Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment he has made of the humanitarian situation in Myanmar since publication on 3 February 2017 of a report by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the rights of the Rohingya.

We are deeply concerned by recent reports detailing human rights violations against the Rohingya in Rakhine State of Burma. These include reports by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Burma and by a range of international human rights organisations. We are also concerned by the humanitarian situation facing the people in Rakhine with up to 70,000 refugees fleeing across the border into Bangladesh.

With our international partners, we are currently negotiating a Resolution at the Human Rights Council in Geneva, where we are advocating for the renewal of the mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Burma. We are also seeking to establish a mechanism which has the support of both the Burmese authorities and the international community to establish the facts and help deliver accountability for violations.