Burma army ‘still inflicting atrocities on Rohingya’

BURMA’S Rohingya Muslim minority is facing fresh atrocities and human rights violations at the hands of the military, according to a report by Amnesty International.

Evidence gathered through dozens of interviews in the western Rakhine state since January documents indiscriminate attacks, extra-judicial executions, arbitrary arrests, torture and enforced disappearances.

The crackdown appears to have escalated in response to coordinated attacks on police posts by the Arakan Army (AA), an ethnic Rakhine armed group, on Jan 4. Amnesty has also accused the AA of abducting civilians and endangering them with its operations.

The abuses are continuing despite global outrage at the brutal military operation in August 2017 that prompted some 730,000 Rohingya to flee and take shelter in refugee camps in neighbouring Bangladesh.

UN investigators said that the army’s campaign of murder, rape and arson had been conducted with “genocidal intent”.

“The new operations in Rakhine state show an unrepentant, unreformed and unaccountable military terrorising civilians and committing widespread violations as a deliberate tactic,” said Amnesty. Evidence collected, including through satellite imagery, records seven unlawful attacks that killed 14 civilians and injured at least 29 more.

In one incident, a seven-year-old boy, reportedly severely injured by a military mortar, died after being denied medical care by soldiers. The military has not issued a response and the AA has denied endangering civilians.