NewsTracker Answers for week of Sep. 18, 2017

Q: Nearly 410,000 members of the Rohingya minority fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh to escape a military offensive that the United Nations has branded a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”. Where are Bangladesh and Myanmar, which is also known as Burma?

Circle the area on this map

Q: The Rohingya people are an ethnic and religious minority who have lived in western Myanmar for centuries. What is the dominant religion in Myanmar?

A. Buddhist

B. Christian

C. Hindu

D. Muslim

A. Myanmar’s people are mostly Buddhist at 87.9%, followed by Christian at 6.2%, Muslim at 4.3%, Animist at 0.8%, and Hindu at 0.5%. The Rohingya Muslims were stripped of their citizenship by Burma’s military rulers in 1982 and declared "non-nationals" or "foreign residents".

Q: Aid officials in Bangladesh warn that the refugees could die due to a lack of food, shelter and water, given the huge numbers fleeing across the country’s 168-mile border with Myanmar. Bangladesh shares a 2,573-mile border with what other nation?

A. Bhutan

B. China

C. India

D. Nepal

C. Bhutan, China and Nepal are close to Bangladesh, but India’s far eastern region wraps around Bangladesh separating it from every other nation but Myanmar. Bangladesh, Burma and India were all once ruled by the British empire.

Q: Troops have been burning Rohingya villages in Myranmar’s Rakhine State on the nation’s western coast. That coast is on what body of water?

A. Arabian Sea

B. Bay of Bengal

C. Gulf of Aden

D. Sea of Okhotsk

B. The Bay of Bengal is the largest bay in the world with waters flowing straight out of the Himalayas through Bangladesh into the bay. It gets its name from the Bengal region which includes Bangladesh, the India’s West Bengal and Myranamar’s Rakhine State. The Rohingya are ethnically Bengals who speak a language related to the Bengali spoken in Bangladesh.

Q: Which nation has more people?

A. Bangladesh

B. Myanmar

A. Bangladesh has nearly 158 million people living in an area slightly smaller than the state of Iowa. Myanmar is about five times the size of Bangladesh with a population of 55 million people.