The UN Security Council met behind closed doors on Tuesday to discuss the violence in Myanmar, moving to step up its response to the exodus of 480,000 Rohingya Muslims in what has been condemned as "ethnic cleansing."The meeting will set the stage for a public session of the top UN body on Thursday, during which UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is set to brief on the crisis and China, along with other council members, will deliver remarks.International alarm is growing over the

Malaysia has dissociated itself from the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Chairman’s statement regarding the conflict in Myanmar’s Rakhine state because it is a “misrepresentation of the reality of the situation.” In a rare turn of events, the current ASEAN Chairman and Philippine Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano broke the association’s silence on the issue when he issued a statement on Sunday at the side-lines of the ongoing UNGA (United Nations General Assembly) expressin

The World Health Organisation warned Monday of a growing cholera risk in the makeshift refugee camps in Bangladesh where more than 435,000 Rohingya Muslims have sought shelter from unrest in Myanmar.A month after the exodus began, those dispersed in some 68 camps and settlements along the border do not have safe drinking water and hygiene facilities, according to the WHO.The camps also face dire shortages of food and medicine in what has quickly become one of the world's largest refugee

Myanmar's army said Sunday it had discovered a mass grave containing the bodies of 28 Hindus, including women and children, in violence-wracked Rakhine state, blaming the killings on Muslim Rohingya militants.Thousands of Hindus have fled villages where they once lived alongside Muslims, alleging that they were targeted by militants whose August 25 raids plunged Rakhine into communal violence.The announcement could not be independently verified in an region where access has been tightly

The Muslim minority Rohingya people continue to flee their homes in the northern Rakhine State of Myanmar to neighbouring Bangladesh for fear of continued persecution by their Buddhist majority government and military.According to the latest numbers released by AFP, 422,000 stateless refugees have fled the conflict zone since the recent spate of violence started on the August 25 to overcrowded camps along the border between Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Muslim Rohingya fleeing their homes in Myanmar are facing "ethnic cleansing" but whether they are victims of genocide remains unclear, international justice experts told AFP.About 422,000 refugees from the stateless Muslim minority have fled Myanmar's westernmost Rakhine state to Bangladesh since August 25, alleging torture and rape by Myanmar troops and Buddhist militias.Their plight has sparked UN accusations of military-led ethnic cleansing, but French President Emmanuel Mac

Once touted as an icon of democracy, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi – who is now the State Counsellor for Myanmar – has had her name dragged through the mud due to criticisms of her poor response to the humanitarian crisis unfolding in the northern Rakhine State in Myanmar.After keeping mum over the recent spate of attacks on stateless minority Muslims in her country, she finally broke her silence in a televised broadcast and invited the international community to aid her in fin

Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has issued a new call for Myanmar to take back the some 420,000 Rohingya Muslims who have fled violence in the Buddhist-dominated country.Hasina, speaking to Bangladeshi activists in New York where she is attending the UN General Assembly, also called for greater international pressure on Myanmar over the new crisis which has unfolded in the past three weeks, media reports said."We have told Myanmar, they are your citizens, you must take the

UN human rights investigators on Tuesday said they needed "full and unfettered" access to Myanmar to investigate a grave and ongoing crisis, but the government renewed its rejection of the probe."It is important for us to see with our own eyes the sites of these alleged violations", the head of UN-backed fact-finding mission, Marzuki Darusman, told the Human Rights Council, asking for "full and unfettered access to the country.""There is a grave humanitarian

Beleaguered Myanmar State Counsellor, Aung San Suu Kyi expressed that her government does not fear international scrutiny for the ongoing refugee crisis developing in the Rakhine State, in northern Myanmar.“We too are concerned. We want to find out what the real problems are. There have been allegations and counter-allegations. We have to listen to all of them.