An IDP camp in Rakhine state, Myanmar. (file) Photo: Pierre Peron/OCHA
'Hundreds of Rohingyas' killed in Myanmar crackdown: Army has carried out mass killings of Muslim minority in Rakhine province, UN rights office says, in possible ethnic cleansing.
In a report released just three days ago, on February 3, 2017 the United Nations human rights arm said that the widespread human rights violations against the Rohingya population by Myanmar's security forces in the country's northern Rakhine state indicate the very likely commission of crimes against humanity. The 43-page Flash report may be read here.
The flash report – released by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) based on its interviews with people who fled Myanmar after attacks on a border post in early October, the ensuing counter military operations and a lockdown in north Maungdaw – documents mass gang-rape, killings, including of babies and young children, brutal beatings, disappearances and other serious human rights violations by the country's security forces.
“The devastating cruelty to which these Rohingya children have been subjected is unbearable – what kind of hatred could make a man stab a baby crying out for his mother's milk. And for the mother to witness this murder while she is being gang-raped by the very security forces who should be protecting her,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein.
“What kind of 'clearance operation' is this? What national security goals could possibly be served by this?”
The gravity and scale of these allegations begs the robust reaction of the international communityHigh Commissioner Zeid
Houses deliberately set on fire, people pushed inside burning houses – report
The report also cites consistent testimony indicating that hundreds of Rohingya houses, schools, markets, shops, madrasas and mosques were burned by the army, police and sometimes civilian mobs. Witnesses also described the destruction of food and food sources, including paddy fields, and the confiscation of livestock.
It also noted that several people were killed in indiscriminate and random shooting – many while fleeing for safety.
Army or Rakhine villagers locked an entire family, including elderly and disabled people, inside a house and set it on fire, killing them all-Report
Numerous testimonies collected from people from different village tracts…confirmed that the army deliberately set fire to houses with families inside, and in other cases pushed Rohingyas into already burning houses,” the report states.
“Testimonies were collected of several cases where the army or Rakhine villagers locked an entire family, including elderly and disabled people, inside a house and set it on fire, killing them all.”
Many witnesses and victims also described being taunted while they were being beaten, raped or rounded up, such as being told “you are Bangladeshis and you should go back” or “What can your Allah do for you? See what we can do?”