GENEVA: Myanmar鈥檚 security forces may be guilty of genocide against the Rohingya Muslim minority, the United Nations鈥� top human rights official said on Tuesday, adding that more were fleeing despite an agreement between Myanmar and Bangladesh to send them home.
Zeid Ra鈥檃d Al-Hussein, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that none of the 626,000 Rohingya who have fled violence since August should be repatriated to Myanmar unless there was robust monitoring on the ground.
Myanmar鈥檚 Ambassador Htin Lynn said that his government was working with Bangladesh to ensure returns of the displaced in about two months and 鈥渢here will be no camps.鈥�
Zeid, who has described the campaign in the past as a 鈥渢extbook case of ethnic cleansing,鈥� was addressing a special session of the UN Human Rights Council called by Bangladesh, which is struggling to accommodate Rohingya who have fled.
He described 鈥渃oncordant reports of acts of appalling barbarity committed against the Rohingya, including deliberately burning people to death inside their homes, murders of children and adults; indiscriminate shooting of fleeing civilians; widespread rapes of women and girls, and the burning and destruction of houses, schools, markets and mosques.鈥�
鈥淐an anyone 鈥� can anyone 鈥� rule out that elements of genocide may be present?鈥� he told the 47-member state forum.
The United Nations defines genocide as acts intended to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group in whole or in part. A UN convention requires all countries to act to halt genocide and to punish those responsible.
Shahriar Alam, Bangladesh鈥檚 junior foreign affairs minister, told the session in Geneva that his country was hosting nearly one million 鈥淢yanmar nationals鈥� following summary executions and rapes 鈥渁s a weapon of persecution.鈥�
Mainly Buddhist Myanmar denies the Muslim Rohingya are its citizens and considers them foreigners.
These crimes had been 鈥減erpetrated by Myanmar security forces and extremist Buddhist vigilantes,鈥� Alam said, calling for an end to what he called 鈥渪enophobic rhetoric..including from higher echelons of the government and the military.鈥�
Zeid urged the Council to recommend that the UN General Assembly establish a new mechanism 鈥渢o assist individual criminal investigations of those responsible.鈥�
Prosecutions for the violence and rapes against Rohingya by security forces or by civilians 鈥渁ppear extremely rare,鈥� Zeid said.
Marzuki Darusman, head of an independent international fact-finding mission on Myanmar, said by video from Malaysia: 鈥淲e will go where the evidence leads us...Our focus is on facts and circumstances of allegations in Myanmar as a whole since 2011.鈥�
His team has interviewed Rohingya refugees, including children in the Bangladeshi port city of Cox鈥檚 Bazar, who recounted 鈥渁cts of extreme brutality鈥� and 鈥渄isplayed signs of severe trauma.鈥�
Myanmar has not granted the investigators access to Rakhine, the northern state from which the Rohingya have fled, he said. 鈥淲e maintain hope that it will be granted early in 2018.鈥�
Pramila Patten, special representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, who interviewed survivors in Bangladesh in November, said: 鈥淚 heard the most heart-breaking and horrific accounts of sexual atrocities reportedly committed in cold blood out of a lethal hatred of these people solely on the basis of their ethnicity and religion.鈥�
Crimes included 鈥渞ape, gang rape by multiple soldiers, forced public nudity and humiliation, and sexual slavery in military captivity,鈥� Patten said.
Myanmar denies committing atrocities against the Rohingya. Its envoy Htin, referring to the accounts, said: 鈥淧eople will say what they wanted to believe and sometimes they will say what they were told to say.鈥�
Kelley Currie, US ambassador to the UN Economic and Social Council, said the Rohingya鈥檚 lack of Myanmar citizenship was 鈥渢he fundamental root cause of this crisis,鈥� adding: 鈥淪top denying the seriousness of the current situation.鈥�
UN: Myanmar forces may be guilty of genocide against Rohingya
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