Dying to get out: We must stop ethnic cleansing in Myanmar

	Dying to get out: We must stop ethnic cleansing in Myanmar
	Make an emergency donation to fund Amnesty’s Myanmar action plan. Dear friends, It’s heartbreaking. Desperate families from Myanmar are suffering unimaginable horrors. Since August, the Myanmar military has been burning Rohingya villages in a scorched earth campaign that the United Nations has called, “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.” More than half a million Rohingya people have been systematically attacked and killed, forcing them to flee their homes to cross the border in search of safety in Bangladesh. Some are still trapped in Myanmar, unable to escape the violence, and targeted if they try. State-sponsored discrimination and persecution against the Rohingya, a predominantly Muslim minority group, has been going on for decades. Amnesty International is shining a light on the humanitarian crisis caused by the recent escalation in violence by Myanmar’s military. Amnesty’s crisis investigators are on the ground, reporting the atrocities and exposing the truth. After the initial wave of violence, we released irrefutable evidence of a mass scale ethnic cleansing campaign carried out by the Myanmar military. We followed up with undeniable satellite imagery showing selective burning of Rohingya villages, landmines placed along the paths used by those fleeing, and first-hand accounts of the violence. Please make an emergency donation that will help keep crisis investigators in the field so we can continue to gather critical evidence and so that we can pressure Congress to intervene. The United States must now immediately increase both its humanitarian assistance and its public support of Rohingya refugees. Specifically, we are asking Congress to: Pass S. Res. 250, a bipartisan resolution led by Senators Durbin and McCain, which condemns the military’s attacks on the Rohingya, urges Myanmar to allow unrestricted access to the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar and to all humanitarian aid organizations in Rakhine State, and calls on Myanmar to grant citizenship to the Rohingya. Provide significant humanitarian aid to Bangladesh, which is now reportedly hosting some 519,000 Rohingya refugees. Continue funding significant humanitarian aid to the UN refugee agency and other humanitarian organizations operating in Bangladesh and Myanmar to assist the Rohingya. Press the Myanmar government to implement the recommendations of the Kofi Annan Commission, including the recommendation that the Rohingya be granted Myanmar citizenship. We don’t accept any funding from governments for our campaigning and advocacy work. This allows us to be completely unbiased and independent. We don’t rely on rumors but we do rely on you. Donate and help us fight back against this latest atrocity. Sincerely, Margaret Huang Executive Director, Amnesty International USA
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