UN: 60 percent of Rohingya refugees are children

The United Nations children’s agency on Friday said an estimated 240,000 children have fled to Bangladesh from Rakhine state in Burma, also known as Myanmar, in the last few weeks. UNICEF spokeswoman Marixie Mercado said children make up about 60 percent of all Rohingya Muslim refugees. About 1,100 of the children are not accompanied by an adult, Mercado said at a briefing in Geneva. “As everybody here is going to tell you, the needs are seemingly endless and the suffering is deepening,” she said. The renewed conflict that began Aug. 25 between Rohingya militants and Myanmar security forces has sent some 391,000 refugees across the border into Bangladesh. The violence began when Rohingya militants attacked the posts of security forces, who responded with operations the UN calls “ethnic cleansing.” The Rohingya have no citizenship or legal status in Burma. Rights groups say security forces are burning Rohingya villages in Rakhine state and blocking access to aid workers. Myanmar government spokesman Zaw Htay told Reuters soldiers aren’t blocking aid organizations, but the groups “might have some difficulty traveling where access is restricted by local authorities for security reasons.”