The United Nations’s top court is set to open a landmark case accusing Myanmar of committing genocide against its mostly Muslim Rohingya minority.The trial on Monday is the first genocide case that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) will take up in full in more than a decade, and its outcome will have repercussions beyond Myanmar, likely affecting South Africa’s petition against Israel over its genocidal war on Gaza.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listThe hearings will start at 09:00 GMT on Monday and span three weeks.The Gambia filed the case against Myanmar at the ICJ, also known as the World Court, in 2019, two years after the country’s military launched an offensive that forced some 750,000 Rohingya from their homes and into neighbouring Bangladesh.The refugees recounted mass killings, rape and arson attacks.A UN fact-finding mission at the time concluded that the 2017 offensive had included “genocidal acts”. But authorities in Myanmar rejected the report, saying its military offensive was a legitimate counterterrorism campaign in response to attacks by alleged Rohingya armed groups.“The case is likely to set critical precedents for how genocide is defined and how it can be proven, and how violations can be remedied,” Nicholas Koumjian, head of the UN’s Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, told the Reuters news agency.‘Renewed hope’In Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar, Rohingya refugees said they hoped the genocide case would help bring justice.“We want justice and peace,” said 37-year-old Janifa Begum, a mother of two. “Our women lost the …
