Malaysia hits out at Myanmar over ‘ethnic cleansing’

Malaysia accused Myanmar of engaging in the “ethnic cleansing” of its Rohingya minority on Saturday, as former UN chief Kofi Annan visited a burned out village in strife-torn Rakhine state.

Tens of thousands of Muslim Rohingya have fled their homes since a bloody crackdown by the Myanmar army in the western state of Rakhine sparked by a string of deadly attacks on police border posts in early October. “The fact that only one particular ethnicity is being driven out is by definition ethnic cleansing,” Malaysia’s foreign ministry said in an unusually strongly-worded statement.

Myanmar has balked at such criticism, saying the Rakhine crisis is an internal issue – but international 

vvpressure on the country is mounting.