ROHINGYA CRISIS: WITNESSES TELL OF CHILD BEHEADINGS
▶ In Myanmar, food aid to displaced Muslims suspended as picture of inter-communual violence emerges
Accounts of beheaded Rohingya children, civilians burnt to death and hundreds killed by security forces have emerged in Myanmar as witness testimony and satellite evidence reveal the extent of the crisis.
The World Food Programme yesterday suspended aid to Rakhine state, where more than 100,000 Rohingya have been held in camps and reliant on relief since communal violence broke out in 2012.
The move came after the government highlighted allegations that food programme rations were being used to support the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (Arsa), prompting a backlash against the organisation by the wider Myanmar public.
The WFP said the aid deliveries had been suspended because of “insecurity” affecting an estimated 250,000 internally displaced people and other vulnerable populations.
Northern Rakhine has been beset by violence and under lockdown since Arsa launched attacks on security posts on August 25, making it difficult to confirm reports and online allegations of killings and widespread abuse of civilians by security forces and Arsa.
Witnesses described a large-scale attack on one Rohingya village – Chat Pyin in Rathedaung township – carried out by Myanmar soldiers and ethnic Rakhine residents of a neighbouring community on August 27.
It killed an estimated 200 people, according to South-East Asian human rights organisation Fortify Rights on Friday.
Villagers said soldiers shot and killed several residents, while people from a neighbouring non-Muslim village armed with swords and knives attacked – and in some cases beheaded – Rohingya residents including children.
Soldiers reportedly arrested a large group of Rohingya men, marched them into a bamboo hut and set it on fire, burning them to death.
“My brother was killed. Soldiers burnt him with the group,” said Abdul Rahman, 41, of Chut Pyin.
“We found my other family members in the fields. They had marks on their bodies from bullets and some had cuts.
“My two nephews, their heads were off. One was 6 years old and the other was 9. My sisterin-law was shot with a gun.”
Chut Pyin residents told the rights group that soldiers and armed residents burnt every house in the village and that from an estimated population of 1,400, only 596 survivors had been accounted for since the reported attacks.
A government spokesman said the military was aware of the need to protect “innocent Muslims” and found it “very challenging” to distinguish between them and the insurgents.
In addition to the allegations against the military, Rohingya in other parts of Rakhine told Fortify Rights that Arsa militants were allowing women and children to flee, but refusing to let men leave the Maungdaw township, threatening to kill those who tried to escape to Bangladesh.
One Rohingya man, from the village of Kha Maung Seik village in northern Maungdaw, said he and a large group of displaced civilians were detained by Arsa militants for two hours.
“They didn’t beat us but they beat our guide who was showing us the way. They said we all had to go back and fight against the government,” he said.
Before the August 25 attacks, Arsa – since declared a terrorist group by the Myanmar government – was said to have killed dozens of Rohingya civilians suspected of being government informants.
On Friday, the Myanmar military reported that aboput 400 people – about 370 Rohingya “insurgents”, 13 security forces, two government officials and 14 civilians – had died in the violence since August 25.
Fears were growing that the death toll is likely to be much higher.
“The situation is dire,” said Matthew Smith, chief executive of Fortify Rights. “Mass atrocity crimes are continuing. The civilian government and military need to do everything in their power to immediately prevent more attacks.”
Satellite imagery of Rakhine showed hundreds of buildings burnt, including 700 in a single village, Human Rights Watch said yesterday.
Imagery from the Rohingya Muslim village of Chein Khar Li in Rathedaung township recorded on August 31 showed 99 per cent of the village destroyed.
“This new satellite imagery prompts serious concerns that the level of devastation in northern Rakhine state may be far worse than originally thought,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
“Yet this is only one of 17 sites that we’ve located where burnings have taken place. Independent monitors are needed to urgently uncover what’s going on.”
The government said yesterday that more than 2,600 houses had been burnt last week in Rohingya majority areas.
Rohingya villagers blame the arson attacks on Myanmar security, while the government insisted Rohingya are burning their own homes.
Human Rights Watch said the scale and pattern of the fires strongly indicated they had been started deliberately, particularly given monsoon weather conditions which would make it difficult for accidental fires to spread on such a scale.
They also pointed out an ethnic Rakhine village next to the Rohingya Chein Khar Li settlement that had not been burnt.
However, Rakhine and other non-Muslims have also reported arson attacks on their villages by Rohingya militants.
The reports that killings were carried out by Rakhine villagers alongside soldiers, further raises fears that the current violence involving the Myanmar military and Arsa is descending into inter-communal violence between Rakhine Buddhists and the wider Rohingya Muslim population.
Other non-Muslim ethnic minority civilians have also reportedly been killed by Arsa militants.
Rathedaung township had experienced increasing inter-communal tensions in the weeks before the recent attacks, and a build-up of military troops in the area following killings of Muslim and non-Muslim civilians blamed on Arsa.
Two days before Arsa struck security posts, it emerged that hundreds of Muslim Rohingya in the township’s Zay Di Pyin village had been blocked by their Buddhist Rakhine neighbours from going to work or fetching food and water for three weeks preceding the attacks.
With the August 25 assaults sparking inflammatory speech on all sides, the EU last week warned that violence could also spread to other parts of the state.
Mass atrocity crimes are continuing. The civilian government and military need to do everything in their power to prevent more attacks MATTHEW SMITH Chief executive, Fortify Rights