A group of Rohingya people Photo: Foreign and Commonwealth Office/Wikimedia Commons
The United Nations has condemned the ongoing security operation targeting the Rohingya minority population in Myanmar as “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.
The High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Raad al Hussein, urged Myanmar to end the “cruel military operation” in the restive Rakhine state.
He told the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva that more than 270,000 people had fled to Bangladesh, with more trapped on the border, amid reports of the burning of villages and extrajudicial killings.
“I call on the government to end its current cruel military operation, with accountability for all violations that have occurred, and to reverse the pattern of severe and widespread discrimination against the Rohingya population,” he added. “The situation seems a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.”
The military campaign began on 25 August, when Rohingya insurgents allegedly attacked dozens of Myanmar police and paramilitary posts in what they said was an effort to protect their ethnic minority from persecution by security forces in the majority Buddhist country.
In response, the military unleashed what it called “clearance operations” to root out Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army militants.
Around 300,000 refugees have since fled over the border into Bangladesh’s border district of Cox’s Bazar, where they have given horrific accounts of the violence. Survivors said the military was targeting civilians with shootings and burning of Rohingya villages in an apparent attempt to purge Rakhine state of Muslims.
Satellite images have supported their accounts, while the bodies of killed Rohingya have been pulled from rivers and others have allegedly been burned.
Some Myanmar officials have claimed civilians are setting fire to their own homes but Zeid called the claims a “complete denial of reality”, which he said was doing “great damage to the international standing” of the government.
But the UN Human Rights chief said he was “appalled” by reports of Myanmar troops planting landmines along the border and also warned India against the potential mass deportations of Rohingya families, who have received death threats and been declared illegal by local officials in Jammu.
Meanwhile, The Dalai Lama, said those carrying out the campaign “should remember Buddha,” adding: “I think in such circumstances Buddha would definitely give help to those poor Muslims.”
He said he had delivered the message to Myanmar’s leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, several years ago at a meeting of Nobel Peace Prize laureates.
