Myanmar military denies atrocities vs. Rohingya

NAYPYITAW, Myanmar — Myanmar’s military issued its most forceful denial yet that its forces committed atrocities during “clearance operations” in the west of the country, saying an investigation absolved them of wrongdoing in a crisis that has triggered the largest refugee exodus in Asia in decades.

The report contradicts statements from ethnic Rohingya Muslim refugees now in Bangladesh — some with gunshot wounds and severe burns — who have described massacres, rape, looting and the burning of hundreds of villages by Myanmar’s army and civilian mobs.

The report acknowledged that battles against militants from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army had left 376 “terrorists” dead but claimed security forces had “never shot at the innocent Bengalis” and “there was no death of innocent people.”