Naypyidaw 13 Sep (ANA) - Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi is to miss next week's UN General Assembly debate as criticism of her handling of the Rohingya crisis grows. Some 370,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Rakhine state for Bangladesh since the outbreak of violence last month. Whole villages have been burned down. The government has been accused by the UN of ethnic cleansing. Myanmar's military says it is fighting Rohingya militants and denies reports that it is targeting civilians. The Rohingya, a mostly Muslim minority in Buddhist-majority Rakhine, have long experienced persecution in Myanmar, which says they are illegal immigrants. They have lived in Myanmar for generations but are denied citizenship.

The UN Security Council is due to meet on Wednesday to discuss the crisis. Ms Suu Kyi has been criticised by former supporters in the West for failing to do enough to prevent the violence. The Nobel Peace Prize winner, who lived under house arrest for 15 years for her pro-democracy activism, is widely seen as the head of government. Fellow Nobel laureates, including the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Malala Yousafzai, have called on Ms Suu Kyi to stop the violence.(ANA)

FA/ANA/September 2017----