UN’s top court orders Myanmar to prevent alleged Rohingya genocide

The UN’s top court told Myanmar on Thursday to take urgent steps to prevent the alleged genocide of the Buddhist nation’s minority Rohingya Muslims. The order was the first time that Myanmar has faced justice over a 2017 military crackdown that sent around 740,000 Rohingya fleeing into neighboring Bangladesh.

The International Court of Justice in The Hague granted a series of emergency steps requested by the mainly Muslim African state of The Gambia under the 1948 Genocide Convention, AFP reported.

The ruling comes days after a Myanmar commission concluded that some soldiers likely committed war crimes against the minority group but that the military was not guilty of genocide.

Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi did not attend Thursday’s ruling. In the Hague in December, she defended the military that once kept her locked up, arguing that her country was capable of investigating any allegations of abuse and warned that the case could reignite the crisis.