Malala urges global community to intervene in Rohingya crisis
September 08, 2017
Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai has called on the international community to intervene to protect Myanmar's Muslim minority Rohingya fleeing violence and terror.
She also urged Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi to speak up for the Rohingya, billed as “the world’s most persecuted minority” who are facing genocide in the Rakhine State.
“We can't be silent right now. The number of people who have been displaced is hundreds of thousands," Malala said in an interview to the BBC, as she called for an international response to the violence in Myanmar.
"I think we can't even imagine for a second what it's like when your citizenship, your right to live in a country, is completely denied," she said, adding, “This should be a human rights issue. Governments should react to it.”
She pointed out that children are being deprived of education as well as other basic rights in the violence-hit Rakhine State, where Myanmar authorities are believed to have renewed atrocious crimes against humanity in the recent weeks.
"We need to wake up and respond to it - and I hope that Aung Sang Suu Kyi responds to it as well," she said, reiterating her criticism of the leader and fellow Nobel Laureate for turning a blind eye to the violence.
The human rights activist also talked about how she feels about starting her undergraduate studies at Oxford.
"I am trying to be just a normal student. I want to make friends just as the girl Malala and not the Nobel laureate,” said the 20-year-old, while admitting that she was feeling the “nerves”.
Malala earlier this month condemned the violence against Rohingya, saying she was brokenhearted to see how brutally Myanmar was treating its own people.
“Stop the violence,” she had said, adding that the children who were being killed and their homes demolished “attacked no one, but still their homes were burned to the ground”.
