Abadi urges U.N. action on Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims massacre
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has urged the United Nations to take action regarding reported human rights abuses by the government of Myanmar against Rohingya Muslims.
In a statement late Tuesday, Abadi urged the international organization to take a “firm” action regarding “systematical genocides of the Rohingya minority in Rakhine state carried out by the Burmese government”. He said that action should “correspond with the extent of violations mentioned in the report by the fact-finding panel appointed by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)”.
On Tuesday, U.N. secretary-general, António Guterres, urged Myanmar’s government to end the violence that has led more than 120,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee in the last two weeks, warning that the situation could “destabilise the region”.
Nearly 400,000 of the Muslim ethnic minority are estimated to be trapped in conflict-hit areas in western Myanmar since more “clearance operations” by security forces in Rakhine state began in August, according to the U.N.
U.N. humanitarian agencies have said they were blocked from Myanmar, with food and medicine supplies prevented from Rohingya regions.
The UN said Tuesday that nearly 123,600 of Rohingya Muslims had reached Bangladesh in recent days, and expected up to 15,000 more to cross the Naf river into Bangladesh each day this week.