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The U.S. government on Friday expanded its policy requiring asylum seekers to wait outside the country to one of Mexico’s most dangerous cities, where thousands of people are already camped, some for several months.

The Department of Homeland Security said it would implement its Migrant Protection Protocols in Brownsville, Texas, across the border from Matamoros, Mexico. DHS said it expected the first asylum seekers to be sent back to Mexico starting Friday.

Under the “Remain in Mexico” policy, asylum seekers are briefly processed and given a date to return for an immigration court hearing before being sent back across the southern border. Since January, the policy has been implemented at several border cities including San Diego and El Paso, Texas. At least 18,000 migrants have been sent back to Mexico under the policy, according to Mexico’s National Migration Institute.

The U.S. is trying to curtail the large flow of Central American migrants passing through Mexico to seek asylum under American law. The busiest corridor for unauthorized border crossings is South Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, where Brownsville is located. Other cities in the Rio Grande Valley were not immediately included in the expansion.

DHS said it had coordinated with the Mexican government on the policy. The Mexican government did not immediately respond to requests for comment. But the Trump administration has pressured Mexico to crack down on migrants, threatening earlier this year to impose crippling tariffs until both sides agreed on new measures targeting migration. 

Matamoros is at the eastern edge of the U.S.-Mexico border in Tamaulipas state, where organized crime gangs are dominant and the U.S. government warns citizens not to visit because of violence and kidnappings.

The city is also near where a Salvadoran father and his 23-month-old daughter were found drowned in the Rio Grande, in photos that were shared around the world.

Many people have slept for the last several months in a makeshift camp near one of the international bridges, including families with young children. Thousands more stay in hotels, shelters or boarding houses. Only a few migrants daily have been allowed to seek asylum under another Trump administration policy limiting asylum processing known as “metering.” 

A list run by Mexican officials has more than 1,000 people on it, said Elisa Filippone, a U.S.-based volunteer who visits Matamoros several times a week to deliver food and donated clothes. But many others not on the list wait in shelters. There are frequent rumors that migrants are shaken down for bribes to join the list, Filippone said.

She described a desperate situation that could be made worse if people are forced to wait longer in Mexico for their asylum claims to be processed.

“I’m afraid that Matamoros is about to catch on fire,” she said.

Filippone said Friday that she saw the camp closest to one of the bridges being cleared away, though it was not immediately clear why or where the people detained would go. 

DHS recently implemented the “Remain” policy for migrants in Nuevo Laredo, across from Laredo, Texas. About 1,800 asylum seekers and migrants are currently waiting in Nuevo Laredo, where some have reported being kidnapped and extorted by gangs.

“I don’t want to go out on the street. I’m afraid the same men … will do something to me or my boys,” said one woman, insisting on speaking anonymously out of fear for their safety.

People in Nuevo Laredo were told to return in September for U.S. court dates. At other points along the border, wait times have stretched to several months. 

Unlike in criminal court, the U.S. government does not have to provide lawyers to people in the immigration court system. Attorneys in South Texas have long questioned where they could meet with potential clients in Tamaulipas.

Many migrants who get to the U.S. have exhausted all their resources by the time they arrive, said Lisa Brodyaga, an attorney who has represented asylum seekers for decades. 

“It would be extremely difficult for them to find attorneys who would have the time and the ability and the willingness to expose themselves to what’s going in Matamoros,” she said. “I’m not sure how it’s going to work.”

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Editor’s note: We want you to know what’s happening, why and how it could impact your life, family or business, so we created a weekly digest of the top original immigration, migration and refugee reporting from across VOA. Questions? Tips? Comments? Email the VOA immigration team: ImmigrationUnit@voanews.com.

Back to the border

The head of U.S. Homeland Security, Kevin McAleenan, found himself in a familiar place this week: testifying before members of Congress, again facing tough questions about how department employees treat people detained along the U.S.-Mexico border, especially children.  The hearing was sandwiched between two trips the acting secretary took to the border. He flew to Washington after one trip that concluded Wednesday, headed to Capitol Hill on Thursday, and as of Friday was scheduled back in McAllen, Texas. There, along with a group of senators, he was to tour multiple facilities where migrants are held after apprehension. 

Asylum ban in the Southwest

The Trump administration is locked in another legal battle over its migration policies, this time regarding asylum. Through a rule change announced early this week, the federal government is seeking to block people from requesting asylum if they entered the U.S. by land through Mexico, are not Mexican or Canadian, or had the ability to request asylum in another country they passed through before arriving in the U.S.

 It was the latest attempt to limit the number of people claiming humanitarian grounds to travel to or remain in the country. The U.N. says the new regulation will put vulnerable families at risk.  The Trump administration says many who request asylum ultimately are denied, and accuses migrants of abusing the U.S. system.

Death in Australian detention 

The death of an Afghan refugee in an Australian immigration detention center is raising questions similar to those in U.S. facilities — how is indefinite detention affecting people, especially when the average period of time for those held in detention was more than 500 days? And could these deaths be prevented?  

The country faced challenges on multiple fronts regarding migration this week, as Papua New Guinea told Canberra to resolve what it would do with hundreds of refugees after the closure of a migrant camp. 

Immigration raids fizzle

For the second time in as many months, U.S. officials threatened massive raids to capture immigrants without legal status. And when the day came, such roundups failed to happen. But for the undocumented community, the fear of deportation was there, even if the federal agents weren’t.

Verbal attack

Congresswoman. Former refugee. Somali-American. There are plenty of straightforward ways to describe Ilhan Omar. But the lawmaker was the focus of virulent and xenophobic comments this week.

She is one of four new members of Congress, all women of color, who repeatedly have been criticized by President Donald Trump since Sunday on social media and in public comments.

Omar responded on Twitter with an often-quoted stanza from a Maya Angelou poem: “You may shoot me with your words / You may cut me with your eyes / You may kill me with your hatefulness / But still, like air, I’ll rise.” 

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

-Maya Angelou https://t.co/46jcXSXF0B

— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) July 18, 2019

Deportability cases

According to the latest data from immigration courts through June 2019, just 2.8 percent of recent U.S. Department of Homeland Security filings based deportability claims on any alleged criminal activity. Syracuse University’s TRAC found that despite the “rising number of ICE interior arrests and individuals who are detained, fewer and fewer immigrants in the Immigration Court’s growing workload are being cited as deportable based upon criminal activity.” 

Immigrant legal services

The American Immigration Council, American Immigration Lawyers Association and Immigrant Defense Project filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday in the Southern District of New York. The organizations seek information about a program that “operates largely outside of public view and with little regard for due process.” 

From the Feds:

— Border Patrol agents in one sector continue to document the apprehensions of African border crossers entering without authorization. The Del Rio sector said more than 1,100 people from 19 African countries were detained since the end of May. 

— A Texas woman was sentenced to five years in prison this week for running a human smuggling ring from India to the U.S. Among Hema Patel’s assets seized by the federal government: her home, two hotels, $400,000 in cash and 11 gold bars. 

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As Libya’s two rival governments fight for control of the capital, Tripoli, airstrikes and artillery fire continue to batter the city. Nearly 1,100 people have died and more than 100,000 have been displaced by the war. As VOA’s Heather Murdock reports from Tripoli, officials say if the fighting does not slow down, the country is headed toward “disaster.”
 

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The governor of Puerto Rico is not backing down despite massive street protests in the capital, San Juan, demanding his resignation. Thousands of people have taken to the streets after Puerto Rico’s Center for Investigative Journalism published nearly 900 pages of leaked text messages in which Gov. Ricardo Rossello used homophobic and misogynistic language.  VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports the governor said in a statement Thursday that his commitment to Puerto Rico is stronger than ever.

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This week, President Donald Trump came under fire for verbal attacks on four minority Democratic congresswomen. The House of Representatives condemned some of the president’s comments as racist. And Democrats remain divided over whether to try to impeach Trump or focus on defeating him in next year’s presidential election. The clash has plunged the country into an angry debate over race, immigration and political ideology, as we hear from VOA National correspondent Jim Malone in Washington.
 

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Iranian state television said Thursday forces from the country’s Revolutionary Guard seized a foreign tanker accused of smuggling oil.

The report said the vessel was intercepted Sunday in a section of the Strait of Hormuz south of Iran’s Larak Island with 12 crew members on board.

It said the tanker was involved in smuggling one million liters of fuel, but did not give details about its country of origin.

The seizure comes after the Panamanian-flagged tanker MT Riah, which is based in the United Arab Emirates, disappeared from ship tracking maps in Iranian territorial waters on July 14.

The Revolutionary Guard said it received a distress call from the vessel, which was “later seized with the order from the court as we found out that it was smuggling fuel,” a report said. It said Iranian smugglers intended to transport the fuel to foreign customers.

The seizure comes amid heightened U.S.-Iran tensions, which began to escalate when President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from a 2015 deal with Iran and world powers last year and imposed stiff sanctions on Iran, including on its oil exports.

Iran has recently exceeded uranium production and enrichment limits in violation of the agreement in an effort to pressure Europe to offer more favorable terms to allow it to sell its crude oil abroad.

The U.S. has also deployed thousands of additional troops, nuclear-capable bombers and fighter jets to the Middle East.

Veiled attacks on oil tankers and Iran’s downing of a U.S. military surveillance drone have further fueled concerns of a military conflict in the Persian Gulf region.

An unnamed U.S. defense official told Associated Press earlier this week the U.S. “has suspicions” Iran seized the tanker MT Riah when it turned off its tracker.

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India’s space agency says it will make a second attempt to launch an unmanned probe to the Moon’s south pole next Monday, July 22.

The launch of the Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft will take place exactly one week after its first attempt was aborted less than an hour before liftoff due to a “technical snag” on the giant Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark Three rocket.

Chandrayaan, the Sanskrit word for “moon craft,” is designed for a soft landing on the far side of the moon and to send a rover to explore water deposits confirmed by a previous Indian space mission.  

If the $140 million mission is successful, India will become just the fourth nation to pull off a soft landing of a spacecraft on the lunar surface, after the United States — which is observing the 50th anniversary of the historic Apollo 11 mission this week — Russia and China.

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A survey by the International Organization for Migration finds Venezuelan migrants and refugees are at high risk of exploitation and abuse.  More than 4,600 people were surveyed in five Caribbean and Central American countries between July and December 2018.

The survey provides a snapshot of the hardships encountered by a fraction of the four million people who have fled Venezuela’s political and economic crisis over the past few years.   

One in five Venezuelans interviewed said they were forced to work under dire conditions without pay or were held against their will until they paid off a debt they incurred while escaping from Venezuela.  

Rosilyn Borland is an IOM senior regional migrant protection and assistance specialist based in Costa Rica.  On a telephone line from the Costa Rican capital, San Jose, she tells VOA both men and women fall victim to traffickers who force them into abusive situations.

“It is good to remember that these criminal networks, they focus on the vulnerabilities,” she said.  “So, those can be linked to your gender or they can be linked to other things.  So, often we see trafficking and exploitation of women linked to gender-based violence and inequalities that women face.  But also, men who are searching for a way to support their families… may also find themselves in situations of vulnerability.” 

Borland says many migrants and refugees face discrimination while in transit or in destination countries.  She says massive flows of people often bring out the worst tendencies in host communities.  

“Part of our reasons for asking these questions has to do with fighting against xenophobia and things that, unfortunately, sometimes happen when communities are hosting large numbers of people.  It is difficult.  It is a strain,” she said. 

Borland says it is important to regularize migrants in the host countries.   She says allowing migrants to work legally brings them out of the shadows so they can fight for their rights.  She says having legal status would make them less vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.  

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STATE DEPARTMENT — “My father is a fixer, a bridge-builder, a connector. He knows that a better future is one where Han Chinese and Uighur children are in school together, are friends together and have the same opportunities,” said Jewher Ilham, who pleaded for the release of her father, prominent jailed Uighur scholar and economist Ilham Tohti. 
 
She also petitioned Chinese authorities to release all Uighur girls from so-called re-education camps before Beijing hosts the 2022 Winter Olympics.  
 
Tohti has been serving a life sentence on separatism-related charges since 2014. Chinese authorities accused him of encouraging terrorism and advocating separatism in his lectures, articles and comments to foreign media.
 

22 UN Ambassadors Condemn Chinese Treatment of Uighurs

Concerns were expressed in letter to UN Human Rights Council 

The scholar and economist founded the website Uyghur Online, which is aimed at promoting understanding between Uighurs and Han Chinese. He also has been outspoken about Beijing’s treatment of the minority Muslim Uighurs in the far-western Xinjiang region.  
 
“I have not spoken to him since 2014, and I have not seen him since we were separated at the airport in 2013. We were on our way to Indiana University, where my father was supposed to start a yearlong residency,” Jewher Ilham told participants of the second annual Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom, hosted by the U.S. State Department on Tuesday.  

U.S. lawmakers’ push
 
The appeal came amid a renewed push from American lawmakers urging China to change how it treats Uighurs in Xinjiang. 
 
“The violations [in Xinjiang] are of such scale, are so big, and the commercial interests are so significant that it sometimes tempers our values in terms of how we should act,” said Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, said Tuesday at the ministerial.  
 
“Unless we are willing to speak out against the violations of religious freedom in China, we lose all moral authority to talk about it any other place in the world,” added Pelosi.  
 
The House speaker also called for U.S. sanctions against Chinese Communist Party leaders in Xinjiang, who are responsible for the re-education camps. 
 
More than 1 million Muslim Uighurs have been detained in re-education camps that critics say are aimed at destroying indigenous culture and religious beliefs.  
 
American officials say the United States has stressed to Chinese authorities the importance of differentiating between peaceful dissent and violent extremism. They say Tohti’s arrest “silenced an important Uighur voice that peacefully promoted harmony and understanding among China’s ethnic groups, particularly Uighurs.”  
 
In January 2019, Tohti was nominated by a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers for the Nobel Peace Prize.
 
China rejected the nomination, calling Tohti a separatist.  
 
“Ilham Tohti is convicted of dismembering the nation. What he did was meant to split the country, stoke hatred and justify violence and terrorism, which cannot be condoned in any country. The international community should have a clear understanding of this,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said this year.  
 

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This story originated in VOA’s Serbian Service. Some information is from AP.

WASHINGTON —  NATO’s supreme commander met with Serbian political and military leaders in Belgrade on Wednesday in his first visit to Serbia since assuming the alliance’s top military post.

U.S. Air Force General Tod Wolters, who in May was sworn in as supreme allied commander in Europe, a post always held by a U.S. military officer, was first hosted by General Milan Mojsilovic, head of the Serbian Armed Forces, before meeting jointly with President Aleksandar Vucic and Defense Minister Aleksandr Vulin.

“We spoke about a wide range of topics and I am glad to say that through hard work and dedication, Serbia is promoting peace and stability in the Western Balkans,” Wolters told VOA’s Serbian Service in a prepared statement.

Wolters did not immediately respond to questions about whether or not he planned to visit Kosovo on this trip to the region.

Serbia does not recognize Kosovo as a country, but the EU has set normalized relations between the two countries as a condition for Serbia to advance to EU membership.

Talks mediated by EU officials have been stalled for months.

President Vucic issued a statement after meeting with Wolters, in which he called NATO-led international peacekeepers on the ground in Kosovo a guarantor of security for Serbs living in Kosovo.

Vucic also said Wolters agreed to set up an emergency communications hotline between Serbian forces and the NATO-led international peacekeeping force in Kosovo (KFOR) to rapidly defuse tensions or episodes of violence.

“Good communication between the Serbian Armed Forces and the KFOR is important so that any crisis situation in Kosovo and Metohija could be immediately prevented,” Vucic said. “This is a security guarantee for the Serbian people in Kosovo.”

Wolters, in response, expressed his support for Serbia’s efforts to maintain stability and develop cooperation in the region.

French President Emmanuel Macron met with Vucic in Belgrade on Monday, when he vowed to help jumpstart stalled negotiations to resolve Serbia’s independence dispute with former province Kosovo so a lasting solution can be found for the decades-long Balkan crisis.

Macron, making the first visit to Serbia by a French president since 2001, also expressed support for the country’s stated goal of joining the European Union even as he reiterated his belief that the EU must adopt reforms before adding more members.

Historically close ties between Belgrade and Paris were severely damaged when NATO forces bombed Serbia in 1999 over the country’s actions in Kosovo, and by France’s recognition of Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence.

Serbia has officially been on the path to becoming an EU member since 2008. The country also maintains close ties with Russia and China, whose mounting influence in the Balkans has raised Western concerns.

“I urged France to help us on our European road and in solving the Kosovo crisis,” Vucic said of his meeting with the French president.

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Federally funded family planning clinics, including Planned Parenthood, are defying the Trump administration’s ban on referring women for abortions, drawing a line against what they say amounts to keeping patients in the dark about legitimate health care options.

“We are not going to comply with a regulation that would require health care providers to not give full information to their patients,” Jacqueline Ayers, the group’s top lobbyist, said in an interview Tuesday. “We believe as a health care provider it is wrong to withhold health care information from patients.”

The fallout from the confrontation between the Trump administration and the clinics remains to be seen, but groups like the American Medical Association have been warning that many low-income women could lose access to basic services like contraception. Planned Parenthood’s announcement came on a day when it also replaced its president, although it’s unclear if there was any connection.

The Department of Health and Human Services formally notified the clinics Monday that it will begin enforcing the new regulation banning abortion referrals, along with a requirement that clinics maintain separate finances from facilities that provide abortions. The rule is being challenged in federal court, but the administration says there is currently no legal obstacle to enforcing it.

It’s part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to remake government policy on reproductive health.

In a statement, HHS did not address Planned Parenthood’s decision, but said the agency is committed to working with clinics so they can comply with the new rules. While abortion referrals are prohibited, HHS noted that clinicians can still offer neutral “nondirective counseling” on abortion.

With about 400 affiliated clinics, Planned Parenthood is the largest provider in the federal family planning program for low-income women, known as Title X. The program does not pay for abortions, but until now clinics had been able to refer women for the procedure. Planned Parenthood clinics have long been a target for religious and social conservatives closely allied with the administration because the clinics separately provide abortions.

Emergency funding

Planned Parenthood acted after its Illinois affiliate and an independent provider, Maine Family Planning, announced they were dropping out of the federal program. Planned Parenthood also abruptly announced the departure of its president, physician Leana Wen, who cited “philosophical differences” in a letter to the staff. Political organizer Alexis McGill Johnson was named as acting president.

Ayers said Tuesday that Planned Parenthood clinics will stop accepting federal money and tap emergency funding as they press Congress and the courts to reverse the administration’s ban. She said she’s not sure how long that backup funding will last.

The federal family planning program serves about 4 million women annually through independent clinics. Taxpayers provide about $260 million a year in grants to clinics. But that money by law cannot be used pay for abortions.

Court cases

The family planning rule is being challenged around the country in court cases that have yet to resolve the core issues involved. However, a nationwide preliminary injunction that had blocked the administration was recently set aside, allowing HHS to begin enforcing the rule.

Other administration regulations tangled up in court would allow employers to opt out of offering free birth control to female workers on the basis of religious or moral objections and would grant health care professionals wider leeway to opt out of procedures that offend their religious or moral scruples.

Abortion opponents welcomed the Trump administration’s action.

The religious conservative Family Research Council said in a statement the rule would “draw a bright line between abortion and family planning programs” and cheered the news that clinics that had been longtime participants are dropping out. That’s “freeing up funding opportunities for clinics that do not promote or perform abortions,” the statement said.

Social conservatives are a bulwark of President Donald Trump’s political base.

Abortion is a legal medical procedure, but federal laws prohibit the use of taxpayer funds to pay for abortions except in cases of rape or incest or to save the life of the woman.

Another requirement of the Trump administration’s rule, to take effect next year, would bar clinics and abortion providers from sharing physical space.

Abortion rate

The AMA is among the professional groups opposed to the administration’s policy, saying it could affect low-income women’s access to basic medical care, including birth control, cancer screenings, and testing and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases.

Religious conservatives see the regulation as a means to end what they call an indirect taxpayer subsidy of abortion providers.

Although abortion remains politically divisive, the U.S. abortion rate has dropped significantly, from about 29 per 1,000 women of reproductive age in 1980 to about 15 per 1,000 in 2014. Better contraception, fewer unintended pregnancies and state restrictions may have played a role, according to a recent scientific report. Polls show most Americans do not want the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalized abortion.

The Trump administration’s policy echoes a Reagan-era regulation that barred clinics from even discussing abortion with women. It never went into effect as written, although the Supreme Court ruled it was appropriate.

The policy was rescinded under President Bill Clinton, and a new rule took effect requiring “nondirective” counseling to include a full range of options for women. The Trump administration is now rolling back the Clinton requirement.

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Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri on Tuesday signaled reservations about International Monetary Fund (IMF) proposals for Lebanon which he said included floating the Lebanese pound, which has been pegged at its current level for more than two decades.

Hariri was speaking on the first day of a three-day parliamentary session that is expected to approve a state budget that aims to slash the deficit, as a step towards putting Lebanese state finances on a sustainable path.

Lebanon has one of the heaviest public debt burdens in the world. The state’s main expenditures are the public sector wage bill, paying interest on its debt, and subsidising the loss-making state power company.

The government aims to slash the deficit through measures including a 3% point increase in tax on interest and a plan to issue low-interest treasury bonds.

Hariri was responding to criticism from MP George Adwan of the Lebanese Forces (LF) Party who noted reservations expressed by a recent IMF mission to Lebanon.

The IMF mission, in the concluding statement of an Article IV mission, said earlier this month that buying the proposed low-interest debt would worsen the central bank’s balance sheet and undermine its credibility.

It also said there should also not be any pressure on private banks to purchase the low-interest debt.

Addressing the plan to issue low interest bonds, Hariri said that he, the finance minister and the central bank had agreed “this matter would be conducted in a voluntary way by banks.”

“I know the IMF has some reservations, but also if we want to adopt everything the IMF does … (well then it also) proposes that we leave the Lebanese pound to float, that it go up and down as it wants,” said Hariri, asking whether this is what the Lebanese Forces wanted.

The LF is part of his cabinet, but plans to abstain from voting for the budget, saying it does not go far enough with reforms.

The IMF had also requested an increase of fuel excise in addition to an increase in VAT, Hariri said.

“I want to say that we always negotiate with the IMF in a way where we work for the interest of Lebanon, the interest of the Lebanese pound,” Hariri said.

The IMF, in its statement, said Lebanon should adopt revenue measures that include raising value-added tax (VAT) and increasing fuel excises as well as efforts to increase tax compliance.

It said the draft budget together with a plan to reform the power sector were “very welcome first steps on a long road.” But it said the 2019 budget deficit would likely be well above the government’s target of 7.6% of gross domestic product (GDP).

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The United States on Tuesday announced sanctions on the Myanmar military’s Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing and other military leaders over extrajudicial killings of Rohingya Muslims, barring them from entry to the United States.

The steps, which also covered Min Aung Hlaing’s deputy, Soe Win, and two other senior commanders and their families, are the strongest the United States has taken in response to massacres of minority Rohingyas in Myanmar, also known as Burma.

“We remain concerned that the Burmese government has taken no actions to hold accountable those responsible for human rights violations and abuses, and there are continued reports of the Burmese military committing human rights violations and abuses throughout the country,” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement in making the announcement.

Pompeo said a recent disclosure that Min Aung Hlaing ordered the release of soldiers convicted of extrajudicial killings at the village of Inn Din during the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya in 2017 was “one egregious example of the continued and severe lack of accountability for the military and its senior leadership.”

“The Commander-in-Chief released these criminals after only months in prison, while the journalists who told the world about the killings in Inn Din were jailed for more than 500 days,” Pompeo said.

The Inn Din massacre was uncovered by two Reuters reporters, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who spent more than 16 months behind bars on charges of obtaining state secrets. The two were released May 6.

The U.S. announcement came on the first day of an international ministerial conference on religious freedom hosted by Pompeo at the State Department that was attended by Rohingya representatives.

A 2017 military crackdown in Myanmar drove more than 730,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to neighboring Bangladesh. U.N. investigators have said that Myanmar’s operation included mass killings, gang rapes and widespread arson and was executed with “genocidal intent.”

A United Nations investigator said this month that Myanmar security forces and insurgents were committing human rights violations against civilians that may amount to fresh war crimes.

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