UN Denounces Lack of Humanitarian Access to Myanmar's Rakhine State

Rasa - The UN humanitarian aid chief announced that thousands of Rohingya Muslims continue to flee from Myanmar to Bangladesh and the United Nations is bracing for a possible “further exodus”.

News ID: 432947

Date: 07 October 2017 - 16:47

RNA - Around 515,000 Rohingya have arrived in Bangladesh from Myanmar’s Western state of Rakhine in six weeks since the end of August, aawsat reported.

Rights groups say more than half of more than 400 Rohingya villages in the North of Rakhine State have been torched in a campaign by the security forces and Buddhist vigilantes to drive out Muslims.

Mark Lowcock, head of the United Nations humanitarian office reiterated an appeal for access to the population in Northern Rakhine, saying the situation was “unacceptable”.

"Half a million people do not pick up sticks and flee their country on a whim," Lowcock added, stressing that the scale of the exodus was evidence of a severe crisis in Northern Rakhine.

Myanmar has closed most access to the area, but a couple of agencies have offices open there and the International Committee of the Red Cross is helping the Myanmar Red Cross to deliver aid.

“This flow out of Myanmar has not stopped yet, it’s into the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya who are still in Myanmar, we want to be ready in case there is a further exodus,” Lowcock told a news briefing in Geneva.

The UN has "substantial capacity" in Myanmar which can be quickly deployed to Northern Rakhine once clearance is granted.

Myanmarese authorities, led by de facto leader and Noble peace prize winner Aug San Suu Kyi, have been tightly controlling access to the state since last month when purported attacks by Rohingya militants prompted a brutal military response that has forced over 515,000 Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh.

The violence, backed by radical Buddhist monks, has left scores of Rohingya villages torched and completely destroyed.

Rohingya-majority Rakhine has been emptied of half of its Muslim population over the past weeks and more people are on the move as unspeakable acts of violence continue against the Rohingya.

Many witnesses and rights groups have reported systematic attacks, including rape, murder and arson, at the hands of the army and Buddhist mobs against Rohingya Muslims.

The UN has described the government-sanctioned crackdown on Rohingya as “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.”

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