Rakhine State. Near Rangoon on 12 December 2017, two Reuters journalists who had been covering the refugee story were charged and imprisoned by the police for violating a 1923 colonial law related to secrecy. On 1 February 2018, a Myanmar court denied bail for the two Reuters journalists. The UN Secretary-General António Guterres expressed his concern and called for the release of the two journalists, who were released on 7 May 2019 along with over 6,000 other prisoners in a presidential pardon. Clearance operations According to the Mission report of OHCHR (released on 11 October 2017 by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights), the Burmenese military began a "systematic" process of driving hundreds of thousands of Rohingya from Myanmar in early August 2017. The report noted that "prior to the incidents and crackdown of 25 August, a strategy was pursued to": Arrest and arbitrarily detain male Rohingyas between the ages of 15–40 years; Arrest and arbitrarily detain Rohingya opinion-makers, leaders and cultural and religious personalities; Initiate acts to deprive Rohingya villagers of access to food, livelihoods and other means of conducting daily activities and life; Commit repeated acts of humiliation and violence prior to, during and after 25 August, to drive out Rohingya villagers en masse through incitement to hatred, violence, and killings, including by declaring the Rohingyas as Bengalis and illegal settlers in Myanmar; Instill deep and widespread fear and trauma – physical, emotional and psychological, in the Rohingya victims via acts of brutality, namely killings, disappearances, torture, and rape and other forms of sexual violence. Refugee crisis In 2017, the vast majority of Rohingya people were displaced and became refugees as a result of the genocide. At the peak of the crisis in the same year, over a million, in January alone some reports disclosed, 92,000 Rohingya people were forced to flee to other countries because of the violence. Most fled to Bangladesh while others escaped to India, Thailand, Malaysia, and other parts of South and Southeast Asia. It was estimated that around 650,000 Rohingya Muslims had fled Myanmar . The refugee crisis resulted in the largest human exodus in Asia since the Vietnam War. According to the United Nations reports, , nearly 690,000 Rohingya people had fled or had been driven out of Rakhine State who sought refuge in Bangladesh. Prior to this time, around 65,000 had fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh