UN urges Myanmar's Suu Kyi to meet persecuted Rohingya minority

The number of Myanmar refugees arriving in Bangladesh has risen to 480,000, prompting the UN refugee agency to call for international aid to be redoubled.

A new deluge of refugees since August 25 has put pressure on the existing camps in Bangladesh, which were already home to 300,000 Rohingya Muslims who had fled earlier unrest in Myanmar. September 24, 2017
AFP

A new deluge of refugees since August 25 has put pressure on the existing camps in Bangladesh, which were already home to 300,000 Rohingya Muslims who had fled earlier unrest in Myanmar. September 24, 2017

Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi should personally meet members of the Muslim Rohingya minority which is being subjected to ongoing persecution by the military, a group of UN human rights experts said on Tuesday. 

Myanmar has rejected UN accusations that its forces are engaged in ethnic cleansing against Rohingya Muslims in response to coordinated attacks by Rohingya insurgents on the security forces on August 25.

"We call on Aung San Suu Kyi to meet the Rohingya personally," the officials, who include the special rapporteurs on human rights in Myanmar on minority issues and on racism, said in a statement.

They said the implementation of promises by Suu Kyi to address the crisis, including that perpetrators would be held accountable, would amount to an "empty gesture" since so many Rohingya had fled.

TRT World and Agencies

The UN refugee agency called for a redoubling of international aid for the 480,000 refugees. September 25, 2017.

Suu Kyi is the Nobel Peace prize winner whose government came to power last year in a transition from nearly 50 years of harsh military rule. She has denounced any rights violations but international pressure on her is mounting and there are calls for her Nobel prize to be withdrawn.

Suu Kyi has little if any control over the security forces under a military-drafted constitution that also bars her from the presidency and gives the military veto power over political reform.

TRT World and Agencies

A Rohingya refugee womans forehead bleeds as she jostles for aid in Coxs Bazar, Bangladesh on September 20, 2017.

Refugees on the rise

The number of refugees arriving in Bangladesh from Myanmar since August 25 has risen to 480,000, international aid bodies said on Tuesday. The figure had risen because 35,000 new arrivals had not been included in a previous tally.

"The change in the new arrivals figure ... is due, in large part, to the additional estimated 35,000 new arrivals settling in the two refugee camps, which was not reported in the last situation report," the Inter-Sector Coordination Group of aid agencies said in a statement.

The UN refugee agency called for a redoubling of international aid for the 480,000 refugees – 60 percent of them who are children.

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'Crimes against humanity'

Myanmar is committing crimes against humanity in its campaign against Muslim insurgents in Rakhine state, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Tuesday. HRW called for the UN Security Council to impose sanctions and an arms embargo.

A Myanmar government spokesman rejected the accusation of crimes against humanity, saying there was no evidence.

"The Burmese military is brutally expelling the Rohingya from northern Rakhine state," said James Ross, legal and policy director at New York-based HRW.

"The massacres of villagers and mass arson driving people from their homes are all crimes against humanity."

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