Over the past year, military operations against Rohingya villages have been so intense and cruel that the minority’s defenders have warned of an unfolding genocide. The United Nations has reported that the army may have committed ethnic cleansing. The inhumane treatment of the Rohingyas has tarnished the image of Myanmar’s civilian leader and Nobel peace prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, once a famously unflinching defender of human rights and darling of the West. She now faces international fury, particularly from Muslim nations, for failing to stand up to armed forces chief General Min Aung Hlaing, whose soldiers are accused of rape, murder, arson, and of ripping Rohingya babies from their mothers’ arms and throwing them into rivers and fire.
Ms Suu Kyi has publicly stuck to the military’s line that the Rohingya are illegally squatting on the Burmese territory, leaving fellow . The latest military crackdown, which began on August 25, caused almost 90,000 Rohingyas to flee under fire to squalid, overflowing relief camps across the Bangladeshi border in just two weeks. Officially close to 400 people had died by early September, but human rights activists claim to have confirmation of at least 1,000 deaths and believe the figure is much higher. The death toll will inevitably rise after Burma, also known as Myanmar, blocked UN agencies from delivering vital food, water and medicine supplies to 250,000 Rakhine residents desperately in need.
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