The United Nations has called for Myanmar’s military leaders to be prosecuted for genocide after its inspectors released evidence of widespread rape, murder and torture against Rohingya Muslims.
The report, based on hundreds of interviews, amounts to some of the strongest language yet from UN officials who have denounced alleged human rights violations in the country.
More than 700,000 Rohingyas have fled Myanmar since last August to escape the violent crackdown in Rakhine state.
The three-member “fact-finding mission” working under a mandate from the UN-backed Human Rights Council meticulously assembled hundreds of accounts by expatriate Rohingya, satellite footage and other information to assemble the report released on Monday.
The Human Rights Council created the mission six months before a rebel attack on security posts set off the crackdown that drove hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fleeing to neighbouring Bangladesh.
The report calls for senior military figures in Myanmar to be tried at the International Criminal Court at the Hague.
It was also critical of Myanmar’s de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, for failing to intervene to stop the violence.