Muslim Rohingyas continue to flee Myanmar to Bangladesh and the United Nations is bracing for possible "further exodus", the UN humanitarian aid chief said on Friday.
Mark Lowcock, UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, reiterated the world body's appeal for access to the population in northern Rakhine state saying that the current situation was "unacceptable".
"This flow out of Myanmar has not stopped yet, it's into the hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas (who are) still in Myanmar, we want to be ready in case there is a further exodus," he told a news briefing in Geneva on Friday. "Half a million people do not pick up sticks and flee their country on a whim."
An estimated 2,000 Rohingya are escaping Rakhine daily for Bangladesh, where 515,000 have fled since violence erupted on Aug 25, Joel Millman of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) told a separate briefing.