Humanitarian nightmare

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres condemned the "humanitarian nightmare" for Myanmar's Rohingyas yesterday and demanded that the government end military operations and open humanitarian access to its conflict-wracked western region.

"The situation has spiraled into the world's fastest developing refugee emergency, a humanitarian and human rights nightmare," Guterres said in a speech to the UN Security Council.

Antonio Guterres warned that the violence against Myanamar's Rohingya minorities in the northern part of Rakhine state could spread to central Rakhine, where 250,000 more people were at risk of displacement.

Guterres told the UN Security Council during its first public meeting on Myanmar in eight years, that the violence had spiraled into the "world's fastest developing refugee emergency, a humanitarian and human rights nightmare."

"We have received bone-chilling accounts from those who fled - mainly women, children and the elderly," he said. "These testimonials point to excessive violence and serious violations of human rights, including indiscriminate firing of weapons, the use of landmines against civilians and sexual violence."

Sweden, the United States, Britain, France, Egypt, Senegal, and Kazakhstan requested yesterday's council meeting.

Guterres demanded immediate humanitarian aid access to areas affected by the violence and expressed concern "by the current climate of antagonism towards the United Nations" and aid groups, reports Reuters.

"The failure to address this systematic violence could result in a spill-over into central Rakhine, where an additional 2,50,000 Muslims could potentially face displacement," Guterres said.

"The crisis has generated multiple implications for neighboring States and the larger region, including the risk of inter-communal strife. We should not be surprised if decades of discrimination and double standards in treatment of the Rohingya create openings for radicalization," he said.