DHAKA : Bangladesh’s foreign minister has said that “a genocide” is being waged in Myanmar’s violence-hit Rakhine State, triggering an exodus of nearly 300,000 Rohingya to his country.
“The international community is saying it is a genocide. We also say it is a genocide,” AH Mahmood Ali told reporters after briefing diplomats in Dhaka on Sunday.
Ali met Western and Arab diplomats and the heads of UN agencies based in Bangladesh to seek support for a political solution and humanitarian aid for the Rohingya.
He told the diplomats that some 300,000 Rohingya had fled to Bangladesh in the past two weeks, taking the total number of such refugees in the country to more than 700,000.
“It is now a national problem,” Ali said.
At least two diplomats who attended the briefings said the minister told them as many as 3,000 people may have been killed in the latest round of violence, which is a much higher estimate than the 1,000 previously reported by the United Nations.
The UN said 294,000 Rohingya refugees have arrived in Bangladesh since attacks by Rohingya fighters on Myanmar security forces in Rakhine on August 25 sparked a major military backlash.
Tens of thousands more are believed to be on the move inside Rakhine.
