Myanmar military top brass must face justice: Rights body
London, June 27 : A human rights body on Wednesday called for Myanmar military and security forces officials to face justice for their alleged crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya population.
The Amnesty International said there is "a mountain of evidence" demonstrating that the campaign was "orchestrated" by the military against the Rohingya population, Efe news reported.
Amnesty demanded that top Myanmar military officials be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court.
"Those with blood on their hands -- right up the chain of command to Senior General Min Aung Hlaing -- must be held to account for their role," Amnesty's Senior Crisis Advisor Matthew Wells said in a statement.
The military operations, supported by the Border Guard Police, began at the end of August 2017 after a group of Rohingya insurgents launched an attack on about 30 security posts.
The crackdown forced more than 700,000 people of the Muslim-majority ethnic group that had resided in western Myanmar for centuries to flee to Bangladesh.
In the report "Myanmar:'We Will Destroy Everything': Military Responsibility for Crimes Against Humanity in Rakhine State" published on Wednesday, Amnesty provided new details arrests, enforced disappearances, torture and "systematic attack" on the Rohingya population.
It named individuals for their roles in the "ethnic cleansing campaign".
International organisations and the UN have also denounced other crimes committed by the Myanmar armed forces, such as murder, rape, targeted large-scale burning of villages, among others.
Amnesty urged the international community to "finally put an end to the years of impunity" for the Myanmar military and called on the UN to "impose a comprehensive arms embargo".
Earlier this week the European Union imposed a series of sanctions -- asset freezes and travel bans -- against seven Myanmar security officials.
However, the head of the Myanmar Armed Forces was not on the list.
Considering the Rohingya illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, Myanmar does not recognise their citizenship and subjects them to discrimination, including restrictions on freedom of movement.
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11 more bodies retrieved from Arunachal accident site
Itanagar (PTI): Eleven more bodies were retrieved on Saturday from the deep gorge in Arunachal Pradesh's Anjaw district, where a mini-truck on which 22 labourers from Assam were travelling fell, an official said.
With this, 17 bodies have been recovered from the accident site, Anjaw's deputy commissioner Milo Kojin said.
He said three more bodies will be brought out on Sunday.
The operation, being conducted by a joint team of the NDRF and Army, resumed at 6 am.
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"The retrieval process was extremely difficult because of the treacherous terrain, and the gorge is very deep," Kojin said.
The operation was suspended around 4 pm due to low visibility and will be resumed on Sunday morning, he said.
"One person is still missing, and a search operation will be carried out tomorrow," he added.
The accident happened on the evening of December 8, around 40 km from Hayuliang towards Chaglagam in the district. On the evening of December 10, one survivor managed to climb out of the gorge and reach a nearby Border Roads Task Force (BRTF) labour camp, following which the authorities were alerted.
Six bodies were recovered from the gorge on Friday and handed over to their families on Saturday.
