Visiting US official can’t go to Rakhine: Myanmar
YANGON: Myanmar said on Friday a visiting US official would not be allowed to go to a region where violence has triggered an exodus of nearly 400,000 Rohingya Muslims that the United Nations has branded a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”.
US deputy assistant secretary of state Patrick Murphy will voice Washington’s concerns about the Rohingya and press for greater access to the conflict area for humanitarian workers, the state department said.
Myanmar officials said he would meet government leaders in the capital, Naypyitaw, and attend an address to the nation by Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday. He would also visit Sittwe, the state capital, and meet the governor of Rakhine, the state government secretary Tin Maung Swe told Reuters, but the north of the state, where the conflict erupted on August 25 would be off limits.
“Not allowed,” Tin Maung Swe said, when asked if Murphy would be going to Maungdaw district, at the heart of the strife that began when Rohingya insurgents attacked police posts and an army camp, killing a dozen people.
While nearly 400,000 refugees have poured across the border into Bangladesh, fears have also been growing of a humanitarian crisis. Myanmar insisted it was not barring aid workers but a government spokesman said authorities on the ground might have concerns over security.
Rights monitors and fleeing Rohingya say the army and Buddhist vigilantes have mounted a campaign of arson aimed at driving out the Muslim population.