Arakan massacres in 1942

During World War II, Japanese forces invaded Burma, then under British colonial rule. The British forces retreated and in the power vacuum left behind, considerable inter communal violence erupted between Buddhist Rakhine and Muslim Rohingya villagers. The British armed Rohingyas in northern Arakan to create a buffer zone from Japanese invasion when they retreated.[1]

The period also witnessed violence between groups loyal to the British and Burmese nationalists.[1]

Inter communal violence

Aye Chan, a historian at the Kanda University, has written that as a consequence of acquiring arms from the British during World War II, Rohingyas tried to destroy the Arakanese villages instead of resisting the Japanese.[2]

Rohingya Muslims from Northern Rakhine State killed around 50,000 Arakanese, including the Deputy Commissioner U Oo Kyaw Khaing, who was killed while trying to settle the dispute. [3]

Persecution by the Japanese forces

Defeated, 50,000 Arakaneses eventually fled to the Dinaspur Chittagong Division of Bangladesh after repeated massacres by the Rohingya and Japanese forces.[4]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Field-Marshal Viscount William Slim (2009). Defeat Into Victory: Battling Japan in Burma and India, 1942–1945. London: Pan. ISBN 0330509977.
  2. ↑ Chan (Kanda University of International Studies), Aye (Autumn 2005). "The Development of a Muslim Enclave in Arakan (Rakhine) State of Burma (Myanmar)" (PDF). SOAS Bulletin of Burma Research 3 (2): 396–420. ISSN 1479-8484. Retrieved 3 July 2013.
  3. ↑ Kyaw Zan Tha, MA (July 2008). "Background of Rohingya Problem": 1.
  4. ↑ Asian profile, Volume 21. Asian Research Service. 1993. p. 312. Retrieved 12 April 2011.

External links

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