UNITED NATIONS, Sep 16 (APP):Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Rohingya, who remain in Myanmar, may face a greater threat of genocide than ever, amid government attempts to “erase their identity and remove them from the country”, UN-appointed independent investigators said on Monday.
In a report detailing alleged violations in Myanmar over the last year, the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission insists that many of the conditions that led to “killings, rapes and gang rapes, torture, forced displacement and other grave rights violations” by the country’s military, that prompted some 700,000 Rohingya to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh in 2017, are still present.
Citing the lack of accountability for the perpetrators of these alleged crimes, as well as the failure by Myanmar “to investigate genocide and to enact effective legislation criminalizing and punishing genocide”, the UN-appointed independent panel concludes “that the evidence that infers genocidal intent on the part of the state…has strengthened, that there is a serious risk that genocidal actions may occur or recur”.
