UN rights official accuses Myanmar of continuing with ethnic cleansing of Rohingyas

A senior UN Human Rights official said that ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims by Myanmar is still continuing more than six months after attacks of Myanmar police outposts in Rakhine state by Arakan insurgents which sparked massive retaliation by the Myanamar military, according to The Irrawaddy News Online.

Andrew Gilmour, the UN assistant secretary-general for human rights made the above comment after a four-day visit to Cox’s Bazzar district in Bangladesh where he met Rohingya Muslims who recently fled from Myanmar.

“I don’t think we can draw any other conclusion from what I have seen and heard in Cox’s Bazaar,” Gilmour said in a statement.

Gilmour spoke to refugees who recounted abductions by security forces and at least one apparent death of a Rohingya man in custody in February, according to the statement.

The statement added:  “The nature of the violence has changed from the frenzied blood-letting and mass rape of last year to a lower intensity campaign of terror and forced starvation that seems to be designed to drive the remaining Rohingyas from their homes and into Bangladesh.”

Gilmour further said that safe and sustainable returns to Myanmar by the Rohingyas are impossible under the present circumstances despite Myanmar promise to accept back the refugees under a pact signed with Bangladesh in November.