Myanmar army allegedly building on razed villages

Myanmar’s military is building bases where some of Rohingya Muslims’ homes and mosques once stood, Amnesty International said on Monday, citing new evidence from satellite imagery.

A security response to attacks by Rohingya insurgents on August 25 sent members of the mostly stateless minority fleeing to Bangladesh and saw more than 350 villages destroyed by fire in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state.

An Amnesty report published on Monday echoed previous ones by saying the remains of some of those villages – and some buildings not previously damaged – had been bulldozed.

As well as rapid housing and road construction in the area, at least three new security facilities were under construction, the global human rights group said. In one case, Rohingya villagers who had remained in Myanmar were forcibly evicted to make way for a base, it said.

“What we are seeing in Rakhine State is a land grab by the military on a dramatic scale,” Tirana Hassan, Amnesty’s crisis response director, said in a statement. “New bases are being erected to house the very same security forces.”

At least four mosques that had not been wrecked by fire have been destroyed, or had their roofing or other materials removed, since late December, a time when significant conflict was not reported in the area, Amnesty said.

In one Rohingya village, satellite imagery showed buildings for a new border police post appearing next to where a recently demolished mosque had stood.