With over 270,000 vulnerable people displaced, hundreds killed, and access to humanitarian workers and journalists denied, the UN Secretary General has warned of a risk of ethnic cleansing in Rakhine State in Myanmar. At its 36th session starting today, the UN Human Rights Council must urgently act to prevent further atrocities and investigate and pursue accountability for those that have occurred, a group of 44 international and regional NGOs have said.
In an open letter to all governments ahead of the Human Rights Council, the NGOs referred to ‘credible reports of death to villagers resulting from security force attacks, and the use of helicopters and rocket propelled grenades on the civilian population’. Observing that ‘access to northern Rakhine State has been denied to independent observers and humanitarian aid agencies…leaving the territory under a virtual information blackout and exacerbating a humanitarian catastrophe’, the NGOs called on the Council to urgently act ‘by passing a resolution on Myanmar calling for an end to abuses against the population and ensuring immediate humanitarian access’.
Photo: Human Rights Watch
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