Anti-migrant protests planned in Myanmar’s troubled Rakhine

 Buddhist hardliners in Myanmar’s troubled Rakhine state are planning a day of protest against local authorities helping desperate boat migrants found adrift in the Bay of Bengal, organisers said on Sunday.

Rakhine, one of Myanmar’s poorest states, is a tinderbox of communal tension between its Buddhist majority and a heavily persecuted <g data-gr-id="12">Rohinghya</g> Muslim minority, many of whom live in displacement camps after deadly unrest erupted there in 2012. A regional migrant crisis is upending a fragile equilibrium that has since settled on the state.

Tens of thousands of Rohingya have fled Myanmar in recent years, alongside Bangladeshi economic migrants, primarily headed for Malaysia and Indonesia.