As pillars of smoke rose from Rohingya villages burning in western Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi this week finally broke her silence on a humanitarian crisis that has uprooted more than a quarter of a million people and laid waste to her reputation.

In equivocal language, the freedom fighter and de facto leader of Myanmar said her government was committed to defending the human rights of “all the people of Rakhine”, the state engulfed in some of the worst violence since the country’s transition from military rule began in 2011. Terrified refugees streaming into Bangladesh told stories of shootings and the torching of homes by security forces and vigilantes.

Aung San Suu Kyi declined to mention by name the mostly Muslim Rohingya bearing the brunt of the violence. Instead she accused the media of faking news reports and building an “iceberg of misinformation”.