Rohingya crisis: US 🇺🇸 calls Myanmar 🇲🇲 action 'ethnic cleansing'

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says Myanmar's military action against the minority Muslim Rohingya population constitutes ethnic cleansing.

He said the Rohingya had suffered "horrendous atrocities" and as a result the US was considering targeted sanctions against those responsible.

"After a careful and thorough analysis of available facts, it is clear that the situation in northern Rakhine state constitutes ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya,"Tillerson said in a statement.

"These abuses by some among the Burmese military, security forces, and local vigilantes have caused tremendous suffering and forced hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children to flee their homes in Burma to seek refuge in Bangladesh," he said.

It said "terrorists" from within the Rohingya community (which it called Bengali) were responsible for burning houses and that those who fled did so because they feared those terrorists.

UCJ, UNILORIN.