Pakistan demands immediate end to violence against Rohingya Muslims

At UNHRC summit, Pakistan urges Myanmar to allow UN observers in the country

On behalf of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Pakistan has demanded an immediate end to the violence against Rohingya Muslims and urged Myanmar to allow UN observers into the affected areas.

At the 36th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva, Switzerland, which began on Monday, Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the UN Farukh Amil termed the persecution of Rohingyas “ethnic cleansing” and “crimes against humanity.”

According to a press release issued by the Foreign Office, Amil urged the international community to provide adequate humanitarian assistance to the Muslim civilians in the Rakhine state of Myanmar as well as to the refugees in Bangladesh.

Nearly, 300,000 Rohingyas have poured into Bangladesh in the past few days trying to escape the violence in Myanmar.



Amil said that the OIC would come up with initiatives within and outside the UNHRC to prevent crimes against humanity perpetrated by Myanmar forces, ensure sustainable return and rehabilitation of all Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh and create conditions conducive to protection of lives, livelihoods and human dignity of Myanmar’s Muslim population, the press release added.

On Sunday, the OIC condemned Myanmar for “systematic brutal acts” against its Muslim Rohingya minority and asked it to accept international monitors.

The 57-member OIC, meeting in Astana, Kazakhstan expressed “serious concern about recent systematic brutal acts committed by the armed forces against the Muslim community of Rohingya in Myanmar”.