The Joe Biden administration will condemn violence against the minority Rohingya community by the Myanmar military as genocide and crimes against humanity, Reuters reported on Sunday citing US officials familiar with the matter.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will make the official announcement condemning the actions of the Myanmar military on Monday at the US Holocaust Memorial, which currently houses an exhibit on the atrocities against the Rohingya community.

The announcement will come nearly 14 months after Blinken took office and vowed to conduct an investigation into the ongoing atrocities in Myanmar.

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While the US, along with an outside law firm, was gathering evidence on the atrocities in Myanmar, then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had stopped short of officially condemning the Myanmar military.

However, Blinken, after taking office, ordered his own “legal and factual analysis” that concluded that the Myanmar military was indeed guilty of genocide.

US officials familiar with the matter told Reuters that Washington believes that an official condemnation will put severe international pressure on the Myanmar military, which seized power in the country in 2021.

“It’s going to make it harder for them to commit further abuses,” a senior State Department official told Reuters on the condition of anonymity.

“It’s really signaling to the world and especially to victims and survivors within the Rohingya community and more broadly that the United States recognizes the gravity of what’s happening,” a second official further said.

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Myanmar’s military has since 2017 carried out a systematic campaign against the minority Rohingya community in the country, who do not have citizenship rights.

Since 2017, at least 730,000 people from the community have been displaced, and have fled to neighbouring countries where they have recounted the mass rapes, arson, and indiscriminate killing carried out by Myanmar’s armed forces.

The military, however, deny carrying out a purge against the Rohingyas, and maintain that it was a campaign against domestic terrorists.