Michael Gabriel Hernandez
20 January 2021•Update: 20 January 2021
WASHINGTON
The incoming Biden administration will launch an interagency review to determine whether Myanmar's persecution of its Rohingya minority amounts to genocide, President-elect Joe Biden's nominee to lead the State Department said Tuesday.
Antony Blinken said during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that if confirmed, he would oversee the process.
According to Amnesty International, more than 750,000 Rohingya refugees, mostly women and children, fled Myanmar and crossed into Bangladesh after Myanmarese forces launched a crackdown on the minority Muslim community in August 2017.
Since August of that year, nearly 24,000 Rohingya Muslims have been killed by Myanmar’s state forces, according to a report by the Ontario International Development Agency (OIDA).
Blinken's confirmation vote in the full Senate is expected as soon as Wednesday, shortly after Biden is formally inaugurated.
