Who are the Rohingya of Myanmar?

The Rohingya are an ethnic minority that has lived in Myanmar for generations — and according to Human Rights Watch, they're victims of an ongoing ethnic cleansing.

Myanmar recently emerged from half a century of military dictatorship, but democracy hasn't come for all of its citizens. The Rohingya have been burned out of their homes, massacred, held in de facto open-air prisons and were recently excluded from the country's first census in 30 years.

Facing abuse and marginalization, many Rohingya have fled to neighboring Southeast Asian countries aboard crowded wooden boats navigated by smugglers. The journey by sea has proven dangerous, and at times deadly, for thousands.