Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi arrived on her first visit to conflict-battered northern Rakhine State on Thursday, an official said, an unannounced trip to an area that has seen most of its Rohingya Muslim population forced out by an army campaign.Suu Kyi, a nobel laureate who leads Myanmar's pro-democracy party, has been hammered by the international community for failing to use her moral power to speak up in defence of the Rohingya.Some 600,000 of the stateless minority have fl

Muslim countries led by Saudi Arabia want the United Nations to denounce serious rights abuses in Myanmar and demand an end to the military campaign against the Rohingya, according to a draft resolution seen by AFP on Wednesday.In one of the worst refugee crises in decades, more than 600,000 Muslim Rohingya have fled an army crackdown in Myanmar's Rakhine state since late August.The draft resolution introduced this week to the General Assembly's human rights committee said UN member

Myanmar on Wednesday accused Bangladesh of delaying the repatriation of Rohingya Muslims who have fled Rakhine state since August, as conditions worsen for the stateless minority penned into squalid refugee camps.More than 600,000 members of the Muslim minority have fled a brutal army crackdown in mainly Buddhist Myanmar over the past two months.After weeks of intense global pressure and UN accusations of ethnic cleansing, Myanmar vowed to take back Rohingya who meet "verification"

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged Myanmar's army chief Thursday to help end the violence in Rakhine state that has forced hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims to flee.In a phone call with Min Aung Hlaing, Tillerson expressed "concern about the continuing humanitarian crisis and reported atrocities in Rakhine", according to a statement by State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert.

The UN Security Council is weighing a draft resolution that would pressure Myanmar to address the violence that has driven hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims to flee, according to the text obtained by AFP on Wednesday.The proposed resolution, drafted by Britain and France, would call on Myanmar authorities to "immediately cease military operations" and allow refugees now living in makeshift camps in Bangladesh to return.The six-page text does not threaten sanctions, but lays

Nations have pledged 345 million dollars (294 million euros) to care for Myanmar's Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, an "encouraging" step in the response to the intensifying crisis, the UN said Monday.

Myanmar's government has failed to meet its international obligations and protect Rohingya Muslims from the atrocities taking place in Rakhine state, two UN special advisers said Wednesday.The statement from the UN special adviser on the prevention of genocide, Adama Dieng, and the special adviser on the responsibility to protect, Ivan Simonovic, added the international response to the crisis was a failure."Despite warnings issued by us and by many other officials, the government of

A senior UN official on Tuesday returned empty-handed from five days of talks in Myanmar where he appealed for the safe return of Muslim Rohingyas sheltering in Bangladesh and access for aid workers.Jeffrey Feltman, the UN under-secretary-general for political affairs, discussed the plight of the 582,000 Rohingyas who have fled an army campaign in Myanmar's Rakhine state since late August.Feltman met with Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and military commander-in-chief Gen

At least 10 people drowned and dozens more are missing after a boat packed with Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh sank on Monday, as another 12,000 people joined a half-million-strong exodus sparked by an army crackdown in Myanmar.The boat was carrying an estimated 50 people when it went down in the estuary of the Naf river that divides the two countries, Border Guard Bangladesh area commander Lieutenant Colonel S.M.

The humanitarian crisis afflicting Myanmar’s Muslim Rohingya has damaged the country’s political stability and shattered its image as a country moving toward democracy.