National Post (National Edition)
VIOLENCE AGAINST ROHINGYA ‘HORRIFIC’
Thousands shot, burned in Myanmar
TAIPEI • In one month, Myanmar’s military crackdown saw about 8,170 Rohingya Muslims dying “horrific” deaths, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) revealed Thursday.
Most were shot, but others were burned to death in their homes, killed during sexual violence, or beaten to death.
The figure, which includes an estimated 1,247 children under the age of five, most of whom were shot, is the highest estimated death toll yet of the violence that erupted on Aug 25, triggering a mass exodus of more than 620,000 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar into neighbouring Bangladesh.
“What we uncovered was staggering, in terms of the numbers of people who reported a family member had died as a result of violence, and the horrific ways in which they said they were killed or severely injured,” said Sidney Wong, the aid group’s medical director.
MSF’s findings come from six surveys of more than 2,434 households sheltering in the refugee camps along the Bangladeshi border. The surveys examined the number of deaths in the 31 days following the military crackdown beginning on Aug. 25 in Rakhine state.
“The numbers of deaths are likely to be an underestimation, because we have not surveyed all refugee settlements in Bangladesh and because the surveys don’t account for families that never made it out of Myanmar,” Wong said. “We heard reports of entire families who perished after they were locked inside their homes and set on fire.”
“With very few independent aid groups able to access Rakhine, we fear for the fate of Rohingya people who are still there.
The signing of an agreement between the governments of Myanmar and Bangladesh over the return of refugees is premature. Rohingya should not be forced to return, and their safety and rights need to be guaranteed before any such plans can be seriously considered.”
The death toll soars above Myanmar military claims that only 400 people, including 376 “terrorists” were killed during their operations.
The new evidence backs United Nations claims that the Rohingya were targeted in mass atrocities by the security forces.
The worst violence is believed to have occurred in Maungdaw township, a region closest to the Bangladesh border where for months the fires of burning villages were visible across an estuary dividing the two countries. Survivors from one Rohingya village, Tula Toli, say that thousands of people may have been killed there alone. They say soldiers rounded up residents along the village’s riverbanks and summarily executed them.
Bangladesh and Myanmar are negotiating an agreement to repatriate refugees, but Rohingya people are still fleeing Myanmar, and most potential returnees would find only ash and rubble in the villages they once inhabited.
More than one million ethnic Rohingya Muslims have lived in Myanmar for generations. They have been stripped of their citizenship, denied almost all rights and labelled stateless.
Since the Myanmar’s military conducted operations against the Rohingya in Rakhine state, the civilian government has barred most journalists, international observers and humanitarian aid workers from independently travelling to the region.
Meanwhile, the rape of Rohingya women by Myanmar’s security forces has been sweeping and methodical, the Associated Press has found in interviews with 29 women and girls who fled to neighbouring Bangladesh. These sexual assault survivors from several refugee camps were interviewed separately and extensively. They ranged in age from 13 to 35, came from a wide swath of villages in Myanmar’s Rakhine state and described assaults between October 2016 and mid-September.