Gambia's legal team described mass rapes, the burning of families in their homes and killings of dozens of Muslim Rohingya children with knives as it set out its genocide case against Myanmar at the U.N.'s International Court of Justice on Tuesday.

Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace laureate, looked on impassively as the alleged atrocities were detailed at the beginning of three days of hearings in The Hague instituted by Gambia against Buddhist-majority Myanmar in November.

"All that The Gambia asks is that you tell Myanmar to stop these senseless killings," Gambia's Justice Minister Abubacarr Tambadou said in opening comments.