Rohingya Muslims pleaded with the international community at the first United Nations high-level meeting on the plight of the ethnic minority to prevent the mass killings taking place in Myanmar and to help those in the persecuted group lead normal lives.
“This is a historic occasion for Myanmar, but this is long overdue,” Wai Wai Nu, the Rohingya founder and executive director of the Women’s Peace Network-Myanmar, told ministers and ambassadors from many of the UN’s 193-member nations in the General Assembly Hall.
The Rohingya and other minorities in Myanmar have suffered decades of displacement, oppression and violence, while seeing no action in response to determinations that they are victims of genocide, she said.
“That cycle must end today,” Wai Wai Nu said.
The United States in 2022 said it had determined that members of the Myanmar military committed crimes against humanity and genocide against the Rohingya.
UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi, who recently visited Myanmar, told the high-level meeting on Tuesday that Bangladesh is now hosting close to 1.2 million Rohingya refugees, and since fighting reignited in Rakhine in 2024 between the military and the Arakan Army, an additional 150,000 have sought safety in the neighbouring country.
The Arakan Army, the well-armed military wing of the Rakhine ethnic minority, which seeks autonomy, now controls almost all of Rakhine state, Grandi said, and the situation of the Rohingya there has not improved.
They still face discrimination, the burning of their villages, exclusion from work, a ban on moving freely, restricted education and health care and the threat of arrest, he said.
“They are subjected to forced labour and forced recruitment” and “their lives are defined every day by racism and fear,” Grandi said.
Julie Bishop, the UN special envoy for Myanmar, said there was little sign that the political crisis could be settled, with no agreed ceasefire, pathway to peace or political solution.
Rofik Huson, founder of the Arakan Youth Peace Network, told the assembly that despite decades of persecution the Rohingya’s “deepest wish” is to live in their ancestral homeland, Myanmar, in peace and security.
“Yet, the past decade has shown that it’s not possible for us without international support, without international pressure.”
He called for the creation of a UN-supervised safe zone in northern Rakhine state along the border with Bangladesh.
Maung Sawyeddollah, founder of the Rohingya Student Network said without self-determination for the Rohingya and international protection in Rakhine there can be no lasting peace.
“The UN must mobilise resources to empower Rohingya,” he told world leaders. — AP
Rohingya Muslims pleaded with the international community at the first United Nations high-level meeting on the plight of the ethnic minority to prevent the mass killings taking place in Myanmar and to help those in the persecuted group lead normal lives.
“This is a historic occasion for Myanmar, but this is long overdue,” Wai Wai Nu, the Rohingya founder and executive director of the Women’s Peace Network-Myanmar, told ministers and ambassadors from many of the UN’s 193-member nations in the General Assembly Hall.
The Rohingya and other minorities in Myanmar have suffered decades of displacement, oppression and violence, while seeing no action in response to determinations that they are victims of genocide, she said.
“That cycle must end today,” Wai Wai Nu said.
The United States in 2022 said it had determined that members of the Myanmar military committed crimes against humanity and genocide against the Rohingya.
UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi, who recently visited Myanmar, told the high-level meeting on Tuesday that Bangladesh is now hosting close to 1.2 million Rohingya refugees, and since fighting reignited in Rakhine in 2024 between the military and the Arakan Army, an additional 150,000 have sought safety in the neighbouring country.
The Arakan Army, the well-armed military wing of the Rakhine ethnic minority, which seeks autonomy, now controls almost all of Rakhine state, Grandi said, and the situation of the Rohingya there has not improved.
They still face discrimination, the burning of their villages, exclusion from work, a ban on moving freely, restricted education and health care and the threat of arrest, he said.
“They are subjected to forced labour and forced recruitment” and “their lives are defined every day by racism and fear,” Grandi said.
Julie Bishop, the UN special envoy for Myanmar, said there was little sign that the political crisis could be settled, with no agreed ceasefire, pathway to peace or political solution.
Rofik Huson, founder of the Arakan Youth Peace Network, told the assembly that despite decades of persecution the Rohingya’s “deepest wish” is to live in their ancestral homeland, Myanmar, in peace and security.
“Yet, the past decade has shown that it’s not possible for us without international support, without international pressure.”
He called for the creation of a UN-supervised safe zone in northern Rakhine state along the border with Bangladesh.
Maung Sawyeddollah, founder of the Rohingya Student Network said without self-determination for the Rohingya and international protection in Rakhine there can be no lasting peace.
“The UN must mobilise resources to empower Rohingya,” he told world leaders. — AP
