UN Security Council plans to meet amid fears for Myanmar Rohingya after coup

120,000 members of ethnic minority in Myanmar are effectively confined to camps

Rohingya refugees carry children and walk with their belongings to be relocated to to the island of Bhasan Char, in Chattogram, Bangladesh, Friday, January 29, 2021. File photo / AP Photo

The UN fears the coup in Myanmar will make the plight of about 600,000 Rohingya Muslims still in the country worse, a UN spokesman said on Monday.

The Security Council said it planned to discuss the latest developments on Tuesday.

Myanmar's military seized power on Monday in a coup against the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, who was detained along with other political leaders.

In 2017, a Myanmar military operation in Rakhine state on an anti-terrorist pretext sent more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims fleeing into Bangladesh, where they remain in refugee camps.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and western states accused the Myanmar military of ethnic cleansing, which it denied.

"There are about 600,000 Rohingya, those who remain in Rakhine state, including 120,000 people who are effectively confined to camps - they cannot move freely and have extremely limited access to basic health and education services," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

"So, our fear is that the events may make the situation worse for them."

The 15-member UN Security Council plans to discuss Myanmar in a closed meeting, diplomats said.

"We want to address the long-term threats to peace and security, of course working closely with Myanmar's Asia and Asean neighbours," Britain's UN ambassador Barbara Woodward, president of the council for February, said.

China, backed by Russia, shielded Myanmar from any significant council action after 2017.

Beijing and Moscow are council veto powers along with France, Britain and the United States.

China's UN mission told Reuters on Monday it hoped to find out more about the latest developments in Myanmar from the Tuesday briefing.

"It's also our hope that any move of the council would be conducive to the stability of Myanmar rather than making the situation more complicated," a representative of the Chinese mission said.

The Myanmar army said it had detained Ms Suu Kyi and others in response to "election fraud", handing power to military chief Min Aung Hlaing and imposing a state of emergency for one year.

The UN called for the release of all those detained, Mr Dujarric said.

He said Mr Guterres' special envoy on Myanmar, Christine Schraner Burgener, "remains actively engaged" and is likely to brief the Security Council.

The UN has long had a presence in Myanmar. Security Council envoys travelled there in April 2018 and met separately with Ms Suu Kyi and Min Aung Hlaing following the repression of the Rohingya.

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