Discovery of new mass graves is evidence of Myanmar genocide
AT LEAST five previously unreported mass graves have been uncovered in Myanmar in the newest piece of evidence for what looks increasingly like genocide against the Rohingya in Rakhine state.
The Associated Press confirmed the existence of the graves around the village of Gu Dar Pyin, through interviews with more than two dozen survivors who are now in Bangladesh refugee camps and from time-stamped mobile phone videos.
The government regularly claims massacres like Gu Dar Pyin never happened, and has acknowledged only one mass grave containing ten “terrorists” in the village of Inn Din.
The AP findings suggest not only the slaughter of civilians by the military but the presence of many more graves containing many more bodies.
The Rohingya are a longpersecuted ethnic Muslim minority in the predominantly Buddhist country. Htun Naing, a local security police officer in Buthidaung township, where the village is located, said he “hasn’t heard of such mass graves”.
Myanmar has cut off access to Gu Dar Pyin, so it is unclear how many people died, but satellite images obtained by AP from DigitalGlobe show a devastated village. Community leaders have compiled a list of 75 dead so far, and villagers estimate the toll could be as high as 400, based on evidence from relatives and the bodies they have seen in the graves and strewn about the area.
Nearly 700,000 Rohingya have fled from their villages into Bangladesh since August.
Meanwhile, a government spokesman said a petrol bomb had been thrown into the residential compound of the country’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi, but damage was minor.
Spokesman Zaw Htay said Ms Suu Kyi was in the capital Naypyitaw when the incident took place yesterday morning. Ms Suu Kyi is popular among Buddhists, but has been criticised abroad for failing to stake a stand against army abuses against the Rohingya.