UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Rohingya Muslims pleaded with the international community at the first United Nations high-level meeting on the plight of the ethnic minority to prevent the mass killings taking place in Myanmar and to help those in the persecuted group lead normal lives.

“This is a historic occasion for Myanmar, but this is long overdue,” Wai Wai Nu, the Rohingya founder and executive director of the Women’s Peace Network-Myanmar, told ministers and ambassadors from many of the U.N.’s 193-member nations in the General Assembly Hall.

The Rohingya and other minorities in Myanmar have suffered decades of displacement, oppression and violence, while seeing no action in response to determinations that they are victims of genocide, she said. “That cycle must end today," Wai Wai Nu said.

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