NAYPYITAW, Myanmar: Rights groups are critical of Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s defense of her country’s conduct in violence that has driven out more than 400,000 Rohingya Muslims, but some observers are glad that she invited diplomats to travel to northern Rakhine state to see for themselves.
Suu Kyi said Tuesday that most Muslims within the conflict zone stayed and that “more than 50 percent of their villages were intact.”
She says the government is working to restore normalcy. Rohingya, however, blame government forces for driving them out.
Amnesty International regional director James Gomez accused Suu Kyi of “a mix of untruths and victim-blaming.”
But Andrew Kirkwood of the United Nations’ Office for Project services said it was positive that Suu Kyi welcomed the international community to parts of northern Rakhine.
Rights groups critical of Myanmar leader’s Rohingya speech
Rights groups critical of Myanmar leader’s Rohingya speech
Bangladesh summons Myanmar envoy after border clashes
- A dozen villages in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district have been affected by the violence
DHAKA: Bangladesh on Tuesday summoned the ambassador of Myanmar after civil war gun battles in the neighboring country spilled over the border, wounding a Bangladeshi girl.
Heavy fighting in Myanmar’s Rakhine state this month has involved junta soldiers, Arakan Army fighters and Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army militia guerrillas.
Authorities said around a dozen villages in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district have been affected by the violence.
Twelve-year-old Huzaifa Afnan was struck by a bullet, while a Bangladeshi fisherman had his leg ripped off after stepping on a landmine near the frontier.
“Bangladesh reminded that the unprovoked firing towards Bangladesh is a blatant violation of international law and a hindrance to good neighborly relations,” a Foreign Ministry press statement said.
Myanmar’s ambassador to Bangladesh, U Kyaw Soe Moe, was summoned to the Foreign Ministry on Tuesday, where he expressed sincere sympathy to the injured victims and their families.
“My daughter was supposed to go to school, but she is on a ventilator,” Afnan’s father Jasim Uddin said. “My heart is bleeding for my baby girl.”
More than a million Rohingya have fled their homes in Myanmar, many after a 2017 military crackdown, and now eke out a living in sprawling refugee camps just across the border in Bangladesh.
ARSA, a Rohingya armed group formed to defend the persecuted Muslim minority, has been fighting the Myanmar military, as well as rival Arakan Army guerrillas.
On Monday, Bangladeshi border forces detained 53 ARSA fighters who had crossed the frontier.
Bangladeshi police officer Saiful Islam, commander of the local Teknaf station, said all detainees were being held in jail, except one fighter who was receiving hospital treatment for bullet wounds.
“These individuals have a history of living in the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar and crossing into Myanmar,” Islam told AFP.
