DHAKA: Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi is to miss next week's UN General Assembly debate as criticism of her handling of the Rohingya crisis grows, reports BBC.

Some 370,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Rakhine state for Bangladesh since the outbreak of violence in August. Whole villages have been burned down.

The government has been accused by the UN of ethnic cleansing.

Myanmar's military says it is fighting Rohingya militants and denies reports that it is targeting civilians.

The Rohingya, a mostly Muslim minority in Buddhist-majority Rakhine, have long experienced persecution in Myanmar, which says they are illegal immigrants. They have lived in Myanmar for generations but are denied citizenship.

The UN Security Council is due to meet on Wednesday (September 13) to discuss the crisis.

Suu Kyi has been criticised by former supporters in the West for failing to do enough to prevent the violence.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner, who lived under house arrest for 15 years for her pro-democracy activism, is widely seen as the head of government.

Suu Kyi had been expected to participate in discussions at the General Assembly session in New York, which runs from 19 to 25 September.

A government spokesman, Aung Shin, told Reuters news agency that "perhaps" Ms Suu Kyi has "more pressing matters to deal with", adding: "She's never afraid of facing criticism or confronting problems."

In her first address to the General Assembly as national leader in September last year, Ms Suu Kyi defended her government's efforts to resolve the crisis over the treatment of the Rohingya.

BDST: 1236 HRS, SEP 13, 2017
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