NEW YORK: Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on Tuesday (Sep 24) called on the international community to urgently resolve the Rohingya crisis. “Let’s start by calling a spade, a spade. What happened in Rakhine state is genocide,” he said on the sidelines of the 74th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). “What took place were mass killings, systematic rape and other gross violations of human rights.” About 740,000 Rohingya fled their villages in Rakhine following a military crackdown in August 2017, joining nearly 200,000 already living in squalid camps across the border in Cox’s Bazar, in southeast Bangladesh. And the longer the refugees stayed in the camps, the more desperate their situation would become, Dr Mahathir added. “As it is, the refugees have become vulnerable to other forms of exploitation. They become likely targets for cross border crimes such as human trafficking and sex slavery, among others. In other words, they can only see a bleak future ahead,” he said at the UN headquarters in New York. Those who remain in Myanmar have become internally displaced persons languishing in camps in Rakhine, said Dr Mahathir. “The Myanmar authorities have denied access to some UN officials and humanitarian aid workers,” he said. “If Myanmar has nothing to hide, why bar others from… Read full this story
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