End Rohingya ‘nightmare’, says UN chief to Yangon

COX’S BAZAR: United Nations chief Antonio Guterres exhorted Myanmar’s leaders to end the “nightmare” faced by Rohingya refugees fleeing an army campaign, after at least 19 people drowned, with scores more feared dead, when a boat carrying Rohingya families capsized off Bangladesh.

More than half a million Rohingya Muslims have poured into Bangladesh in the last month, fleeing a vicious Myanmar military crackdown on Rohingya rebels that has gutted villages across northern Rakhine state.

Scores have drowned while trying to cross waters separating the two countries, while those who survive face new dangers as they cram into squalid refugee settlements where food and clean water are in short supply.

The billowing humanitarian crisis prompted the UN Security Council to hold its first meeting on Myanmar in eight years, though the member countries failed to arrive at a joint resolution.

The United States slammed the army for trying “to cleanse the country of an ethnic minority”, while Beijing and Moscow offered support to Myanmar authorities, who rebuffed allegations that ethnic cleansing was underway.

Speaking to the 15-member council, Guterres urged Myanmar to halt military operations and open humanitarian access to the conflict-wracked western region.

“The situation has spiralled into the world’s fastest developing refugee emergency, a humanitarian and human rights nightmare,” he said, adding that the “systemic violence” could cause unrest to spill south to the central part of Rakhine state, threatening 250,000 Muslims with displacement. AFP

REUTERS PIC Bodies of Rohingya refugee children, who died after their boat capsized as they were fleeing from Myanmar, are transported to their resting place during the funeral just behind Inani Beach near Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, yesterday.