by Robin Lindley
An interview with international criminal law attorney Regina Paulose.
More than 626,000 Rohingya were driven from Myanmar (formerly Burma) by security forces of the country that “deliberately and massively targeted civilians” in a series of brutal operations that began in August 2017, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein in December 2017.
The recent massive exodus of Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic minority in Myanmar, was sparked by a escalation of government violence since August after Rohingya insurgents reportedly attacked state security posts. According to Amnesty International, Myanmar’s security forces responded with “a systematic, organized and ruthless campaign of violence against the Rohingya population as a whole in northern Rakhine State,” where most Rohingya live in Myanmar.