UNICEF urges Myanmar to release detained Rohingya children

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has called for the release of the Rohingya children detained by Myanmar’s government as part of a heavy-handed crackdown on the Muslim minority group in Rakhine State.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has called for the release of the Rohingya children detained by Myanmar’s government as part of a heavy-handed crackdown on the Muslim minority group in Rakhine State.

The international body made the plea to Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San SuuKyi on Saturday after detailing the plight of around a dozen minors being held in the Buthidaung prison in the restive Rakhine.

“There are some children that are detained in prison, so those are the cases that we’re raising,” Justin Forsyth, the agency’s deputy executive director, said at the end of a brief trip to the Southeast Asian country. “Any child that’s detained is an issue for us.”

Nearly 75,000 people have fled from the Muslim-majority northern part of Rakhine to Bangladesh since Myanmar’s military launched a crackdown there in October 2016, according to the UN report.