Background Rohingyas, with a population of nearly 1.1 million, are mostly Muslims living largely in Myanmar’s western coastal state of Rakhine and also in Bangladesh, Thailand and Malaysia. There are about 40,000 of them also living as illegal migrants in India. According to a World Bank report, 78 percent of the Rohingyas are living in a state of abject poverty and are considered as the ‘most oppressed ethnic community in the world’.