Plight of Muslim Rohingya refugees worse than what media portrays: Mattis
US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis says the plight of Rohingya Muslim refugees from Myanmar is much worse than what the media portrays.
“This is a tragedy that's worse than anything that CNN or BBC has been able to portray about what has happened to these people,” Mattis said on Tuesday, speaking to reporters during a trip to Indonesia.
According to the UN, nearly 655,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled the state of Rakhine for Bangladesh since violence intensified last August, when Myanmar's troops started committing killings and rapes, making arbitrary arrests, and carrying out mass arson attacks to destroy houses in Rakhine.
“And the United States has been engaged vigorously in the diplomatic realm trying to resolve this, engaged with humanitarian aid, a lot of money going into humanitarian aid,” he added.
The US had previously accused Myanmar of the "ethnic cleansing" of minority Rohingya Muslims, saying the violent bloodshed in Rakhine state had shamed the government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Bangladesh and Myanmar finalized an agreement early this year which would facilitate the repatriation of the Rohingya refugees over the next two years.
The refugees refuse to go back unless their safety can be guaranteed and Myanmar heeds their demands for citizenship and inclusion in a list of recognized ethnic minorities.
Myanmar brands more than one million Rohingya Muslims in the country as “illegal immigrants” from Bangladesh, refusing to accept them as citizens despite the fact that they have lived in the country for many generations.
The Rohingya are considered by the UN as the "most persecuted minority group in the world."
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