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Reuters

Myanmar’s de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, on Thursday urged people “not to quarrel” as she visited Rakhine state for the first time since a military crackdown that drove more than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee the country.
Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, has faced heavy international criticism for not taking a higher profile in responding to what some UN officials have called “ethnic cleansing” by the army.

Myanmar has rejected the accusation, saying its security forces launched a counter-insurgency operation after Rohingya militants attacked 30 security posts in northern Rakhine on August 25.
On Thursday, amid heightened security, Suu Kyi boarded a military helicopter at Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine state, to be taken to Maungdaw, one of districts worst hit by the violence.
Suu Kyi met a group of Muslim religious leaders, said Chris Lewa, of the Arakan Project monitoring group, citing Rohingya sources.

“She only said three things to the people – they should live peacefully, the government is there to help them, and they should not quarrel among each other,” Lewa said, quoting information from a religious leader who was present.
Rohingya began fleeing predominantly Buddhist Myanmar for neighbouring Bangladesh in late August to escape violence in the wake of the counter-insurgency operation.

On Wednesday, reporters saw thousands of desperate Rohingya wade through shallows and narrow creeks between islands of the Naf river to reach neighbouring Bangladesh as the exodus begun two months ago was far from over.
Some had small boats or pulled makeshift rafts to get to Bangladesh on the river’s western bank, but most walked, children cradled in their arms and the elderly carried on their backs, with sacks of belongings tied to staves on their shoulders.

Reaching the far side, some women and older people had to be pulled through the mud to reach dry land atop steep banks.
More than 4,000 crossed at different points on the river on Wednesday, said Major Mohammed Iqbal, a Bangladesh security official in the southern district of Cox’s Bazar.
Suu Kyi has not previously visited Rakhine since her party came to power last year. Most residents of the northern part of the state, which includes Maungdaw, were Muslims until the recent crisis.
Watch: what’s driving the Rohingya crisis?


Suu Kyi was accompanied by about 20 people travelling in two military helicopters, including military, police and state officials.
Businessman Zaw Zaw, formerly sanctioned by the US Treasury for his ties to Myanmar’s junta, was also with the Nobel laureate.
Suu Kyi, who does not control the military, appears to be trying to take a stronger lead in the crisis, focusing government efforts on rehabilitation and pledging to repatriate refugees and has urged tycoons to contribute.

She has pledged to allow the return of refugees who can prove they were residents of Myanmar, but thousands of people continued to flee to Bangladesh.
Refugees in the Bangladesh camps say the Myanmar army torched their villages, but Myanmar blames Rohingya militants.
Talks with Bangladesh have yet to deliver a pact on a repatriation process made more complex because Myanmar has long denied citizenship to the Rohingya.
Suu Kyi’s spokesman voiced fears on Tuesday that Bangladesh could be stalling on the accord to first get millions of dollars of international aid money, an accusation a senior Bangladesh home ministry official described as outrageous.


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Aung San Suu Kyi

Suu Kyi makes first visit to Rakhine two months after bloody conflict forced Rohingya to flee

Myanmar state counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi arriving back at Sittwe Airport after visiting Maungdaw, Rakhine State. Photo: EPA

In this Oct. 5, 2017, video released by Arakan Rohingya National Organization, villagers are seen crossing a river towards the Maungdaw township in the Rakhine state that borders Bangladesh. More Rohingya Muslims fleeing violence in Myanmar are streaming toward the border, despite government assurances that it is stopping the exodus of refugees to Bangladesh. (Arakan Rohingya National Organization via the AP)

Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi arrives at Sittwe airport after visiting Maungdaw in the state of Rakhine November 2, 2017. REUTERS/Stringer NO SALES NO ARCHIVES

Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi (C) meets with Myo ethnic people in northern Maungdaw, Myanmar's Rakhine State on November 2, 2017. Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi arrived on her first visit to conflict-battered northern Rakhine State on November 2, an official said, an unannounced trip to an area that has seen most of its Rohingya Muslim population forced out by an army campaign. / AFP PHOTO / STR

Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi arrives in Sittwe, Rakhine state, Myanmar, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2017. Suu Kyi made her first visit as Myanmar's leader Thursday to the conflict-torn region where more than half a million Rohingya Muslims have fled state-led violence that has spiraled into Asia's worst refugee crisis in decades. (AP Photo)

epa06303182 Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi (C-L) receives flowers from a girl at Sittwe Airport, in Sittwe, Rakhine State, Myanmar, 02 November 2017. Suu Kyi is on a one-day unannounced trip to Rakhine State, an area which has experienced unrest which resulted in attacks on police stations and a subsequent and a military crackdown that displaced up to 400,000 Rohingya, who fled into Bangladesh to escape. EPA-EFE/NYUNT WIN

Aung San Suu Kyi insists Myanmar trying to ’take care of everybody’ in strife-torn state

Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Photo: Reuters

epa06187782 People burn a picture of Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi during a protest against violence in Myanmar, in Karachi, Pakistan, 06 September 2017. At least 87,000 members of the Rohingya Muslim minority have entered Bangladesh in the last week fleeing violence in northwestern Myanmar, a United Nations official said 04 September 2017. International organizations have reported claims of human rights violations and summary executions allegedly carried out by the Myanmar army. EPA-EFE/SHAHZAIB AKBER

Aung San Suu Kyi’s office accuses aid workers of helping ‘terrorists’ in Myanmar

Myanmar's State Counsellor and Foreign Minister Aung San Suu Kyi. Photo: EPA

A Rohingya woman urges the member of Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) not to turn them back to Myanmar, in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, August 27, 2017. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain

In this photo taken August 27, 2017, newly arrived Rohingya refugees walk past the Balukhali Rohingya camp near Ukhiya on the Bangladesh border, after violence erupted in bordering Myanmar's Rakhine state. Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi on August 28 accused Rohingya fighters of burning down homes and using child soldiers during a recent surge in violence in troubled Rakhine state, allegations denied by the militants themselves. / AFP PHOTO / Sam JAHAN

A group of Muslim Rohingyas in Ghumdhum, Cox's Bazar weep as Bangladesh border guards (not pictured) order them to leave their makeshift camp and force them out of the country, Monday, Aug. 28, 2017. Since 2012, more than 1,000 Rohingya have been killed, some 320,000 live in squalid camps in Myanmar and neighboring Bangladesh, and thousands have embarked on perilous sea voyages to other Southeast Asian countries, according to estimates by the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch and the United Nations. (AP Photo/Mushfiqul Alam)

Attacking Aung San Suu Kyi won’t save the Rohingya – she is still the best hope for Myanmar

Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi addresses the 71st UN General Assembly in New York last September. Once an icon of democracy and human rights, Suu Kyi has come increasingly under fire for her silence as Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims are persecuted, but her defenders argue that speaking out might prompt another military coup. Photo: Reuters

TOPSHOT - Rohingya refugees sit next to the body of their relative Anwara Begum, who died when their boat capsize during their Naf river crossing, in the Bangladeshi city of Teknaf on September 14, 2017. Bangladeshi boat operators are exploiting Rohingya Muslims fleeing violence in Myanmar by demanding up to $100 for ferry trips that usually cost 50 cents, as the United Nations warned September 14 of a "worst case scenario" in which the entire minority group tries to escape the unrest. Some 389,000 Rohingya - including 10,000 in the past 24 hours -- have fled across the border since late August and there have been growing appeals for Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi to speak out in their defence. / AFP PHOTO / MUNIR UZ ZAMAN

China’s key role in helping Aung San Suu Kyi reconcile Myanmar’s decades-long ethnic conflicts

President Xi Jinping greets Aung San Suu Kyi before a meeting at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing on August 19. Photo: EPA

Kokang rebel fighters from Myanmar stand on the side of a dirt road in Mengding county as they walk as refugees towards Nansan, about 40 kms away, on September 1, 2009, in China's southern Yunnan province. The children are everywhere -- clinging to their parents, strapped to the backs of their grandmothers, or running and shouting in the dusty streets of this town on China's border with Myanmar. AFP PHOTO / PHILIPPE LOPEZ

In this photo taken Jan. 9, 2011, a woman work on the bank of the Irrawaddy river in Kachin State, northern Myanmar. A report says Myanmar has decided to proceed with construction of a major dam despite opposition from ethnic minorities and environmentalists. Ethnic Kachin people and environmental groups say the Myanmar-China Myitsone Hydroelectric Project in Kachin state will damage the Irrawaddy River and submerge a culturally important site. (AP Photo/Khin Maung Win)

Rebel soldiers of Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) gather at a military base in Kokang region, March 11, 2015. Myanmar government forces have been battling rebels on the border with China since last month and China has urged Myanmar to "lower the temperature". The MNDAA was formed from remnants of the Communist Party of Burma, a powerful China-backed guerrilla force that battled the Myanmar government until it splintered in 1989. Picture taken March 11, 2015. REUTERS/Stringer (MYANMAR - Tags: MILITARY CIVIL UNREST POLITICS) CHINA OUT. NO COMMERCIAL OR EDITORIAL SALES IN CHINA

Fake news: Suu Kyi slams ‘misinformation’ after 125,000 Rohingya flee Myanmar bloodshed

The leader of Buddhist-majority Myanmar has come under pressure from countries with Muslim populations over the crisis

TOPSHOT - A Rohingya refugee from Myanmar's Rakhine state holds a baby after arriving at a refugee camp near the Bagladeshi town of Teknaf on Septebmer 5, 2017. Nearly 125,000 mostly Rohingya refugees have entered Bangladesh since a fresh upsurge of violence in Myanmar on August 25, the United Nations said September 5, as fears grow of a humanitarian crisis in the overstretched camps. The UN said 123,600 had crossed the border in the past 11 days from Myanmar's violence-wracked Rakhine state. / AFP PHOTO / K M ASAD

FILE PHOTO: Rohingya refugees walk on the muddy path after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border in Teknaf, Bangladesh, September 3, 2017. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain/File Photo

Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Wednesday alleged a “huge iceberg of misinformation” was distorting the picture of the Rohingya crisis, which has forced 125,000 of the Muslim minority to flee to Bangladesh. Photo: AFP

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Myanmar’s de facto leader has come under intense pressure to do more to end the violence and condemn those responsible


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