ICC can rule on Rohingya exodus from Myanmar

The International Criminal Court on Thursday ruled the court has jurisdiction to investigate allegations that Myanmar military forces drove the Rohingya people from their homes into neighboring Bangladesh.

"The Court has jurisdiction over the crime against humanity of deportation allegedly committed against members of the Rohingya people," the ICC statement said.

At least 700,000 people from the Muslim minority group have fled Myanmar's from northern Rakhine state following a brutal military crackdown in August last year.

Read more: Solving Rohingya crisis will require 'international pressure'

The court's decision was justified because the case involves a border crossing from one state not adherent to the court, Myanmar, to one that does, Bangladesh, the statement said.

The court said that prosecutor Fatou Bensouda must take the jurisdiction ruling into account "as she continues with her preliminary examination concerning the crimes reportedly committed against the Rohingya people."

The probe aims to determine if there is sufficient evidence to launch a full investigation. While Bensouda has not formally announced a preliminary examination, the judges said in their ruling that prosecutors' work so far on the Rohingya issue serves that purpose.

Evidence piles up

The ICC's ruling comes after the UN's top human rights body said Myanmar military leaders should be prosecuted for genocide against Rohingya Muslims.

The UN investigators' report also found rape and sexual violence were part of a deliberate strategy to intimidate, terrorize or punish a civilian population, and were used as a tactic of war.

The Rohingya's mass exodus to Bangladesh was the aftermath of a series of coordinated attacks on Myanmar police posts in western Rakhine State by an underground Rohingya insurgent group. This led the military to launch the violent crackdown on the Rohingya people on August 25 last year.

Read more: Myanmar's Rohingya rebels - What you need to know

The Rohingya have faced persecution in Buddhist-majority Myanmar for decades, despite their families having lived there for generations. When military rule began in the country in 1962, the situation worsened and government campaigns saw thousands of Rohingya pushed into neighboring Bangladesh. 

A new citizenship law passed in 1982 identified 135 national ethnic groups, but the Rohingya were not included, rendering them stateless.

law/kl (AFP, AP, dpa)