Rohingya Muslims who remain in Myanmar still face a "serious risk of genocide," UN researchers said on Monday, warning that the repatriation of one million already expelled from the country by the army remains "impossible."
The investigation mission to Myanmar, established by the Human Rights Council, described the army's operations in 2017 as "genocide" last year and called for the prosecution of major generals, including army chief Min Aung Hlaing.
Some 740,000 Rohingya fled the burning villages, bringing accounts of murders, rapes and torture on the border to large refugee camps in Bangladesh, where survivors of previous waves of persecution are already languishing.
But in a condemnatory report, the UN team said that the Rohingya 600,000 that are still within Myanmar's Rakhine state remain in deteriorated and "deplorable" conditions.
"Myanmar continues to harbor genocidal intentions and the Rohingya remain at serious risk of genocide," the researchers said in their final report on Myanmar, which will be presented Tuesday in Geneva.
The country is "denying irregularities, destroying evidence, refusing to conduct effective investigations and clearing, sweeping, confiscating and building on lands from which it displaced the Rohingya," he said.
Myanmar's military spokesman, Zaw Min Tun, rejected the team's findings, calling them "unilateral."
"Instead of making partial accusations, they should go to the ground to see reality," said Zaw Min Tun AFP.
Source: https://www.dawn.com/news/1505537/600000-rohingya-still-in-myanmar-at-serious-risk-of-genocide-un