Mandalay (UCAN): The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) passed a resolution on September 27 that creates an independent, international body to help prepare case files for future criminal proceedings against perpetrators of atrocities committed against the Rohingya in Myanmar.
 
The UNHRC’s 47 members voted in favour of the resolution, 37 to 3 with seven abstentions. China, the Philippines and Burundi voted against the resolution, which was drafted by the European Union and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.
 

MANDALAY (UCAN): “Accountability is essential for genuine reconciliation between all ethnic groups and is a prerequisite for regional security and stability,” United Nations (UN) secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, said, as he called for accountability over the persecution of the Rohingya Muslim ethnic group in Myanmar which he described as one of the world’s worst humanitarian and human rights crises.
 

Dhaka (UCAN): “In Cox’s Bazar, I have heard unimaginable accounts of killings and rape from Rohingya refugees who recently fled Myanmar. They want justice and a safe return home,” the secretary of the United Nations (UN), Antonio Guterres, wrote in a Twitter post following a visit to several Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, on July 2.  
 
He was joined on the visit by UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) chief, Filippo Grandi, and Word Bank president, Jin Yong-kim.
 

MANDALAY (UCAN): “It’s telling that Rohingya aren’t clamouring to return to the places where they recently survived genocidal attacks. The authorities are attempting to distract the world from mass atrocities committed by the army,” Matthew Smith, chief executive of Fortify Rights, said, as it seems that a deal between the Myanmese government and United Nations (UN) agencies has done little to inspire confidence that refugees will agree to be repatriated from Bangladesh.
 

DHAKA (UCAN): The government and aid groups in Bangladesh are preparing for disastrous flooding in the upcoming monsoon season which weather forecasters have warned will arrive early at the end of May. It usually starts in June and lasts until August.
 
Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury, minister of the Disaster Management and Relief Ministry, told journalists that disaster preparations are in place.
 

YANGON and DHAKA (UCAN): Mohammad Salim and his family were packing their belongings and getting ready to flee when the violence erupted on 25 August 2017 in the north of Rakhine State, Myanmar, as the military sought to target Rohingya Muslim militants.
 
However, unlike hundreds of thousands of Rohingya who have left the strife-torn state to live in camps in neighboring Bangladesh for fear of ethnic persecution at the hands of the army, Salim decided to stay put.
 

MANDALY (UCAN): Plans by Myanmar’s government to resettle Muslim Rohingya refugees in southern Maungdaw in the restive Rakhine State are meeting up with opposition from other ethnic groups from the area.
 
Some 80 people from civil society groups across Rakhine held a meeting in the state capital, Sittwe, on February 24 to discuss the resettlement of Rohingya returning from Bangladesh.
 

DHAKA (UCAN): The military of the Union of Myanmar admitted for the first time that its soldiers, along with Buddhist villagers were responsible for the murder of 10 alleged Muslim terrorists at Inn Din village in Rakhine last September during a counter-insurgency operation.
 
A statement issued on January 10 said, “Villagers and members of the security forces have confessed that they committed murder.”
 

MANDALAY (UCAN): The government of Myanmar will start the repatriation of Hindu refugees to Rakhine on January 22.
 
At least 3,000 of an estimated 8,000 Hindus living in Maungdaw, Buthidaung and Sittwe were internally displaced, while others crossed over to neighbouring Bangladesh when Muslim Rohingya fled the clearance operations of the Myanmar military.