London: Britain said on Saturday it hoped Myanmar’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi would use her ‘remarkable qualities’ to end violence against the Rohingya Muslim minority, which has prompted tens of thousands to flee the country.

In one of the deadliest bouts of violence in decades, about 58,600 Rohingya have fled into neighboring Bangladesh from Myanmar, according to UN refugee agency UNHCR, as aid workers there struggle to cope.

‘Aung San 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,’ Britain’s foreign minister Boris Johnson said in a statement on Saturday.

‘I hope she can now use all her remarkable qualities to unite her country, to stop the violence and to end the prejudice that afflicts both Muslims and other communities,’ he said.