Few people skirt the peripheries of humanity the way Burma's Rohingyas do.
They are deemed "not human" by the very people who should protect them - Burma's government’s military generals.
"There is no peace, income, or justice in my country," says Abdul from the relative sanctuary of Cox’s Bazar, a port town in east Bangladesh.
His voice breaks momentarily as memories of home revive themselves.
The country Abdul lovingly refers to is neighboring Myanmar, the land where 21 years ago he was born and grew up; in the Rohingya community in the western state of Arakan.
Home Sickness and Exodus
"I miss my country very much. That is the country where the midwife cut off the cord linking me to my mother’s womb when I was born. I came here because I have no other choice," he adds.
Abdul fled to Bangladesh in Feb. 2009, as an illegal migrant.
It was an exodus fuelled by years of being forced to work as an unpaid laborer for the Myanmar border security force — the NaKaSa — and being refused official permission to marry his 19-year-old-fiancée Hamida for five years.
He now works as a manual laborer, living in a slum in foreign land.
Abdul says: "Life in Myanmar was not nice. There is always [a] call for forced labor or to pay arbitrary taxes. I had to repair NaKaSa houses and clean their courtyard. We had to supply them with chickens. If we could not supply a chicken we had to pay 2,000 Kyats — the currency of Myanmar — so that they could buy one from the market."
"There is a sentry duty and the NaSaKa patrols visit sentry posts in the evening, the middle of the night, and the early morning. During early morning, most watchmen became tired and drowsy."
"If they found anyone asleep they fined us one chicken, and they also beat us up for sleeping on duty. [But,] my main problem was my engagement of my wife. We could not obtain permission to marry.�
His story is not unusual. Abdul is from Myanmar’s Rohingya community.The one-million-strong-Sunni-Muslim-community is the nation’s largest Islamic group.
Systematic Discrimination
Myanmar is overwhelmingly a Buddhist country; a mere 3 million of its 58 million people are Muslim. But Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, and Muslims have peacefully lived together for centuries.
Since it came to power in a violent coup in 1962, Myanmar’s military dictatorship has imprisoned and mistreated many of its people, regardless of their ethnicity or faith. The Rohingyas, however, have been singled out for especially cruel treatment.
The community was stripped of citizenship rights — and rendered stateless — in 1982 when a change in law also restricted Rohingya marriages and freedom to move and work.
A report released by human rights group Amnesty International (AI) in 200, highlighted how Rohingya communities in north Arakan were regularly forced to work for the NaKaSa, forcibly evicted from their land, and had to get official permission to marry.
Rohingyas, many of whom are poor, are also banned from holding governmental jobs.
They must apply for travel permits to move outside their villages, and are forced to pay arbitrary taxes. In addition, they must routinely pay large bribes to get consent to marry and travel.
These are all local orders or laws others in Myanmar are not subject to.Burma's junta has tightened its policies as the Arakan Project — an NGO — shows.
In 2005, new rules were introduced in Rohingya to make couples need to get official permission to have more than two children. Moreover, Rohingya grooms must be clean-shaven unless they are maulvis (religious clerics).
Although consent to marry often depends on paying huge bribes, the consent is often denied. And, those who marry "illegally" face the threat of imprisonment if caught.
Human rights groups have also documented reports of Rohingyas being raped and tortured. Many mosques in Arakan are being razed by the junta as far back as 1978.
It is a planned, methodical way to persecute and dehumanize an entire group of people.
Abdul now hopes to carve out a new life in Bangladesh.
He married Hamida in Cox’s Bazar in Feb. 2009; and works on a construction site, earning 180 takas a day— more than the double of his salary as a laborer in Myanmar.
But, the promising future is overshadowed by sadness, because he was forced to leave behind his mother, younger brother, and sister in Arakan, and he doubts he will see them again.
He says: "Movement is free here. Work can also be found here, but I cannot attain the peace I had in my own country. I felt sad because I left my village forever, but I consoled myself thinking that I had no other option."
There was no point of feeling sorry. I also felt angry and asked myself: "Why do I need to leave my own country? Why I cannot say openly and loudly that Myanmar is my country, and that I have the right to live there with dignity and rights? I do not think all Burmese people are bad."
"I saw that some NaSaKa officers are very good […]I do not know why the government and their people discriminate against us."
Documents from the junta, documented by human rights activists of Amnesty International, show that the regime views Rohingyas as sub-humans.
The junta’s entrenched prejudice against the community was reinforced in Feb. 2009 when Ye Myint Aung, the Consul General of Myanmar in Hong Kong, said in a public letter that Rohingyas were not from Myanmar, and they were dark-skinned and "ugly as ogres".
"The discrimination Rohingyas face is rooted in racism, religion, history, and politics," says Bertil Lintner, a Thailand-based Rohingya expert.
He added that Rohingyas were being singled out because they claim that they are a separate ethnic group; a stance that has angered many Burmese who view it as a separatist position.
In addition, Brumese were angry because Rohingyas sided with the British during the Second World War while the majority of Burmese supported the Japanese.
Mr. Lintner said: "[It’s] pure racism. People of sub-continental origin are called kala in Myanmar - a pejorative."
"Rohingyas look different from other people in Myanmar; their religion is different so they are convenient scapegoats. The way Rohingyas are being treated is a form of ethnic cleansing - prejudice against people who look as if they come from the sub-continent, and it is worse as they are Muslims."
Racism and Persecution
"I am surprised the world's Muslim countries are constantly ignoring the plight of the Rohingyas. Their future is pretty bleak."
Benjamin Zawacki, Amnesty International's South East Asia researcher, said: "While not wanting to quantify persecution, all ethnic minorities are persecuted in Myanmar, but the Rohingyas are among the worst persecuted, if not the very worst, especially from the standpoint of systemic persecution — in addition to direct persecution."
The regime sees them as not even human, and while it discriminates against all non-Buddhists on religious grounds — as well as against many Buddhists on ethnic, political, and historical grounds — it despises the Rohingyas particularly for their Muslim religion."
For the one million Rohingyas who have escaped from Myanmar since the 1970s, seeking refuge in countries including Bangladesh, Thailand, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Saudi Arabia, dreams of dignity have evaporated.
Most have been denied official refugee status by the governments of these countries, and they live in fear of being forcibly repatriated as illegal migrants.
Mr Lintner added: "Thailand does not recognize Rohingyas as refugees; Rohingyas are treated as illegal migrants, because they do not want to encourage an "influx" of a lot more refugees, and they simply do not care about these people."
Silent Muslim World and International Community
"Rather than the Myanmar junta pressuring its neighbors not to accept refugees, those neighbors are reluctant to antagonize the Burmese. Trade is more important than human rights. The international community is letting the Rohingyas down."
The United Nations Refugee Agency, the UNHCR, has been allowed limited access to Rohingyas inside Myanmar. It has helped more than 200,000 people to get better access to healthcare and around 36,000 people to education.
But, the UNHCR has been refused permission by other nations to determine the official status of the majority of Rohingyas outside Myanmar.
"There is actually almost nowhere in the world where the Rohingyas have any legal status, even in their own country they do not have it, because the Rohingyas do not have any advocates in the world."
"No country has really taken up their cause. Look at the Palestinians, for example, they have a lot of countries on their side. The Rohingyas do not have any friends in the world," said Kitty McKinsey, the spokesman for the UNHCR in Asia.
For many Rohingyas, the risk of being caught leaving their country is better than living in Myanmar.
The stakes are high; refugees have been known to die while trying to flee.
Those caught by the Myanmar authorities trying to escape face up to five years in jail for violating immigration laws.
Their plight was momentarily thrown into the spotlight earlier this year when the Thai government faced criticism for forcing more than 1,000 Rohingyas — who fled to Thailand — to leave in boats without engines and without proper food supplies.
The ensuing international outcry prompted limited progress.
In Jan. 2009, Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said that Bangkok planned to convene regional talks to help Rohingyas, and the issue is set to be discussed at the Bali Process talks in April.
Yet, Bangkok will have its work hindered. Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi was reported in the Bangkok Post as saying Malaysia would force Rohingya refugees out of the country.
So, the future for people, like Abdul, depends precariously on governments' interests.
But, the tide looks unlikely to turn for the Rohingyas, forced out from their homes and then again from their exile.
There is no promised land for these people - Myanmar’s unwanted one.
Rajeshree Sisodia is a British freelance reporter and photographer and was based in New Delhi, India, from February 2005 until late 2008. She had trained and worked as a journalist in London before moving to the sub-continent where she covered news and social issues. She reported from areas including Kashmir, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Bhopal in India and from Afghanistan. Her work has been published in newspapers, magazines and websites including the South China Morning Post, UK Independent on Sunday, Times of London and Al Jazeera’s English-language website.