{"Because of the ongoing systematic genocide against humanity in Burma, the de-facto stateless Rohingya Arakanese people need the same protection, assistance, education and a safe environment like others”}
Indiscriminate killing, mass rape and arson. Unimaginable atrocities, committed by Myanmar's armed forces, local militia and even Buddhist monks. Soldiers shouting anti-Muslim obscenities while shooting people.
Rohingya refugees on their way to a camp in Bangladesh. Photo: AP
But believe it we must. It has gone far beyond a mere humanitarian crisis. This, the deliberate killing of a specific ethnic group, is genocide.
It has caused the fastest refugee exodus since the Rwandan genocide. Soon the depopulation of Rohingya from northern Rakhine will be complete. We must make it stop before it reaches that point.
Myanmar's murder of up to 13,769 Rohingya people – almost half of them in August alone – is a crime against humanity. It very clearly fits that definition, of a deliberate, systematic campaign causing death and human suffering.
Those murdered include at least 730 children under the age of five, Medecins Sans Frontieres has revealed. More than half of those children died after being shot.
Australia needs to step up and do something about this disaster in its region. We cannot afford to ignore the killings and displacement of around 835,000 Rohingya who have fled to Bangladesh.
This is the kind of situation that radicalises people. It has the potential to destabilise the entire region. It poses huge problems that would likely directly affect Australia not only in terms of security but also a potential influx of displaced people (170 Rohingya have been held in detention by Australia on Manus Island and Nauru for more than four years).
This campaign of violence takes place within the context of a worsening human rights record across south-east Asia. From President Rodrigo Duterte 's extrajudicial killings in the Philippines, to killings and torture committed by Cambodia's security forces, communist Vietnam's oppression of basic freedoms of expression and religion, and abuses that continue unabated in the conflict between separatist groups and security forces in Thailand's north, Amnesty International has described as "endemic" the region's human rights violations.
In Myanmar, those violations now appear to include its treatment of journalists, with two Reuters reporters arrested and charged by the government late last week, accused of leaking documents on brutal military-led attacks on Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State.
Australia must immediately condemn Myanmar's actions in the strongest manner, and call them out for what they undoubtedly are. We must end any co-operation with the Myanmar military.
And as one of the most influential ASEAN countries, as well as a newly elected member of the United Nations Human Rights council from January 1, 2018, we have a moral responsibility not just to act, but to lead by example.
R, 13, covers her face with her headscarf while being photographed in her tent in Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh.Wong Maye-E / AP
UKHIA, Bangladesh — The use of rape by Myanmar's armed forces has been sweeping and methodical, The Associated Press found in interviews with Rohingya Muslim women and girls now in Bangladesh.
They were interviewed separately, come from a variety of villages in Myanmar and now live spread across several refugee camps in Bangladesh. Yet their stories were hauntingly similar. The military has denied its soldiers raped any Rohingya women.
Here are the accounts as told by 21 women and girls. They agreed to be identified in this story by their first initial only, out of fear the military will kill them or their families. The full story can be seen here.
The Associated Press reported this story with a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
Portraits of some of the Rohingya Muslim women taken during an interview with The Associated Press in November 2017 in refugee camps in Bangladesh. Wong Maye-E / AP
SHE IS ONLY 13
She is only 13, but R had already learned to fear the military men. Last year, she says, soldiers stabbed her father to death.
One day in late August, 10 soldiers barged into R's house. They snatched her two little brothers, tied them to a tree and beat them.
R tried to run out the front door, but the men caught her. They tethered her arms to two trees. They ripped off her earrings and bracelets, and stripped off her clothes.
R, 13, shows the scars left on her knees and shin after members of Myanmar's armed forces dragged her out of her house before raping her. Wong Maye-E / AP
Then the first man began to rape her. The pain was excruciating. All 10 men forced themselves on her before she passed out.
R's older brothers carried her toward the border. Once in Bangladesh, a doctor gave her emergency contraceptives.
R desperately misses her little brothers, and her sleep is plagued by nightmares. She struggles to eat.
F and her husband were asleep at home in June when seven soldiers charged into their bedroom. The men bound her husband with rope and gagged him with a scarf they ripped from F's head.
F, 22, clutches her pregnant belly. Wong Maye-E / AP
They yanked off F's jewelry and stripped off her clothes. They threw her to the floor, where the first soldier began to rape her.
Her husband wriggled the gag from his mouth and screamed. One soldier shot him, and another slit his throat.
After the assault, the men dumped F's naked body outside her home and set it on fire. The neighbors rescued her. Two months later, she realized she was pregnant.
In September, her nightmare began again. F was asleep at a neighbor's house when five soldiers broke down the door.
The soldiers slashed the throat of the 5-year-old boy who lived there and killed his father. They stripped off the women's clothes. Two men raped F, and three men raped her friend.
After the men left, the women lay on the floor for days before fleeing for Bangladesh.
Despite everything, F is determined to love the child.
HER HUSBAND BLAMED HER
K and her family were settling down to breakfast one morning in late August when they heard the screams of other villagers outside. Her husband and three oldest children bolted out the door.
But K was nearly 9 months pregnant and had two toddlers to watch. She couldn't run anywhere.
The men barged in, threw her on the bed, yanked off her jewelry and stole the money she had hidden in her blouse. They ripped off her clothes and tied down her hands and legs with rope. When she resisted, they choked her.
And then they began to rape her.
She was too terrified to move. One man held a knife to her eyeball, one a gun to her chest. Another forced himself inside her. Then they switched places. All three men raped her.
She began to bleed and was certain her baby was dying.
She blacked out.
When she awoke, the men had gone. Her husband blamed her for the assault, admonishing her for not running away.
The family fled to Bangladesh. Two weeks later, K gave birth to her son.
I WAS IN IMMENSE PAIN
R was at home in late August with her husband and five of her six children when she heard a commotion outside. She saw houses going up in flames in her village.
R, 28, is a mother of six. Wong Maye-E / AP
Her husband ran out, but she had the children to take care of.
Five soldiers barged into the house. Her children screamed and ran outside.
The men stripped off her clothes, took her necklace and kicked her in her back with their knees. Then one of the men began to rape her, while the other four held her down and hit her with their guns. When it was over, they took money and her husband's clothes from the wardrobe.
She fled to Bangladesh with her family the next day. She struggled to move with her injuries, and had to use a walking stick.
"I was in immense pain," she says, pausing to take a long breath at the memory. "It hurt so much to walk through the hills."
Four days later, she arrived in Bangladesh.
ALLAH SAVED US
A was at home praying with her four children in late August when about 50 soldiers surrounded her village and opened fire on the men.
A began to shake; she had heard of soldiers raping women in other villages.
A, 35, a mother of four, stands in her friend's tent in Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh. Wong Maye-E / AP
Three men burst into her house and told her to get out. She refused. They beat her.
Her children screamed. The soldiers slapped them, then threw them out of the house.
Two of the soldiers hit her until she fell. One pressed his boot against her chest, pinning her down. They took off her jewelry and stripped off her clothes.
Then all three raped her, punching and kicking her when she screamed. One pressed a knife to the back of her neck, making her bleed. She still bears a faint scar.
After the attack, she bled so heavily she thought she was dying. A farmer told her that her husband had been shot to death, so her brother, mother and daughter helped her make the painful trek to Bangladesh.
"They wanted to wipe us out from the world," she says of the military. "They tried very hard, but Allah saved us."
In the first few days after the attack, she cried all the time. Now she cries silently in her mind.
THE BABY GIRL WAS DEAD
M was at home feeding her son rice in late August when a bullet from the military blasted through the bamboo wall of her house and struck her teenage brother.
Her husband and children ran out of the house. But M was 8 months pregnant, and did not want to leave her brother behind. For two days, she stayed by his side, until he died.
Soon after, four soldiers charged into her house.
They began slapping and punching her. Three soldiers dragged her outside the house, stripped her and beat her. When she screamed, they put a gun in her mouth.
The first man began to rape her, while the other two held her down and punched and kicked her pregnant belly.
After the second rape, she kicked them so ferociously, they finally left.
M felt intense cramping in her belly. She gave birth that night at home. The baby girl was dead. M buried the infant in an unmarked grave by her house.
Her husband returned, and they made the three-day walk through the hills to Bangladesh.
"They humiliated us, they destroyed our land and farm, they took our cows, they took our produce," she says. "How would I go back? They destroyed our livelihood."
WHEN WILL I HAVE PEACE?
H was reciting the sunrise prayer at home in late August with her husband and six children when she heard a commotion outside.
A dozen soldiers burst through her door and started beating her husband. They grabbed three of her children by their feet, carried them outside and bashed them against trees, killing them.
H, 30, is a mother of six. Three of her children were killed by soldiers. Wong Maye-E / AP
Her husband screamed, and H ran out of the house. As she fled, she heard gunshots behind her. She never saw her husband again.
She made it with her three other children to the nearby hills, where other women from her village were hiding. But soldiers descended upon the women and dragged them away to rape them.
They ripped off H's clothes, took her jewelry and tied her hands behind her back with her headscarf.
One man held her head and hands back, while another held her legs. The third raped her. Then they switched. All three men raped her.
Her crying children refused to leave her side during the assault. The soldiers slapped them, kicked them, tried to shove them away. They refused to budge.
When the soldiers finished, her 8-year-old daughter tried to cover her naked body with her torn clothing.
It took her and her children four days to reach Bangladesh.
"I've lost my husband, I've lost my children, I've lost my country. When will God take me back to my country?" H says. "When will I have peace?"
I BURN INSIDE FOR MY CHILDREN
When seven soldiers stormed into the house in October 2016, S's husband fled. The soldiers began beating her parents.
A soldier beat S with his gun, ripped two of her babies from her arms and dropped them on the floor. They tore the clothes off S, her mother and several other young women in the house, and took S's earrings and money she had hidden in her clothes.
Two soldiers took S to a field. They covered her mouth with their hands to stop her screams. They held her down and raped her.
S, 25, a mother of four whose two baby girls were killed when a rocket hit her home. Wong Maye-E / AP
When it was over, she hid in the hills but eventually returned home.
In August, S was at home with her family when the military began firing rocket launchers at houses, setting them ablaze. Her husband and two eldest children fled, but she stayed behind to pack up her baby girls and a few belongings. One baby was in a swing, the other sleeping on the floor.
A rocket hit the house. The babies went up in flames before her eyes.
There was nothing she could do. So she ran. She hid with the rest of her family in the hills for several days before making the three-day trek to Bangladesh.
"I burn inside for my children, but what can I do?" she asks. "They burned to death. I guess that was my destiny."
SHE TOLD NO ONE
The military surrounded N's village one early morning in late August. Around 18 soldiers stormed her house, and dragged N outside with her sister-in-law and mother-in-law.
The women were taken to the center of the village, where soldiers robbed them of their jewelry.
Three men then took her to the hills and stripped her naked. Two men held down her hands while a third raped her. Then they switched positions. All three raped her.
During the attack, they showed her their knives and beat her. She was too frightened to fight back.
When it was over, they left her there. She returned home and told no one about the rape.
She was in agony after the assault and bled for eight days.
SHE SAW HER VILLAGE BURNING
There was no warning before five soldiers suddenly stormed into 16-year-old S's house one morning in early August.
They searched the home for money and valuables. Then they slashed her husband's neck, killing him. The men briefly left to ransack other neighboring houses, before returning.
Two soldiers pulled her into a room, snatched her 3-month-old son from her arms and put him on the floor. They searched her clothes for valuables and took her earrings. Another three men came in and began to beat her with guns while the others stripped off her clothes.
S, 16, carries her baby. Wong Maye-E / AP
One soldier held down her hands, and another put his gun in her mouth. All five men raped her.
When she struggled, they beat her. She could hear her baby crying and was terrified the men would kill him.
When they were finished, they let her get dressed and then dragged her bleeding body outside to the center of the village. Soldiers were dragging other women they had assaulted out of surrounding houses. The men beat S and the other women again, then left them.
S ran back to her house, grabbed her baby and ran. As she fled, she saw soldiers lining men and boys up and shooting them. When she made it to the hills, she looked down and saw her village burning.
SHE NEVER SAW HER SON AGAIN
The soldiers had been harassing T's family for days: Showing up and stealing their food, urinating in their rice, hitting T and, once, stripping off her clothes.
And then one morning in mid-August, five men dragged her husband out of the house, where they slashed his neck. They grabbed her 10-year-old son and dragged him outside; she never saw him again. Her 12-year-old daughter managed to flee.
The soldiers took off T's earrings and nose ring, then stripped off her clothes. When she screamed, they kicked her.
Then they pinned her to the floor. Two men held her while the first man raped her. Then they switched. One man put a gun in her mouth to silence her screams.
T, 33, never saw her son again. Her daughter managed to flee. Wong Maye-E / AP
Afterward, she bled for two days. Months later, her back still hurts from the attack.
When they finished, they ate the food in her kitchen and stole her chicken and duck. They also dragged away the body of her husband.
She ran into the hills and found her daughter and father. They tried to find safety in neighboring villages, but the military kept showing up. With nowhere to go, they headed toward Bangladesh.
ALL I HAVE LEFT ARE MY WORDS
N's husband was walking down a road in late August when several villagers saw soldiers grab him and drag him into the hills. Later that day, children in the hills came upon his head, along with several other corpses. Soldiers were milling around near the bodies.
N stayed in her house with her 8-year-old daughter for the next few days, unable to stop crying. Then suddenly, around 80 soldiers descended on the village. Five soldiers came to her door and shouted: "Who's inside?"
N, 31, says she was raped by members of Myanmar's armed forces in late August. Wong Maye-E / AP
N was terrified. The men barged in.
One man held her as she screamed and fought. They covered her eyes with tape, and hit her head with a gun. Two held her in place while three others began rifling through her clothing. There was nothing for them to steal; she'd already hidden her valuables.
They ripped her clothes off and beat her in the head with a gun until she blacked out. When she awoke, her vagina was swollen, bleeding and covered in sores. She had clearly been raped; by how many men, she does not know.
She was in too much pain that day to leave the house. She and her daughter fled the next day for Bangladesh. She bled for eight days, and three months later still has trouble urinating.
"I have nothing left," she says, blinking back tears. "All I have left are my words."
SHE BLED FOR SIX DAYS
N, 17, was at home with her parents and siblings in late August when she heard the crackle of gunfire. Suddenly, 10 men burst into the house. They began slashing open sacks of rice looking for valuables.
Then the soldiers tied her hands with rope behind her back and put tape over her mouth.
N, 17, at her tent at the Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh. Wong Maye-E / AP
Five of the men held her frantic family back, hitting them with their guns. They ripped off her clothes, snatched her earrings and took the money she had hidden in her new blouse.
When she tried to protest, they hit her with their guns.
They threw her to the floor. Five men then took turns raping her, while the others helped hold her down.
Her parents were forced to watch. When they screamed, the soldiers beat them. Eventually, they stood in silence as their daughter was assaulted.
After the men left, N's parents untied her and washed her. She bled for six days.
The family left for Bangladesh the next day. N was in too much pain to walk, so her father carried her over the border.
IT WAS JUST ALL PAIN
Around 100 soldiers surrounded A's village one afternoon in late August. A's husband fled, leaving her alone in the house with their 2-year-old son.
Two soldiers came into her house. One soldier threw her baby on the floor, then grabbed A by the neck. Both men slapped her and pointed their guns at her.
A, 20, is the mother of a two-year-old. Wong Maye-E / AP
They tore off her clothes. She wept and begged them to stop. One of the men took off her earrings. Then they shoved her to the ground, laughing at her.
One soldier pressed his knife to her right hip and cut into her flesh. Both of them punched her in the face.
The men then took turns raping her. She could hear her son crying. She prayed to Allah, terrified the men would kill her and her boy.
"It was just all pain," she says now.
As the soldiers walked out, they fired their guns toward the sky.
After the rape, she couldn't eat for days and struggled to walk. She hid in the nearby hills with her son until she found her husband. Together, the family walked for 14 days until they finally crossed the border into Bangladesh.
TEARING HER FLESH WITH THEIR TEETH
M was at home with her husband, her sister-in-law and her sister-in-law's brother in late August when security forces stormed their village. The husbands fled, leaving M alone in the house with her sister-in-law, who was in the shower.
Three men kicked the door open. They tied M's arms behind her back.
They dragged her sister-in-law out of the shower. They bit her face and body, tearing her flesh with their teeth. All three men raped her, then stabbed her torso and her breasts with their knives, killing her.
One of the men came over to M, stripped her clothes off and took her earrings.
He unzipped his pants, pushed her down onto her back and then raped her. He choked her and punched her in the face and chest, and bit her eyebrow.
She was terrified she would be killed like her sister-in-law. She screamed so loudly that her neighbors came running. The men then fled.
She has no plans to return to Myanmar.
"How can I go where there is all this pain and suffering?" she says.
SHE DOES NOT KNOW HOW THEY DIED
D was at home one evening in late August when she heard noise outside. Her two older sons and husband rushed out of the house, leaving her alone with her 3-year-old boy.
Three men entered her home. She screamed and her son began to cry.
They took her nose ring and earrings, then ripped off her clothes.
One man restrained her arms and held a knife to her hip while the other two men raped her. She feared the men would kill her, so she stifled her screams.
D, 30, is a mother of four. Two of her sons are missing. Wong Maye-E / AP
After two hours, the men finally left. When her husband returned, he found her naked. But she was too ashamed to tell him what had happened to her.
She was so swollen and bled so much that she found it difficult to walk for nearly three weeks after the rape.
They fled to another village. While there, people from her village told her that her home had been burned, and that they had seen the dead bodies of her eldest sons. She does not know how they died.
D and her family arrived in Bangladesh in October.
IT WAS NEVER-ENDING
It was late August and K was around four months pregnant when soldiers swarmed her village.
Four men smashed the door open, tied up her husband and began beating and kicking the couple's children. They kicked K's 3-year-old daughter in the head so hard that she died of her injuries three days later.
They dragged K's husband out of the house and took him to a police station.
They snatched the money she had hidden in her blouse and took her earrings. Then they ripped off her clothes.
K's 3-year-old daughter was killed by soldiers. Wong Maye-E / AP
They hit her face and kicked her back. They tied her up and began to rape her, one after the other. The men kicked her so viciously, she feared the baby inside her would die.
"It was never-ending," she says now.
Just before the men left, they shoved a gun inside her vagina. The pain was excruciating.
The next day, a village leader helped raise the money the soldiers demanded to release K's husband from the police station.
In November, K gave birth to a baby boy. He was two months' premature, and his skinny arms are barely wider than an adult's thumb. K is too malnourished to produce much milk for him, so he is subsisting on sugar water.
SHE FEARED HER BABY WAS DYING
S was pregnant and at home with her family in late August when 20 soldiers surrounded her village. All the men in the area fled, including her husband.
Four soldiers burst into the house, grabbed her two crying toddlers and beat them. She tried to run, but they caught her and dragged her deeper inside the home to a bathing area.
One man threatened her with a gun, another with a knife. They ripped her clothes off, and took her gold earrings and gold chain. They threw her to the floor.
One man held her left arm, one held her right arm and one held down her legs, while the fourth man raped her. Then they switched. All four men raped her. When she screamed, they threatened to shoot and stab her.
They kicked and punched her so hard, she feared the baby inside her was dying. Finally, they left.
After the attack, she felt sharp pains in her belly and bled for a month. For two weeks, she thought the baby had died. Finally, she felt something moving inside her.
Her husband never returned home. She does not know whether he is dead or alive.
IF WE CAN LIVE PEACEFULLY
It was mid-afternoon one day in late August when about 10 men in camouflage uniforms entered M's house. Her three children began to scream and cry. Five men took her husband away, and four forced her out of the house and into the nearby hills.
One of the men held a gun to her. They tore her clothes off and took her earrings. They bit her face and her body and hit her.
They tied her mouth with her own headscarf. And then three of the men held her down while the other man raped her. The attack lasted for hours; all four of the men raped her.
The men eventually released her and she stumbled back to her house. Her husband was not there.
After resting for five days, she took her children and began the three-day journey to Bangladesh. She had to use a walking stick to move her battered body.
Despite the horror she endured, she would consider returning to her homeland — if she is assured of her family's safety.
"If we can live peacefully side by side like we do here in Bangladesh, then I will go back," she says.
WE'VE HAD ENOUGH TORTURE
F was at home in late August when she heard screaming outside. Her husband went to investigate and saw that about 300 soldiers and Buddhist villagers had surrounded the area. The men began burning houses and arresting people. Soldiers separated the men from the women.
About eight soldiers and villagers grabbed F's husband and tied his hands behind his back. They tore off her and her mother's jewelry. Then they took the women outside and set fire to F's house.
Around 100 men took F, her mother and about 20 other women to another village. The soldiers beat them with guns, kicking and slapping them.
Once they reached the next village, the women were forced to lie down on the ground next to each other. The men tied their wrists together with rope and began to rape them.
Ten men raped F, beat her with their guns, kicked her and slapped her. She could hear her mother crying and calling "Allah" as she, too, was raped.
It was dark when the men finally left. F managed to wriggle her wrists free of the rope and ran into a field. In the morning, she returned to search for her mother, but she had vanished. She saw at least five women lying dead on the ground, their throats cut.
She has no idea what has become of her husband. And she cannot imagine returning to her homeland.
"We've had enough torture," she says.
SHE DOES NOT KNOW IF HER HUSBAND IS ALIVE
S was lying in bed with her husband and son after dinner in late August when around 10 soldiers burst into the house. A few took her husband outside. Five stayed behind, and one pointed his gun at her.
She tried to run, but they grabbed her and kicked her back, stomach and chest. They stripped off her clothes and took her necklace and earrings. Three men raped her.
Her young son began to cry. A soldier pointed his gun at the child and he screamed louder.
S, 22, in her tent in the Gundum refugee camp in Bangladesh. Wong Maye-E / AP
S was in agony. After the men were finished, they took her outside, naked. Her son followed them. About two dozen other women, also naked, had been dragged outside as well.
The soldiers forced the women to march toward a rice paddy, beating and kicking them as they walked. S felt blood running down her legs. Once they arrived, the men ordered them to lie down. S fought back and soldiers kicked her. She fell to the ground.
Three more soldiers began to rape her.
When at last the assault was over, S fled back toward her house with her son, only to find her home had been burned along with many others. She does not know if her husband is alive.
At least 6,700 Rohingya Muslims were killed in the first month of a Myanmar army crackdown on rebels in Rakhine State that began in late August, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Thursday.
The figure is the highest estimated death toll yet of violence that erupted on August 25 and triggered a massive refugee crisis, with more than 620,000 Rohingya fleeing Myanmar for Bangladesh over a three-month period.
The UN and US have described the military operation as "ethnic cleansing" of the Muslim minority, but have not released specific death tolls.
"At least 6,700 Rohingya, in the most conservative estimations, are estimated to have been killed, including at least 730 children below the age of five," MSF said Thursday.
The group's findings come from six surveys of more than 11,426 people in Rohingya refugee camps and cover the first month after the crisis erupted.
"We met and spoke with survivors of violence in Myanmar, who are now sheltering in overcrowded and unsanitary camps in Bangladesh," said the group's medical director Sidney Wong.
"What we uncovered was staggering, both in terms of the numbers of people who reported a family member died as a result of violence, and the horrific ways in which they said they were killed or severely injured."
Rohingya refugees have told consistent stories of security forces and ethnic Rakhine Buddhist mobs driving them out of their homes with bullets, rape, and arson that reduced hundreds of villages to ash.
Earlier this month the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said the military-led crackdown appeared to include "elements of genocide."
The MSF survey puts a number to the horrors.
Gunshot wounds were the cause of death in 69 percent of the cases, according to the survey.
Another nine percent were reported burned alive inside houses, while five percent died from fatal beatings.
For children under five, nearly 60 percent died after being shot, the survey found.
'Rohingya targeted'
MSF said the peak in deaths coincided with the launch of "clearance operations" by the army and local militias in late August, and showed "that Rohingya have been targeted."
Myanmar's government did not respond to a request for comment.
But it has consistently denied abuses in Rakhine and puts the official death toll at 400 people – including 376 Rohingya "terrorists," according to the army.
Authorities have also blocked a UN fact-finding mission from accessing the conflict zone in northern Rakhine State.
The investigators visited refugee camps in Bangladesh in late October and said – based on interviews – that the total number of deaths was not known but "may turn out to be extremely high."
The Rohingya are not recognized as an ethnic group in mainly Buddhist Myanmar and have been subject to systematic persecution for decades.
Bangladesh and Myanmar signed a repatriation agreement in late November saying that Rohingya refugees could start to return home in two months, but international aid groups have threatened to boycott working with the government if new camps are set up in northern Rakhine State.
More than 120,000 Rohingya already live in closed-off settlements in the central part of the state since inter-communal violence erupted in 2012.
The former commander of UN peacekeeping forces in Rwanda says the "will to intervene" on the Rohingya crisis is missing.
Video:Ex-UN commander: Rohingya crisis is 'genocide'
By Dominic Waghorn, Diplomatic Editor - Exclusive
A world authority on genocide has told Sky News what is happening to Myanmar's Rohingya Muslims is undoubtedly genocide and the international community must intervene to prevent it.
As commander of UN peacekeeping forces in Rwanda in the early 1990s, Lieutenant General Romeo Dallaire warned that genocide was imminent but was ignored.
As a veteran witness of the mass killings in Rwanda, he has been warning of mass murder being planned in Myanmar, and now for the first time has told the Sky News World View programme that genocide is underway.
History, he says, is repeating itself.
Image:Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees have fled persecution in Myanmar
He said: "It's as if they wrote the same book that the hardliners did in Rwanda and how the international community is reacting is following the same book, and this after the great pieces of work like Responsibility to Protect which we're all afraid to implement and operationalise."
Responsibility to Protect was a UN-backed international agreement to prevent genocide happening again.
General Dallaire believes it has been discarded in the wake of the Rohingya crisis.
Video:Starvation and death on the beaches
The UN has condemned Myanmar's military operation against the Rohingya as "ethnic cleansing".
The country's authorities have been severely criticised for the attacks on the minority group in Rakhine State but criticisms have fallen short of using the word 'genocide'.
Under international treaties, countries are obliged to intervene in cases of genocide, but there has been little appetite for intervention.
Image:Romeo Dallaire was awarded the Canada Pearson Peace Medal
This is despite a programme of killings, mass rape, forcible displacement and the systematic burning of Rohingya villages. As many as a million Rohingyas have been forced to flee.
General Dallaire says he has seen the same methods used before.
He told Sky News: "You're into the mist of a very slow moving and very deliberate genocide, there is no doubt in my military mind that the way they're operating, the way they're conducting, the way they're using their forces.
"The way the government is camouflaging it.
Video:Flow of human misery at Rohingya refugee camp
"They're all very significant indicators of genocide in operation. They want to wipe them out and they've said that's what they operating to do".
He is calling for an international military intervention to prevent and reverse the genocide and says where there is sufficient international will there should be a way.
General Dallaire said: "We put 60, 70 thousand people in ex-Yugoslavia. Why can't we do that there?
"They're more people being killed and martyred, more internally displaced refugees than there was in the whole Yugoslav campaign so it is purely will to intervene which is missing."
Cartier takes a stand by dropping the country's rubies and sapphires amid a backlash over the Rohingya crisis
Bella Hadid wears a Bulgari necklace with a Burmese sapphire at the Cannes film festival in MayKRISTINA NIKISHINA
They are revered among aficionados for their rich, deep hues and mesmerising sparkle. However, Burmese gemstones used in high-end jewellery made by famous western brands are now at the centre of the international outcry over the persecution of Rohingya Muslims.
Cartier, the luxury jeweller, assured shoppers last week that it would no longer buy gemstones from Burma after campaigners exposed the company for selling necklaces and earrings that featured sapphires from the former British colony.
In a posting on its American Facebook page, the company said it had stopped purchasing gemstones from the country last Friday. The comment came after a campaign to boycott "genocide gems" over the persecution of the Rohingya Muslims.
"What Australia Can Do" a short interviewed by 3CR Radio.. inclusive of: -Buddhization & Burmanization threats in Burma.. -Misuses of Suu Kui's power -Suspension of Australia's military aid, -Declaration of Protectorate state & R2P Resolution for Rohingya.. -ANU to revoke Suu Kyi's doctorate award..
Radio Interview by 3CR (from 1:13:31-1:27:19) on #Rohingya#genocide with refugee, eX-detainee & spokesperson for Australian Burmese Rohingya Organisation @HabibASN
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak called for foreign intervention to stop the "genocide" of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar on Sunday, as he joined thousands of Rohingya protesters in Kuala Lumpur.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak addresses a news conference after talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany September 27, 2016. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke
Muslim-Majority Malaysia has been increasingly critical of Myanmar's handling of violence and allegations of state abuses in northern Rakhine state, which has driven hundreds of ethnic Rohingya to flee across the borders to Bangladesh.
It described the violence as "ethnic cleansing" on Saturday.
Najib called on the United Nations, the International Criminal Court and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation to intervene.
"The world cannot just sit by and watch genocide taking place," he told the crowd.
Najib's attendance came despite warnings from Myanmar that Malaysia risked violating the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' (ASEAN) principle of non-interference in other members' internal affairs.
In response, Najib said ASEAN, which agreed to declare itself a single community last year, had also pledged in its charter to uphold basic human rights.
He also accused Myanmar leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi of inaction, saying that she had declared the Rohingya issue off-limits during bilateral discussions.
"How can this be? We should be allowed to discuss everything," he said.
The gathering, organised by Najib's ruling United Malay National Organisation (UMNO) and the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, attracted around 10,000 people, mostly Rohingya.
Malaysia summoned Myanmar's ambassador last week to express concern over the crackdown on Rohingya. It also cancelled the national soccer team's friendly under-22 matches with Myanmar in protest.
Rohingya Society in Malaysia president Faisal Islam Muhammad Kassim said he appreciated Malaysia's efforts to find a solution to the crisis.
"We want the Malaysian government to (send a) message to the Muslim world and the Western countries, to pressure the Myanmar government to solve this Rohingya issue," he said.
The violence in Myanmar is the most serious bloodshed in Rakhine since communal clashes in 2012 that killed hundreds.
Persecution and poverty led thousands of Rohingya to flee Myanmar following the violence between Buddhists and Muslims there four years ago. Many of them were smuggled or trafficked to neighbouring countries, mostly to Thailand and Malaysia.
Najib, who has been buffeted by graft allegations he denies, vowed on Thursday to fight to the end for Malays and Islam, as he called on UMNO to prepare for elections that are "coming soon".
Reporting by Rozanna Latiff; Editing by Nick Macfie
Rohingya refugees on their way to a camp in Bangladesh. Photo: AP
