audio, stills, text and or video: Go to zReportage.com to see more - As the number of ethnic Rohingya Muslims fleeing Myanmar hits record levels, the prospects for a lasting settlement of the crisis in Myanmar's Rakhine State look bleak. The Arakan Project, a research and advocacy group which monitors Rakhine State, says the number of Rohingyas that have fled western Myanmar since 2012 has now topped 100,000. Obama makes his second trip to Myanmar as president later this week. The emergent democracy appears to be sliding backward as new reforms are declining. Among the growing human rights issues is increased violence targeted at Myanmar's Muslim minorities, particularly the Rohingya, who the government refuses to recognize officially. In 2012 violence broke out between Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims, killing about 200 people. Over the last two years accusations of sexual assault and local disputes have created a flashpoint for violence that has quickly escalated into widespread communal clashes. In January 2014, the UN said that more than 40 Rohingya men, women and children were killed in violence that flared after accusations Rohingyas killed a Rakhine policeman. There is continuing criticism of the government's treatment of the Muslim ethnic Rohingya minority and its poor response to the religious clashes that have occurred throughout the nation, described by human rights organizations as a policy of ethnic cleansing.
© Jack Kurtz/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press
Nov. 7, 2014 - Sittwe, Rakhine, Myanmar - A Rohingya Muslim woman walks through the IDP camp she lives in. The camp doesn't have sewage and water runs through the dirt street after a rain. After sectarian violence devastated Rohingya communities and left hundreds of Rohingya dead in 2012, the government of Myanmar forced more than 140,000 Rohingya Muslims who used to live in and around Sittwe, Myanmar, into squalid Internal Displaced Persons camps.
© Jack Kurtz/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press
Nov. 6, 2014 - Sittwe, Rakhine, Myanmar - A Rohingya laborer carries a 50 kilo (102 pounds) sack of rice to a ration distribution in a Rohingya Muslim IDP camp near Sittwe. The camps are about 20 minutes from Sittwe but the Rohingya who live in the camps are not allowed to leave without government permission.
© Jack Kurtz/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press
Nov. 6, 2014 - Sittwe, Rakhine, Myanmar - Residents of a Rohingya Muslim IDP camp watch some of the kids in the camp play soccer on a dirt pitch in the center of the camp. The Bangladesh government says the Rohingya are Burmese and the Rohingya insist that they have lived in Burma for generations. They are not allowed to work outside the camps, they are not allowed to go to Sittwe to use the hospital, go to school or do business.
© Jack Kurtz/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press
Nov. 6, 2014 - Sittwe, Rakhine, Myanmar - A boy in a school for Rohingya IDPs sits on the floor in the classroom. The camps have no electricity. Water is delivered through community wells.
© Jack Kurtz/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press
Nov. 6, 2014 - Sittwe, Rakhine, Myanmar - A row of latrines in an IDP camp for Rohingya Muslims near Sittwe. There are small schools funded by NOGs in the camps and a few private clinics but medical care is costly and not reliable.
© Jack Kurtz/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press
Nov. 6, 2014 - Sittwe, Rakhine, Myanmar - NOOR AR JUN, 16, feeds her brother, MOHAMMED NOOR, 12, in a private clinic in a Rohingya Muslim IDP camp near Sittwe. The boy has malaria. His parents can't look after him because they are looking for work and food so his oldest sister, Noor, takes care of him.
© Jack Kurtz/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press
Nov. 7, 2014 - Sittwe, Rakhine, Myanmar - SATA RA, 25, a Rohingya Muslim woman, in the doorway of her home.
© Jack Kurtz/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press
Nov. 6, 2014 - Sittwe, Rakhine, Myanmar - Rohingya Muslims tend to their subsistence garden in an IDP camp near Sittwe.
© Jack Kurtz/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press
Nov. 6, 2014 - Sittwe, Rakhine, Myanmar - MOSLOBA HATU, 60, who suffers from multiple illnesses, waits for someone to carry her back to her home in an IDP camp for Rohingya Muslims near Sittwe.
© Jack Kurtz/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press
Nov. 5, 2014 - Sittwe, Rakhine, Myanmar - Women draw cooking water from a community well in a Rohingya Muslim IDP camp near Sittwe.
© Jack Kurtz/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press
Nov. 7, 2014 - Sittwe, Rakhine, Myanmar - A Rohingya Muslim girl in front of her tent in an IDP camp for Rohingya near Sittwe.There are small schools funded by NOGs in the camps and a few private clinics but medical care is costly and not reliable.
© Jack Kurtz/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press
Nov. 7, 2014 - Sittwe, Rakhine, Myanmar - Rohingya Muslim fishermen on a boat in the port of a Rohingya IDP camp near Sittwe.
© Jack Kurtz/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press
Nov. 5, 2014 - Sittwe, Rakhine, Myanmar - MOREYAM, 65, a Rohingya Muslim women, in the doorway of her room in a Rohingya IDP camp near Sittwe.
© Jack Kurtz/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press
Nov. 6, 2014 - Sittwe, Rakhine, Myanmar - ZAW ZAW HLAING, 27, and his daughter, HOWEVER, 6 months, play in a Rohingya Muslim IDP camp near Sittwe.
© Jack Kurtz/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press
Nov. 6, 2014 - Sittwe, Rakhine, Myanmar - Rohingya Muslim men study the Koran in a hut in an IDP camp for Rohingya Muslims near Sittwe.
© Jack Kurtz/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press
Nov. 6, 2014 - Sittwe, Rakhine, Myanmar - MOHAMMED HUSUN, 68, who is blind, prays in a temporary mosque built of palm fronds in an IDP camp for Rohingya Muslims near Sittwe.
© Jack Kurtz/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press
Nov. 7, 2014 - Sittwe, Rakhine, Myanmar - A Rohingya Muslim woman uses her foot powered sewing machine in an IDP camp for Rohingya. She was a seamstress before she was forcibly relocated to the camp and was allowed to bring her sewing machine. Many Rohingya were forced into the camps at gunpoint and not allowed to bring any personal belongings.
© Jack Kurtz/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press
Nov. 7, 2014 - Sittwe, Rakhine, Myanmar - A Rohingya woman on a rickshaw taxi passes a blind beggar on train tracks in an IDP camp for Rohingya Muslims near Sittwe.
© Jack Kurtz/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press
