11 September, 2017
Some observers point out that the Rohingya issue is so heated in Myanmar that Suu Kyi would lose her popularity, and eventually possibly her position, if she backed the ethnic minority.
The violence and exodus began on August 25 when Rohingya insurgents attacked Myanmar police and paramilitary posts in what they said was an effort to protect their ethnic minority from persecution by security forces in the majority Buddhist country.
Some 290,000 Rohingya Muslims fled to Bangladesh to escape the ongoing violence in Myanmar's Rakhine since August 25, the United Nations office said on Saturday.
Myanmar says its forces are in a fight against "terrorists". They have been forced into labor and have no rights to their land.
The US State Department reacted to the Rohingya crisis on Friday, declaring: "Following serious allegations of human rights abuses including mass burnings of Rohingya villages and violence conducted by security forces and also armed civilians". It has also taken note of the statement of the Muslim organisations that they had demanded refugee status for the Rohingya Muslims.
The current outbreak of violence began last month, after Rohingya insurgents attacked dozens of police posts and an army base in Rakhine.
Using uncustomary strong language, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb also blasted Myanmar leader Aung Sang Suu Kyi without naming her, saying she held the Nobel Peace Prize she won in 1991 with one hand and condoned "crimes" with the other. The recent horrifying news coming out of the region reveals the scope of the atrocities committed against this community.
UNHCR spokeswoman Vivian Tan says the number of people arriving continues to grow.
"If she can not create peace and harmony within the community, how does she deserve this Canadian honorary citizenship?" said Nur Hasim, president of the Canadian Burmese Rohingya Organization.
Rohingya refugees packed into camps and makeshift settlements in Bangladesh are becoming desperate for scant basic resources and dwindling supplies.
At a meeting in Naypidaw on Wednesday to discuss funding for repairing border fences, Minister of Home Affairs Lt-Gen Kyaw Swe and Social Welfare Minister Dr. Win Myat Aye described the need for tighter security along the border to thwart attacks from what they said were terrorists, in order to provide humanitarian aid, the President's Office said in a statement on Facebook.
Thousands of Afghans took to the streets on the second consecutive day Thursday to denounce ongoing violence in Myanmar's western Rakhine state. He spent 16 years in a United Nations refugee camp in Bangladesh, where he worked as a teacher, before being selected as one of a few Rohingya for refugee resettlement in Canada.
