UN to investigate Rakhine violence, asks for more time

FE Online Desk | Published: September 19, 2017 19:07:29 | Updated: October 19, 2017 06:43:34

The UN has announced it will investigate reports of mass killings, torture, sexual violence, and the burning of Rohingya villages in Burma.

However, the UN on Tuesday asked for six more months to look into allegations, according to local private television channel Channel 24.

Initial findings would be released within about 10 days, said Marzuki Darusman, President of the Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar. His team was supposed to deliver its full report in March. But Darusman that timeframe was “utterly insufficient” and asked for the extension of time, as per a report on Reuters. 

He said the team "will go where the evidence leads us" but warned that he still needs a clear signal from the Burmese government that they will be allowed into the country, as per a report on Independent UK. 

He also called for the Burmese government to release its own investigation in the violence in Rakhine state which was completed in August.

But the Burmese ambassador to the UN, Htin Lynn, said the investigation was "not a helpful course of action" and said Burma was taking proportionate security measures against terrorists to restore peace.

At least 400,000 people are believed to have fled over the border into Bangladesh since August 25 to escape widespread rape, murder and the destruction of whole villages in the western state of Rakhine by the Burmese military and mobs from the country's Buddhist-majority population.

Desperate refugees have reportedly been seen climbing over wire border fences in an attempt to escape and the Burmese military are reportedly laying land mines to ensure they do not return.

One fleeing Rohingya told reporters that ethnic Rakhine Buddhists came to the villages and shouted: "leave or we will kill you all".

The Geneva-based council has previously said the violence was a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing" and urged the Burmese military to end operations in the region, grant access to humanitarian groups and commit to aiding the safe return of civilians to their homes.

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