ROHINGYA WOMEN TELL OF MISSING MEN
They claim their husbands, sons detained on false grounds
ROHINGYA women lined up to tell reporters of missing husbands, mothers and sons on Saturday, as international media were escorted for the first time to a village in Rakhine state affected by violence since October.
“My son is not a terrorist. He was arrested while doing farm work,” said young mother Sarbeda.
She had bustled her way, an infant in her arms, through other women, all claiming that their husbands had been arrested on false grounds.
This week, the Information Ministry escorted more than a dozen journalists to the area under a guard of officers from the Border Guard Police.
The reporters spent nearly two days in Buthidaung, a township in Maungdaw district of Rakhine State, where they were taken to sites of alleged militant activity.
When a group of journalists insisted on speaking to villagers away from security forces, allegations of abuses by troops emerged almost immediately.
Sarbeda, 30, had been able to visit her son, Nawsee Mullah, 14, at a police camp where he is being held. At least 32 people from the village had been arrested and 10 killed, said a schoolteacher.
Another villager, Lalmuti, 23, pointed to a pile of ashes where she said she found her father’s remains. She described how he was bound and thrown into a house and burned to death.
Her mother was later arrested when authorities deemed her complaint about the killings to be fabricated. She is serving a sixmonth jail sentence.
On Friday, Brigadier-General Thura San Lwin, commander of Myanmar’s Border Guard Police, said some villagers had made what he said were erroneous claims, and were subsequently charged and jailed for lying to the authorities. Reuters