Myanmar forces committed 'crimes against humanity'

The persecution of Rohingyas by Myanmar forces amounts to “definite crimes against humanity”, Yanghee Lee, UN special rapporteur for human rights in Myanmar, has said.

“The situation in Myanmar is far worse than I had anticipated. I knew it was bad, but not this bad. My assessment is … I would say crimes against humanity. Definite crimes against humanity," she was quoted as saying in a BBC report published yesterday.

Lee talked to the BBC after visiting Rohingya refugees who recently entered Bangladesh from Myanmar's Rakhine state following a military crackdown on them.

Asked how much responsibility Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi should bear for this, she said, “At the end of the day, it is the government, the civilian government, that has to answer and respond to these massive cases of horrific torture and very inhumane crimes they have committed against their own people.”  

As the top UN official's access to the conflict zones in Myanmar was restricted, she spoke to Rohingyas who entered Bangladesh in the last couple of months last year, according to the BBC report.

Lee also said the crimes were committed by “the Burmese, by the Myanmar military, border guard, or the police or the security forces.”

Since last October, some 66,000 Rohingyas poured into Bangladesh to flee what has been termed by Myanmar a “counter-insurgency operation” by the military, according to an UN estimates.