Full Story: <br /><br />Thousands of Rohingyas flee from Myanmar each year on rickety boats seeking refuge and jobs in Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia, but the number has swelled since unrest last year. <br /><br />After independence in 1948, Myanmar's new rulers tried to limit citizenship to those whose roots in the country predated British rule. <br /><br />A 1982 Citizenship Act excluded Rohingya from the country's 135 recognized ethnic groups, denying them citizenship and rendering them stateless. <br /><br />Bangladesh also disowns them and has refused to grant them refugee status since 1992. <br /><br />The government puts their number at one-point-three-three-million in the country of 60-million people, and say one-point-zero-eight-million are in Rakhine State. <br /><br />Only about 40-thousand have citizenship. <br /><br />Myanmar's transformation from global pariah to budding democracy once seemed remarkably smooth. <br /><br />After nearly half a century of military dictatorship, the quasi-civilian government astonished the world by releasing dissidents, relaxing censorship and re-engaging with the West. <br /><br />Then came the worst sectarian violence for decades. <br /><br />Clashes between Rakhine Buddhists and stateless Rohingya Muslims in June and October 2012 killed at least 192 people and displaced 140-thousand. <br /><br />Most of the dead and homeless were Muslims. <br /><br />From October 2012 to March 2013, between the monsoons, about 25-thousand Rohingya left Myanmar on boats, according to new data from Arakan Project, a Rohingya advocacy group. <br /><br />That was double the previous year, turning the Rakhine problem into a region-wide one. <br /><br />While many in Myanmar deem the Rohingyas as immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh, authorities in Dhaka do not recognise them as Bangladeshi. <br /><br />Many Rohingyas have perished in the rickety boats they use to flee persecution in Myanmar. <br /><br />Even for those who survive treacherous sea crossings their future in neighbouring countries like Bangladesh, Thailand and Malaysia is uncertain and plagued with poverty and violence.
