Burma leader Aung San Suu Kyi has said ethnic cleansing was too strong a term to describe what was happening in the country’s Muslim-majority Rakhine region, claiming violence there was partly down to “Muslims killing Muslims”.

The UN has launched an investigation into allegations of Burmese security forces killing, raping and torturing Rohingya Muslims.

A report issued by the body earlier this year, based on interviews with 220 Rohingya among 75,000 who have fled to Bangladesh since October, accused Burma’s security forces of having committed mass killings and gang rapes in a campaign that “very likely” amounted to crimes again humanity and possibly ethnic cleansing.

“I don’t think there is ethnic cleansing going on,” Ms Suu Kyi told the BBC in an interview when asked if she would be remembered as the Nobel Peace Prize winner who ignored ethnic cleansing in her own country.

MORE:   http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/burma-rohingya-muslims-killing-muslims-aung-san-suu-kyi-ethnic-cleansing-bbc-a7669451.html