Nobel Prize winner and education activist Malala Yousafzai has reacted to the violence against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, saying that the violence must stop.

Yousafzai, who survived an attack by the Taliban in Pakistan in 2012, called on Myanmar’s leader and fellow Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi to resolve the crisis.

“Every time I see the news, my heart breaks at the suffering of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar,” she said in a statement. “Over the last several years, I have repeatedly condemned this tragic and shameful treatment. I am still waiting for my fellow Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi to do the same. The world is waiting and the Rohingya Muslims are waiting.”

The Rohingya, a Muslim minority in predominantly Buddhist Myanmar, are considered some of the most persecuted people in the world. Myanmar, also known as Burma, considers them Bangladeshi and Bangladesh says they are Burmese.

But photos on social media show that a human disaster is unfolding in Myanmar.

The United Nations has reported that as a result of the violence against the Rohingyas in Myanmar, over 90,000 Muslims have fled to Bangladesh.

The United Nations reports that in recent weeks, nearly 400 Muslims including women and children have been killed in Myanmar military operations.

Reports indicate that tens of thousands of refugees are trapped on the border into Bangladesh without basic food and medicine amid operations by the Myanmar military.

Satellite photos released by Human Rights Watch Saturday showed what they are desperate to escape - entire villages torched to the ground in clashes between Myanmar's armed forces and local militants.

Myanmar’s State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi has also come under increasing international pressure to resolve the humanitarian crisis engulfing Rakhine state. 

The Nobel peace prize laureate is facing severe criticism over her government’s treatment of about 1.1 million Rohingya, and over her silence in this regard.

Some countries have gone as far as calling for her to return her Nobel Peace Prize.

British foreign secretary Boris Johnson has warned the former political prisoner that the violence is “besmirching” the reputation of her country.  

"Aung Sang Suu Kyi is rightly regarded as one of the most inspiring figures of our age but the treatment of the Rohingya is alas besmirching the reputation of Burma,” Johnson said. “She faces huge challenges in modernising her country... It is vital that she receives the support of the Burmese military, and that her attempts at peacemaking are not frustrated.

On Monday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the killing of Muslim-minority Rohingyas by the Myanmar military and said it was an act of “genocide”.

The ministry said the military was committing crimes against humanity and called on the United Nations (UN) to investigate the situation.