ABC News Finds Drowned Migrants, Still Skips Refugee Crisis Roots
ABC News dutifully reports the rising death toll from a capsized boat carrying Myanmar migrants, now at 26. A stark, grim number. What they don't delve into is the systematic persecution of the Rohingya, a stateless Muslim minority from Myanmar. The refugee crisis isn't an act of God; it's the direct result of a brutal 2017 military crackdown, which the UN called a 'textbook example of ethnic
cleansing,' forcing over 700,000 to flee. (Source: UN Human Rights Office, 2017) So, while the headlines mourn the drowned, they conveniently sidestep the state-sponsored violence that drove these people onto rickety boats in the first place. One might wonder if reporting the root cause would make the 'humanitarian crisis' feel a touch too...political. Easier to count bodies than to examine
complicity, I suppose.