00:00A landmark case accusing Myanmar of committing genocide against the Rohingya opened at the
00:07United Nations top court on Monday. This is the first genocide case the International Court of
00:12Justice will hear in full in over a decade. The outcome is expected to have far-reaching
00:17repercussions, even impacting South Africa's genocide case against Israel over the Gaza
00:23conflict. Speaking in the egg before the hearings, Rohingya victims said they want a long-awaited
00:29court case to deliver justice. I would like to mention that this time we don't just hope to get
00:35justice. We demand it. And we would like to ask the court to take the actions against the Myanmar
00:40dictators, the leaders of the Myanmar military who committed the genocide. They have to be
00:46accountable and they should be punished. So this time we want to see a real, real output from the
00:52court and actions. The predominantly Muslim country of Gambia filed the case at the
00:58ICJ in 2019. They accused Myanmar of committing genocide against the Rohingya, a mainly Muslim
01:05minority in the Rakhine state. Myanmar has denied the genocide accusations. And I think it's a little
01:11unreasonable to expect us to resolve everything in 18 months. In 2017, Myanmar's military launched
01:19an offensive that forced at least 730,000 Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh. There, they recounted stories
01:27of killings, mass rape and arson. A UN fact-finding mission said that the offensive had included acts
01:33that were, quote, genocidal. Myanmar rejected that report, saying its military offensive was in response
01:40to attacks by Muslim militants.
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