Myanmar Says Rohingya Minority Will Get COVID-19 Vaccine
Voice of America
BANGKOK - A spokesman for Myanmar’s military-installed government said Friday that COVID-19 vaccines will be given to members of the country’s persecuted Rohingya ethnic group.
The Muslim minority was the target of a fierce counter-insurgency campaign in 2017 that some critics charged amounted to ethnic cleansing or genocide. The Rohingya face widespread discrimination and most are denied citizenship and other basic rights. Government spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun made the announcement at a news conference in the capital Naypyitaw, where he also said the authorities are trying to vaccinate 50% of the country’s population this year. Myanmar, whose poor public health system was weakened further by the political turmoil caused by the army’s February takeover of power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, has been facing a devastating outbreak of the coronavirus, although in the past month the daily number of reported new cases and deaths has been falling.Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. Fire rages following an Israeli strike on an area designated for displaced Palestinians, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, in this still picture taken from a video, May 26, 2024. Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. A member of the bomb squad of the Israeli police collects debris after a rocket fired by Palestinian militants struck in the Israeli city of Herzliya on May 26, 2024.