Hawzah News Agency (Rakhine, Myanmar) - On Tuesday, Adama Dieng said that if the evidence recently presented to him was proven, it would "constitute the crime of genocide."
Dieng made the remarks following a trip to Bangladesh, where he had gone to evaluate the situation of the Rohingyas.
"The scorched-earth campaign carried out by the Myanmar security forces since August 2017 against the Rohingya population was predictable and preventable," he said.
He added that the international community's inaction towards Myanmar's atrocities has cost the Rohingyas "their lives, their dignity and their homes."
The UN special advisor added that Rohingyas have endured what no person should have to go through. "Let us be clear: international crimes were committed in Myanmar...Rohingya Muslims have been killed, tortured, raped, burned alive and humiliated solely because of who they are," he added.
He further said that the international community must not once again fail the Rohingya population, and that it must protect them from the risk of further crimes."Whether or not we consider that the crimes committed amount to crimes against humanity or genocide, this should not delay our resolve to act and to act immediately."
Earlier, Myanmar's government has once again rejected allegations of abusing the rights of minorities in the country, saying the United Nations' new findings on the issue are unreliable.
Zaw Htay, a spokesman of the government in Yangon, said on Tuesday that two reports presented to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, a day earlier simply lacked credibility.
On Monday, the UN special rapporteur for human rights in Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, warned that Myanmar’s crackdown on the persecuted Rohingya bears "the hallmarks of genocide," insisting that the government should be held accountable for the ongoing crimes against the Muslim community.
"I am becoming more convinced that crimes committed ... bear the hallmarks of genocide, and call in the strongest terms for accountability," said Lee.
Backed by Myanmar's government and Buddhist majority, the military launched yet another heavy-handed crackdown against the Muslim minority in Rakhine state on August 25, 2017, using a number of armed attacks on military posts as the pretext.
Only in its first month, the clampdown, called by the UN and prominent rights group an "ethnic cleansing campaign," killed some 6,700 Rohingya Muslims, including more than 700 children, according to Doctors Without Borders.
About 700,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled the predominantly-Buddhist Myanmar to neighboring Bangladesh since August last year.