KUALA LUMPUR – As violent attacks on Rohingya people escalate in Myanmar, a group in Malaysia concerned about the situation has welcomed Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob’s urgent call to the United Nations (UN) to address the root cause of the crisis.
The Myanmar Ethnic Rohingya Human Rights Organisation Malaysia (Merhrom) condemned the renewed attacks by the Myanmar military, especially while the 77th UN General Assembly (UNGA) session is in progress.
“We urge the UN and its member states to hold an emergency meeting to stop the ongoing genocidal attack by the Myanmar military against the Rohingya in Arakan state and at the Myanmar-Bangladesh border area,” said its president Zafar Ahmad Abdul Ghani.
He lamented that the five-point consensus mandated by Asean leaders during a meeting in April last year to resolve the conflict in Myanmar had failed.
He said the ten-member Southeast Asian grouping must adopt a workable solution to deal with the Myanmar military to stop the atrocities there.
Zafar reiterated Ismail Sabri’s call to UN member states in increasing the resettlement quota for the Rohingya refugees.
“We hope Malaysia will continue to negotiate with the resettlement countries for our resettlement as we have no other durable solution,” he said in a statement.
In his address at the UNGA in New York on September 24, Ismail Sabri said it is the responsibility of all countries to take in more Rohingya refugees to be resettled in their respective countries.
He stressed that the political crisis in Myanmar had worsened the situation.
He said that although Malaysia is not a signatory to the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol, the country, on humanitarian grounds, has accepted nearly 200,000 refugees.
Pointing to new cases of brutality against Rohingyans, Zafar noted that humanitarian organisations are not being allowed to enter Rakhine and other states in Myanmar.
He also referred to the case lodged by The Gambia in the International Court of Justice against military-ruled Myanmar over the Rohingyan genocide.
The west African nation accused Myanmar at the ICJ in 2019 of breaching the UN genocide convention over a bloody 2017 crackdown.
“This is clear evidence for Gambia for the ICJ process,” said Zafar.
“The UN General Assembly must discuss the situation in Arakan State without delay,” he pleaded. “The UN Security Council must take action against the Myanmar military without delay to stop the ongoing genocidal attack on Rohingya.” – The Vibes, September 27, 2022
