Crackdown On Rohingya Muslims Was A ¡®Campaign Of Terror¡¯, Says UN, Accusing Myanmar Military Of Mass Rapes, Murders

The United Nations in its first official account of a four-month government crackdown on ethnic Rohingya in Myanmar, has said that hundreds of the Muslim minority community members could have been killed during the period.

Reuters

¡°The 'area clearance operations' have likely resulted in several hundred deaths,¡± said the report from the United Nations human rights office, referring to the military crackdown launched on October 10.

The report based on interviews with 204 Rohingya refugees who have fled to Bangladesh said it was ¡°very likely¡± that crimes against humanity had been committed in Myanmar, echoing similar accusations made by UN officials.

Reuters

Victims recounted gruesome violations allegedly perpetrated by members of Myanmar's security services or civilian fighters working alongside the military and police.

The UN also said it had reports of three children aged six or younger being ¡°slaughtered with knives¡±.

A full 47 percent of those interviewed by the UN said they had a family member who had been killed in the operation, while 43 percent reported being raped.

The Rohingya are loathed by many among Myanmar's Buddhist majority.

Yangon refuses to recognise the Rohingya as one of the country's ethnic minorities, instead describing them as Bengalis or illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh, even though many have lived in Myanmar for generations.

Reuters

The military crackdown in Rakhine, home to more than one million Rohingya, was triggered by a series of October 9 attacks on border guard posts. Yangon's own probe into the unrest denied that the security forces had carried out a genocidal campaign against the Rohingya.

Myanmar's government, led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, has said the allegations are invented and has resisted mounting international pressure to protect the minority.

Reuters

But Zeid, who has previously urged Yangon to act, hit back again on Friday demanding that impunity for such serious crimes had to stop.

¡°The Government of Myanmar must immediately halt these grave human rights violations against its own people, instead of continuing to deny they have occurred,¡± he said.