Myanmar faced accusations of genocide in a landmark lawsuit filed by Gambia at the UN’s top court on Monday over the Southeast Asian nation’s treatment of Rohingya Muslims, Gambia’s government said.
Gambia said it was acting on behalf of the 57-nation Organisation of Islamic Cooperation in bringing the case against Myanmar before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague.
The lawsuit accuses mainly Buddhist Myanmar of breaching the 1948 UN Genocide Convention through a brutal military campaign targeting the Rohingya minority in Rakhine state.
The 2017 crackdown forced 740,000 Rohingya to flee over the border into sprawling camps in Bangladesh, in violence that United Nations investigators say amounts to “genocide”.
“The Gambia is taking this action to seek justice and accountability for the genocide being committed by Myanmar against the Rohingya,” Justice Minister Abubacarr Tambadou said in a statement.
