The Burma Para refugee camp in the Ukhia district in Bangladesh | Munir Uz Zaman/AFP via Getty Images EU agrees to sanction Myanmar generals over rights abuses The latest UN figures put the total number of displaced Rohingya at 688,000.

EU foreign ministers agreed Monday to press forward with sanctions against Myanmar generals, citing "grave" human rights abuses against Rohingya Muslims in the country.

In a statement, the ministers called for "targeted restrictive measures against senior military officers" in Myanmar, as well as an extension of the EU's existing embargo on arms and equipment.

"The Council condemns ongoing widespread, systematic grave human rights violations committed by Myanmar/Burma military and security forces, including rape and killings," the statement said.

According to Reuters, the ministers had also asked EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini to draft a list of Myanmar military officials to be hit with travel bans and asset freezes. No names have yet been released.

The decision comes in the midst of months of turmoil in the southeast Asian country, where nearly 700,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled to neighboring Bangladesh.

Tensions between the Rohingya, a Muslim minority that is de facto stateless, and majority-Buddhist Myanmar came to a peak last year after an August attack on police and army posts in Rakhine by rebels from the Arakan Rohingya Solidarity Army (ARSA). Since then, the Myanmar army — which considers ARSA a terrorist group — has launched an unprecedented attack on civilians.

Accounts of houses burned down by the army and Buddhist mobs, indiscriminate shooting and landmines planted along the border are difficult to verify, but seem to be corroborated by satellite images taken by organizations like Human Rights Watch.

The United Nations' top human rights official accused Myanmar of committing a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing" against the Rohingya people.

The EU sanctions would follow those already in place by the U.S. and Canada and would be the EU's toughest measures yet against Myanmar for the military's actions.