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A senior Myanmar military official has stated that the Rohingya Muslims are not natives of the country and that they initially migrated from another country.

The top army official made this disclosure to a U.S. Ambassador during a meeting.

Senior General Min Aung Hlaing gave his most extensive account of the Rohingya refugee crisis in the meeting with American Ambassador Scot Marciel, according to a report posted on his Facebook page on Thursday.

The General is considered the most powerful official in an army widely criticised and blamed for the ongoing crisis in Rakhine State that has seen over 500,000 Rohingya Muslims flee to Bangladesh in less than two months and still growing at an alraming rate of 11,000 daily.

"The Bengalis were not taken into the country by Myanmar but by the colonialists," he told Marciel, according to the account of the meeting posted on Thursday.

"They are not the natives and the records prove that they were not even called Rohingya but just Bengalis during the colonial period."

The UN human rights office said on Wednesday Myanmar's security forces had brutally driven out half a million Rohingya from northern Rakhine state to Bangladesh, torching their homes, crops and villages to prevent them from returning.

The country's civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi is due make a speech on television later on Thursday.