Myanmar Muslims living in open-air prison

Thousands of Muslims from the Rohingya community are reportedly living in open-air prisons in Myanmar.

Some 4,000 Rohingya Muslims living in the town of Aung Mingalar, located in the western state of Rakhine, are currently constricted by police checkpoints and Buddhist-populated residential areas.

Aung Mingalar Muslim residents say the checkpoints are placed for the police to be able to prevent Buddhist assaults on the Rohingyas. However, reports say extremist Buddhists can easily gain entrance into the town.

The Rohingya Muslims in Aung Mingalar do not have access to healthcare.

Extremist Buddhists have also been forcing the government to suspend medical operations carried out by the international medical aid agency, Doctors Without Borders, for some 800,000 Rohingyas in the state of Rakhine.

Myanmar’s government has refused to recognize Rohingya Muslims as citizens since a citizenship law was enacted in 1982. It has labeled them as “illegal” immigrants.

Tensions have increased in the country’s western areas over the past few months, after monks from a Buddhist extremist movement gave sermons advocating the removal of all Rohingya Muslims, who comprise 90 percent of the population in Rakhine.

Hundreds of Rohingyas are believed to have been killed and as many as 140,000 others displaced in attacks by extremist Buddhists.