Myanmar troops gang-raped Rohingya, says rights group
UNITEDNATIONS: Myanmar troops gang-raped countless Rohingya women and girls during a military campaign that sent hundreds of thousands fleeing across the border to Bangladesh, Human Rights Watch said on Thursday.
The US-based rights group said in a report that the sexual violence, along with other atrocities committed by Myanmar security forces, amount to crimes against humanity.
Based on interviews with rape survivors, aid organizations and Bangladeshi health officials, the report details cases of what it called mass rape where Rohingya women were rounded up and sexually assaulted by soldiers.
“Rape has been a prominent and devastating feature of the Burmese military’s campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya,” said Skye Wheeler, a researcher at Human Rights Watch and author of the report.
“The Burmese military’s barbaric acts of violence have left countless women and girls brutally harmed and traumatised.”
Of the 29 rape survivors interviewed, all but one were gangraped. In eight cases, women and girls reported being raped by five or more soldiers.
Women described witnessing the murders of their young children, spouses, and parents before being raped. Many rape survivors said they endured days of agony walking with swollen and torn genitals to reach Bangladesh.
More than 600,000 Muslim Rohingya have fled the mainly Buddhist country since the military operation was launched in Rakhine in late August.