Brontekst bekijken van Myanmar Begins Shuttering Three Rakhine Camps

A commission led by former UN secretary general Kofi Annan (C) called on the Myanmar government to close displacement camps in strife-torn Rakhine state<br><br>[https://www.myanmartour.com/adventure_myanmar_tours_tl302.html myanmar adventure tours] has started shutting down three displacement camps in strife-torn Rakhine state, a senior official said Tuesday, although it was not immediately clear where the inhabitants would go.<br><br>Tens of thousands of people from Rakhine's Muslim and Buddhist communities ended up in internal displacement camps after sectarian violence ripped the [https://www.Google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&q=impoverished%20region impoverished region] apart five years ago.<br><br>The move to shutter the first of those camps comes after a commission led by former UN chief Kofi Annan last month called on the government to close them as part of a series of measures designed to heal simmering ethnic tensions.<br><br>National Security Advisor Thaung Tun said the government had begun with three camps named in the commission's report, including one sheltering ethnic Rakhines and one that houses Kaman Muslims.<br><br>The largest of the three includes more than 200 houses full of Rohingya Muslims, a heavily persecuted minority.<br><br>Tens of thousands of people from Rakhine's Muslim and Buddhist communities have ended up in internal displacement camps in the violence-hit region<br><br>"We have initiated the process to close down three IDP (internally displaced persons) camps," Thaung Tun told a briefing, without giving details of where people would be moved to.<br><br>"In Kyauk Phyu, there are IDP camps for Rakhines... Sittwe for the Rohingya group and Ramree... mostly for Kamans."<br><br>[https://www.myanmartour.com/adventure_myanmar_tours_tl302.html Myanmar Adventure Tours] has long faced international condemnation for its treatment of Rakhine's more than one million Rohingya, who many from the Buddhist majority reject as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.<br><br>The vast majority are not granted citizenship and face severe restrictions on their access to education, healthcare, food and movements despite many living there for generations.<br><br>The issue has reached boiling point in recent months after the army launched a bloody crackdown in the north of Rakhine thought to have claimed hundreds of lives after [http://wideinfo.org/?s=attacks attacks] on several police border posts in October.<br><br>United Nations investigators say Myanmar's security forces may have carried out crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya during that crackdown.<br><br>Myanmar's national security advisor Thaung Tun says the country has started shutting down displacement camps in strife-torn Rakhine state, April 11, 2017<br><br>De facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi last week rejected the accusations, telling the BBC that the term ethnic cleansing was "too strong an expression".<br><br>Thaung Tun also defended the government on Monday, saying authorities were doing their best to push forward the citizenship verification process.<br><br>"We want to dissolve the issue of statelessness. We need the cooperation of all stateholders in order for us to go forward," he said.<br><br>"It has nothing to do with discrimination... It has nothing to do with ethnic cleansing."