“He urges all leaders in Myanmar to take a unified stance against incitement to hatred and to promote communal harmony,” said Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq.
“The Secretary-General reiterates the importance of addressing the root causes of the violence and the responsibility of the Government of Myanmar to provide security and assistance to those in need,” the UN spokesperson said, adding that it is critical that conditions are put in place to ensure that the Rohingya are able to return home voluntarily, in safety and in dignity.
General U Min Aung Hlaing, during a speech to a military gathering in Kachin State, referred to the ethnic Rohingya community as “Bengalis”, according to a report in the Dhaka Tribune.
The report quoted him as saying that the “Bengalis do not have any characteristics or culture in common with the ethnicities of Myanmar. The tensions (in Rakhine State) were fuelled because the ‘Bengalis’ demanded citizenship.”
The Rohingya ethnic and religious minority have faced decades of intense persecution in Myanmar, including statelessness through denationalisation, exclusion from healthcare and education, and violent oppression by the military.
But violence against the minority reached a new zenith beginning last August, with a systematic pogrom against the Rohingya by the military, including the murder of civilian men, women and children – including by burning alive – the razing of villages and rape being used as a weapon of war.
The UN has said the persecution “bears all the hallmarks of genocide”.
More than 650,000 Rohingya, the majority of them children, have been forced to flee over Myanmar’s border into Bangladesh, where they remain in squalid camps, at risk of flooding, landslides and disease outbreaks as monsoon season approaches.
