[3] recruitment of child soldiers, violence against women, and policies which endorse statelessness[4] of the minority group. The government has not taken any significant actions to prevent anti-Muslim groups, such as the 969 Buddhists from continuing on their killing spree.[5]

Total population of Refugees and asylum seekers in Malaysia 2013

Figures At A Glance

UNHCR/T.Adnan

Know your numbers

As of end November 2013, there are some 133,614 refugees and asylum-seekers registered with UNHCR in Malaysia.  

- 124,688 are from Myanmar, comprising some 46,999 Chins, 32,611 Rohingyas, 11,555 Myanmar Muslims, 7,940 Rakhine, 3,627 Burmese & Bamars, 5,339 Mon, 4,690 Kachins, and other ethnicities from Myanmar.

- There are some 8,926 refugees and asylum-seekers from other countries, including some 3,711 Sri Lankans, 1,135 Somalis, 801 Iraqis, 339 Afghans, and others from other countries.

Some 74% of refugees and asylum-seekers are men, while 26% are women. There are some 28,885 children below the age of 18.

There are also a large number of persons of concern to UNHCR who remain unregistered. As part of UNHCR’s ongoing data-gathering and analysis, UNHCR believes that there are some 35,000 unregistered asylum-seekers, who UNHCR is progressively working to register.

Know your numbers - worldwide

UNHCR seeks to contribute to informed decision-making and public debate by providing accurate, relevant and up-to-date statistics. Access data, trends and statistical reports on the "People of concern to UNHCR": refugees, asylum-seekers, returned refugees, internally displaced and stateless persons in more than 150 countries.
For more interesting figures about the people we help worldwide, go to Figures at A Glance.
For more refugee stories in statistics, visit the UNHCR Statistics page.