the UN human rights chief Zeid Raad Al Hussein says,
The security operation targeting Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar "seems a textbook example of ethnic cleansing". Zeid Raad Al Hussein urged Myanmar to end the "cruel military operation" in Rakhine state.
More than 300,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh since violence erupted there late last month. Though the Myanmar military says it is responding to attacks by Rohingya militants and denies it is targeting civilians, clearly they have targeted innocent Rohingya villagers along with girls and kids. The Army personnel, monks and civilian Buddhists killed men, rape womens and beheading children of Rohingyans.
The violence began on 25 August when the Rohingya militants attacked police posts in northern Rakhine, killing 12 security personnel.
Rohingyas who have fled from Myanmar since then say the military responded with a brutal campaign, burning villages and attacking civilians in a bid to drive them out.
The Rohingya, a stateless mostly Muslim minority in Buddhist-majority Rakhine, have long experienced persecution in Myanmar, which says they are illegal immigrants.
Mr Zeid, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the current operation in Rakhine was "clearly disproportionate".
He noted that the situation could not be fully assessed because Myanmar had refused access to human rights investigators, but said the UN had received "multiple reports and satellite imagery of security forces and local militia burning Rohingya villages, and consistent accounts of extrajudicial killings, including shooting fleeing civilians".
