Ethnic cleansing of Rohingyas is continuing: UN

Yangon, March 6: Myanmar is continuing its “ethnic cleansing” of the Rohingya with a “campaign of terror and forced starvation” in Rakhine state, a UN human rights envoy said on Tuesday, six months after a military crackdown sparked a mass exodus of the Muslim minority.

Some 700,000 Rohingya have fled over the border to Bangladesh since violence erupted in August, taking with them horrifying testimony of murder, rape and arson by soldiers and vigilante mobs.

While the majority of those refugees fled Myanmar last year, Rohingya continue to stream across the border by the hundreds every week. “The ethnic cleansing of Rohingya from Myanmar continues. I don’t think we can draw any other conclusion from what I have seen and heard in Cox’s Bazar,” UN assistant secretary- general for Human Rights Andrew Gilmour said after speaking to newlyarrived Rohingya in Bangladesh’s crowded

The ethnic cleansing of Rohingya from Myanmar continues. I don’t think we can draw any other conclusion from what I have seen and heard in Cox’s Baza — Andrew Gilmour,

UN assistant secy- general

refugee camps.

“The nature of the violence has changed from the frenzied blood- letting and mass rape of last year to a lower intensity campaign of terror and forced starvation that seems to be designed to drive the remaining Rohingya from their homes ,” he said in a statement, adding that new arrivals are travelling from Rakhine towns further from the border.

His statement also said it was “inconceivable” that any Rohingya would be able to return to Myanmar in the near future.