Rohingya killings: US sanctions top Burmese generals

WASHINGTON: The United States has targeted four top Burmese generals with sanctions over the mass killings of Rohingya Muslims.

US secretary of state Mike Pompeo said the four, including the country’s commander-in-chief and his deputy, are responsible for “gross human rights violations” involving extra-judicial killings in an ethnic cleansing campaign against the Muslim Rohingya minority in Burma’s northern Rakhine state.

The sanctions bar those targeted and their immediate families from travelling to the US. The four men are: Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing, his deputy Soe Win, and two subordinates deemed responsible for the abuses. Burma’s military has been accused of widespread rights violations leading about 700,000 Rohingya to flee the country since August 2017.