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The United Nations, on Tuesday, announced the appointment of a panel of experts to investigate alleged army abuses of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.
The three-person mission will consist of Indira Jaising, a prominent female Indian lawyer who drafted the country’s first domestic violence legislation, Sri Lankan lawyer Radhika Coomaraswamy and Australian human rights consultant Christopher Sidoti.
Myanmar’s military has been accused of killing and raping Rohingya Muslims, a persecuted minority group, in a brutal crackdown in Northern Rakhine state in western Myanmar in 2016.
Tens of thousands of Rohingya, deemed illegal immigrants by many in the country, were pushed across the border into squalid camps in Bangladesh.
In the statement published on Tuesday, the UN Human Rights Council said its fact-finding mission is scheduled to deliver a full report in March 2018.
The council resolved to send the team earlier this year in spite opposition from the Myanmar government, which has not clarified whether it will allow the investigation to proceed.
A government spokesperson could not immediately be reached for comment.
Dozens of civil society groups have urged the authorities to accept the mission.
A widely discredited army-led report on the crackdown published earlier this month found no abuses had been committed. (NAN)
