The ongoing Myanmar issue has given rise to “one of the fastest refugee exoduses in modern times and has created the largest refugee camp in the world,” according to the International Crisis Group.
The mass exit of Rohingya Muslim refugees has left a trail of horror in its wake, with at least 21 women and girls coming forward with stories of how they were brutally beaten and raped repeatedly by Myanmar military personnel.
The stories are certainly heart-rending, but international action has been slow as well over half a million Rohingya refugees have now made camp in Bangladesh to escape the atrocities.
The genocidal ethnic cleansing, aka military action, may have lost Aung San Suu Kyi her Nobel Prize, but Myanmar’s de facto leader still remains a mute observer, willingly or otherwise.
What began in late August has now earned the prolonged outrage of public voices around the world, but little in the form of the world’s biggest powers actually finding a solution to the ongoing problem.
As Asia Times puts it, the Pope’s visit late last month was a clear sign that the West was weak and at a loss for strategy to bring peace to the region.
Case in point: with Myanmar’s ally China having veto power on any possible sanctions against the country for its atrocities, the possibility of an aggressive international reaction is very remote.
Moreover, any unilateral sanctions are only going to give Myanmar’s anti-Muslim population more reasons to justify the military’s actions.
Meanwhile, the military’s systematic rape and pillage strategy has left dozens of women and girls as young as 13 severely wounded in body and completely traumatized in mind.
But their spirits remain strong as they hold on to life and attempt to pick up the pieces of their broken lives at the largest refugee camp in the world.
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