DHAKA: The Dalai Lama has urged fellow Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, a main opposition leader in Myanmar, to do more to help protect the persecuted Muslim Rohingya minority in her country amid a worsening migration crisis.

Despite thousands of Rohingya fleeing on harrowing boat journeys to Southeast Asia to escape a wave of deadly attacks and discriminatory treatment by the country’s Buddhist majority, opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has yet to speak out against their plight, reports the Aljazeera.

The Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader said on Thursday she must voice her opposition to the persecution, adding that he had already appealed twice to her in person since 2012, when deadly sectarian violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine state pitted the Rohingya against local Buddhists, to do more on their behalf.

Analysts have attributed her silence to fears about alienating voters in the lead-up to elections set for November.

BDST: 2054 HRS, MAY 28, 2015
BD/