UN aid workers face Myanmar riot charges Three UN workers detained in Myanmar face criminal charges of "stimulating" riots in the restive Rakhine state, according to diplomats familiar with the case. The three, who work for the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, were among 10 aid workers arrested nearly a month ago amid sectarian violence in Rakhine in the country's north-west which left at least 80 people dead and destroyed tens of thousands of homes. Neither the UN nor the Myanmar government have given any details of the charges or why the 10 were detained. But diplomatic sources said the three were charged with "stimulating" riots in the region, and the other seven are under the same suspicion. To counter the charges, UN agencies must investigate whether the accusations are warranted, said one aid worker, adding: "this is a very tricky thing to do amid the [Rakhine] chaos." About 12 aid workers were detained in June by authorities amid clashes between mostly stateless Rohingya Muslims and majority Buddhists. The violence was triggered by the detention of three Muslim Rohingya men for allegedly raping and killing a Buddhist Rakhine woman in May. Since declaring a state of emergency in Rakhine in early June, the government has strictly controlled access to strife-torn areas. UN agencies said last week a "tense calm" has returned, although aid workers warned that violence could break out at any time. The UN withdrew most foreign staff from the region as the violence intensified but many locally engaged staff remained to help humanitarian relief efforts. "The reality is that many of the people who most need help are the Rohingya - and they are the hated minority in the state, any agency helping them is going to incur local hostilities," said one diplomat involved in talks with the government on the issue. "The UN faces an impossible challenge there." Among UN agencies involved in the relief efforts, the World Food Programme is currently feeding more than 90,000 people who lost homes and livelihoods in the violence, while UNHCR is trying to help displaced people and stem the flow of refugees trying to enter neighbouring Bangladesh. The detained aid workers include six locally engaged UN workers and four staff with Médecins Sans Frontières, the Netherlands-based organisation. Four of the UN staff work with the office of the UNHCR and three with the WFP. All 10 are from Myanmar. A UN spokesman at the weekend confirmed criminal charges had been brought against at least three of the UN workers. The case highlights an increasingly awkward stand-off over the issue, particularly after António Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, visited Myanmar last week but failed to win their release. Speaking in Yangon after his talks, Mr Guterres said the UNHCR had requested details of the charges and access to the detainees, but without success. In their talks, President Thein Sein also asked Mr Guterres for UN help to resettle up to 1m Muslim Rohingya either in refugee camps or resettlement in a third country. Reflecting a hardening of his previously more conciliatory position, Mr Thein Sein told Mr Guterres: "We will take responsibility for our ethnic people but it is impossible to accept the illegally entered Rohingyas, who are not our ethnicity." A senior western diplomat said the remark "did not help the government's cause with the international community." But many analysts say stronger pressure is needed. "This is simply unacceptable, and necessitates an unequivocal response; it also portends negative things for inter-ethnic relations, peace and stability in Myanmar more generally," said John Packer, director of the Human Rights Centre at Essex University. Mr Packer backed up the UNHCR view, that under international conventions, Myanmar has no legal basis to insist the Rohingya - many of whom arrived in Myanmar generations ago - are not entitled to citizenship.