UN: Army in ‘systematic’ campaign to drive Rohingya from Myanmar
Myanmar’s “systematic” crackdown on the Rohingya is aimed at permanently expelling the minority Muslim community from their home in Rakhine state, the United Nations said Wednesday.
The UN report, which is based on interviews with refugees who have fled to Bangladesh, details a campaign by Myanmar’s military to terrorize the Rohingya through atrocities that range from indiscriminate killings to rape, AFP reported.
“Brutal attacks against Rohingya in northern Rakhine state have been well-organized, coordinated and systematic, with the intent of not only driving the population out of Myanmar but preventing them from returning to their homes,” the UN said.
UN researchers spoke to people who arrived in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar area since August 25, when Myanmar’s security forces in Rakhine started a major military crackdown.
More than half a million people have fled, UN figures show.
But the probe found that the latest wave of military “clearance operations” in Rakhine actually began before that date, possibly in early August.
The investigation outlines an armyled campaign to erase the Rohingya’s connection to their homeland in the majority Buddhist nation, where they have suffered persecution for decades.
Myanmar’s troops also often operate “in concert with armed Rakhine Buddhist individuals,” the UN said.
“In some cases, before and during the attacks, megaphones were used to announce: ‘You do not belong here – go to Bangladesh. If you do not leave, we will torch your houses and kill you’,” it said.
The findings were based on interviews conducted in Bangladesh between September 14 and 24, with researchers finding evidence of abuses designed to “instill deep and widespread fear” among the Rohingya population.
This included accounts of soldiers surrounding homes and firing indiscriminately as residents ran for their lives as well as uniformed men gangraping women and girls, some as young as five.
One statement, “received by an extremely credible source, referred to a (pregnant) woman whose stomach was slit open after she was raped”, the report said. Speaking to reporters in Geneva, researcher Thomas Hunecke also said the UN had “very credible information” that Myanmar’s military had planted landmines along the Bangladesh border.