UN chief demands Myanmar end military operations, open humanitarian access

BANGLADESH: At least 15 people drowned and scores are feared missing after a boat carrying Rohingya families capsized off Bangladesh Thursday, as UN chief Antonio Guterres exhorted Myanmar´s leaders to end the refugees´ "nightmare."
The growing Rohingya refugee crisis prompted the UN Security Council to hold a rare public meeting on Myanmar, with the US slamming the country for trying "to cleanse the country of an ethnic minority" while Beijing and Moscow backed the Myanmar authorities.

More than half a million Rohingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh in the last month, after the military in Buddhist-majority Myanmar launched vicious operations against Rohingya rebels.

Witnesses and survivors said the vessel that overturned Thursday was just meters from the coast in rough waters, after it was lashed by torrential rain and high winds. 

Local police inspector Moahmmed Kai-Kislu told AFP 15 bodies including at least 10 children and four women had so far washed ashore, and there were fears the number could still rise.

"They drowned before our eyes. Minutes later, the waves washed the bodies to the beach," said Mohammad Sohel, a local shopkeeper.

Rare meeting

Seven of the UN´s 15-member Security Council voted to hold the body´s first public meeting on Myanmar since 2009, though they failed to arrive at a joint resolution.

Guterres urged authorities to halt military operations and open humanitarian access to its conflict-wracked western region.

"The situation has spiraled into the world´s fastest developing refugee emergency, a humanitarian and human rights nightmare," he said, while calling for those displaced from the conflict to be allowed to return home.

The UN chief noted that the "systemic violence" could cause unrest to spill into the central part of Myanmar´s Rakhine state, threatening 250,000 Muslims with displacement.