A series of coordinated attacks by Rohingya insurgents on Myanmar security forces in the north of Myanmar's Rakhine State triggered a crackdown by Myanmar forces that has sent a stream of Rohingya villagers fleeing to Bangladesh. About 400 people have been killed in the clashes in Buddist-majority Myanmar.

A Rohingya man passes a child though a barbed wire border fence on the border with Bangladesh. Myanmar accused the Rohingya insurgents of torching seven villages, one outpost, and two parts of Maungdaw town.

The crackdown by Myanmar forces also sparked a mass evacuation of thousands of Buddhist residents of the area. Tension has long been high between the Rohingya Muslims and Rakhine Buddhists, leading to bloody rioting in 2012. Rakhine Buddhists, feeling unsafe after the upsurge in fighting, are moving south to the state's capital, Sittwe, where Buddhists are a majority and have greater security.

Bangladeshi border guards block people from crossing. Thousands of Rohingyas have sought to flee the fighting to Bangladesh, with nearly 30,000 crossing over. Bangladesh, which is already host to more than 400,000 Rohingya said it will not accept any more refugees, despite an appeal by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for Dhaka to allow Rohingya to seek safety.

An aid worker with an international agency in Bangladesh reports: "What we're seeing is that many Rohingya people are sick. This is because they got stuck in the border before they could enter. It's mostly women and children." The Rohingya are denied citizenship in Myanmar and classified as illegal immigrants, despite claiming roots there that go back centuries.

A group of Rohingya refugees takes shelter at the Kutuupalang makeshift refugee camp in Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh. Bangladesh's unwillingness to host more refugees became apparent in the government's plan to relocate Rohingyas to a remote island that is mostly flooded during the monsoon season.

Rohingya children make their way through water as they try to come to the Bangladesh side from no man's land. Tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees are believed to be stuck at the border to Bangladesh.

Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of Myanmar's assassinated founding father Aung San, returned to her home country in the late 1980s after studying and starting a family in England. She became a key figure in the 1988 uprisings against the country's military dictatorship. Her National League for Democracy (NLD) was victorious in 1990 elections, but the government refused to honor the vote.

Suu Kyi spent 15 of the 21 years between 1989 and 2010 under house arrest. After 1995, the rights advocate was barred from seeing her two sons and husband, Michael Aris, even after the latter was diagnosed with cancer. Aris, seen here displaying an honorary doctorate awarded to his wife, died in 1999.

Suu Kyi's determination to bring democracy and human rights to her country won her international renown, including the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize. She was so popular that in 2011 famous French director Luc Besson made a biopic of her life starring Malaysian actor Michelle Yeoh. Suu Kyi was often called the world's most famous political prisoner.

Decades of campaigning finally paid off, and in 2012 Suu Kyi was allowed to run in free elections. She won a seat in parliament as Myanmar began its transition away from military government. After general elections in 2015, she became the country's de facto civilian leader, although officially she held the post of foreign minister and state counselor — a role akin to prime minister.

Rohingya, a mostly Muslim ethnic group, had their citizenship revoked by Myanmar's Buddhist-majority government in 1982. Long persecuted, their plight intensified in 2016 when Myanmar's military began what it called "clearance" of illegal immigrants. Groups such as Human Rights Watch have described it as "ethnic cleansing." Thousands have died, and hundreds of thousands have fled their homes.

When she became state counselor in 2016, Suu Kyi set up a commission to investigate claims of atrocities against the Rohingya in Rakhine state. Suu Kyi accused the Rohingya of spreading "a huge iceberg of misinformation," and said she was concerned by the "terrorist threat" posed by extremists. Her stance sparked protests in Muslim-majority countries around the world.

Due to her handling of the Rohingya crisis, Suu Kyi was stripped of various honors and lost much of her international support. The Nobel committee was forced to issue a statement saying that her peace prize could not be revoked. Fellow Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai called on Suu Kyi to "stop the violence." Suu Kyi said that outsiders could not grasp the complexities of the situation.

In 2020, Myanmar's ruling National League for Democracy party won the November 8 general election, with enough seats to form the next government. However, the military's proxy party, the Union Solidarity and Development party, claimed fraud and demanded a new election supervised by the military. With that came comments alluding to a possible coup. Supporters of the party also marched in protest.

Myanmar's civilian leader, along with several of her political allies, were detained in an early morning raid on February 1, 2021 led by the military. The move came amid escalating tensions between the civilian government and army, which had been in control for decades.The junta claimed electoral fraud, announced a yearlong state of emergency and named a former general as acting president.