Rohingya Muslim refugees who fled from Myanmar to neighboring Bangladesh are accusing Myanmar’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi of “telling lies” when she denied allegations that Myanmar’s armed forces were committing genocide against Rohingya Muslims.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ Gambia filed a landmark lawsuit on behalf of a group of 57 Islamic countries at the United Nations’ highest court over Myanmar’s treatment of the Rohingya Muslim minority that began in 2017.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ The lawsuit alleges – through maps, satellite imagery, and graphic photos – that Myanmar committed a deliberate campaign of ethnic cleansing and genocide, including killing civilians, raping women, and torching houses, and led to more than 700,000 Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ At the International Court of Justice in the Hague on Thursday, Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and former political prisoner, said that the mass exodus of Rohingya people from Myanmar was “an incomplete and misleading factual picture of the situation” and an unfortunate result of a battle with insurgents.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ In doing so, she defended the army that kept her under house arrest for 15 years. Her comments were met with criticism by Rohingya refugees living in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, with many saying it was “unacceptable.”⁠⠀

quicktake