Myanmar’s de facto leader, State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, has canceled a trip to the United Nations in September amid a spiraling crisis inside the country’s Rakhine state.
“And the second reason is we have received reports that there are possibilities of terrorist attacks in our country.”
More than 370,000 minority Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh to escape violence since August 25, according to the United Nations, an average of almost 20,000 a day.
A clearance operation by Myanmar’s military targeting the Rohingya intensified after 12 security officers were killed by militants in co-ordinated attacks on border posts.
The actions of Myanmar’s armed forces have been a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing, ” UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said Monday.
Suu Kyi has been repeatedly criticized over her response to the crisis, particularly given her previous work as a defender of human rights which won her the Nobel Peace Prize.
Former US Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights Tom Malinowski told CNN’s Nima Elbagir he’s “very sad” about Suu Kyi’s response to the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar.
More to come…
