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More than half a million Rohingya refugees have flooded into Bangladesh to flee an offensive by Myanmar's military that the United Nations has called 'a textbook example of ethnic cleansing'.
The refugee population is expected to swell further, with thousands more Rohingya Muslims said to be making the perilous journey on foot toward the border, or paying smugglers to take them across by water in wooden boats.
Hundreds are known to have died trying to escape, and survivors arrive with horrifying accounts of villages burned, women raped, and scores killed in the 'clearance operations' by Myanmar's army and Buddhist mobs that were sparked by militant attacks on security posts in Rakhine state on August 25, 2017.
Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi is 'appalled' at the Rohingya refugee crisis in her country and is determined to fix it, but needs to be careful not to inflame the situation further, an adviser to Suu Kyi told reporters on Friday.
'She is appalled by what she has seen. She does care deeply about this. I know that does not always come across. But she really does,' said the adviser, who asked not to be quoted by name.
Aid agencies now estimate that 536,000 people have now arrived in Cox's Bazar district, straining scarce resources of aid groups and local communities.
What the Rohingya refugees flee to is a different kind of suffering in sprawling makeshift camps rife with fears of malnutrition, cholera, and other diseases.
About 200,000 Rohingya were already in Bangladesh after fleeing persecution in Myanmar, where they have long been denied citizenship and faced restrictions on their movements and access to basic services.
Aid organizations are struggling to keep pace with the scale of need and the staggering number of them - an estimated 60 per cent - who are children arriving alone.
Bangladesh, whose acceptance of the refugees has been praised by humanitarian officials for saving lives, has urged the creation of an internationally-recognized 'safe zone' where refugees can return, though Rohingya Muslims have long been persecuted in predominantly Buddhist Myanmar.
World leaders are still debating how to confront the country and its de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who championed democracy, but now appears unable or unwilling to stop the army's brutal crackdown.
Coordinated Rohingya insurgent attacks on 30 security posts on August 25 sparked a ferocious military response in the Muslim-majority northern part of Rakhine state that the United Nations has said was ethnic cleansing.
Myanmar's military has launched an internal probe into the conduct of soldiers during the counteroffensive. The country has insisted that military options ceased on September 5.
A committee led by military Lieutenant-General Aye Win has begun an investigation into the behaviour of military personnel, the office of the commander in chief said on Friday, insisting the operation was justified under Buddhist-majority Myanmar's constitution.
According to a statement posted on Senior General Min Aung Hlaing's Facebook page, the panel will ask, 'Did they follow the military code of conduct? Did they exactly follow the command during the operation? After that (the committee) will release full information.'
Myanmar is refusing entry to a UN panel that was tasked with investigating allegations of abuses after a smaller military counteroffensive launched in October 2016.
But domestic investigations - including a previous internal military probe - have largely dismissed refugees' claims of abuses committed during security forces' so-called 'clearance operations'.
Myanmar's de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has pledged accountability for human rights abuses and says Myanmar will accept back refugees who can prove they were residents of Myanmar.
The powerful army chief has taken a harder stance, however, telling the US ambassador in Myanmar earlier this week that the exodus of Rohingya - who he said were non-native 'Bengalis' - was exaggerated.
In comments to Japan's ambassador carried in state media on Friday, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing denied ethnic cleansing was taking place on the grounds that photos showed Muslims 'departing calmly rather than fleeing in terror'
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