Agencies | Edited by Ganesh Kumar Radha Udayakumar
United Nations/Yangon, September 29, 2017 | UPDATED 06:43 IST
Guterres told the UN Security Council during its first public meeting on Myanmar in eight years, that the violence had spiraled into the "world's fastest developing refugee emergency, a humanitarian and human rights nightmare."
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Thursday that the violence against Myanmar's Rohingya Muslims in the northern part of Rakhine state could spread to central Rakhine, where 250,000 more people were at risk of displacement.
Guterres asked that Myanmar stop military operations, the news agency AFP reported. His comments came on a day when the US, in a first, echoed the UN's accusation that the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people in Rakhine State was ethnic cleansing.
Guterres told the UN Security Council during its first public meeting on Myanmar in eight years, that the violence had spiraled into the "world's fastest developing refugee emergency, a humanitarian and human rights nightmare."
"We have received bone-chilling accounts from those who fled - mainly women, children and the elderly," he said. "These testimonials point to excessive violence and serious violations of human rights, including indiscriminate firing of weapons, the use of landmines against civilians and sexual violence."
"This is unacceptable and must end immediately," AFP quoted him as saying.
HALF A MILLION ROHINGYA FLEE
More than 500,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh in the past month since insurgents attacked security posts near the border, triggering fierce Myanmar military retaliation that the United Nations has branded ethnic cleansing.
Sweden, the United States, Britain, France, Egypt, Senegal, and Kazakhstan requested Thursday's council meeting.
Guterres demanded immediate humanitarian aid access to areas affected by the violence and expressed concern "by the current climate of antagonism towards the United Nations" and aid groups.
"The failure to address this systematic violence could result in a spill-over into central Rakhine, where an additional 250,000 Muslims could potentially face displacement," Guterres said.
"The crisis has generated multiple implications for neighboring States and the larger region, including the risk of inter-communal strife. We should not be surprised if decades of discrimination and double standards in treatment of the Rohingya create openings for radicalization," he said.
US SLAMS ETHNIC CLEANSING
US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Thursday called on countries to suspend providing weapons to Myanmar over violence against Rohingya Muslims until the military puts sufficient accountability measures in place.
It was the first time the United States called for punishment of military leaders behind the repression, but stopped short of threatening to reimpose US sanctions which were suspended under the Obama administration.
"We cannot be afraid to call the actions of the Burmese authorities what they appear to be - a brutal, sustained campaign to cleanse the country of an ethnic minority," Haley told the UN Security Council.
VIDEO: The 
Narendra Modi government recently told the Supreme Court that Rohingya refugees pose a big security threat, as many of them have links with terror organisations and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence.
