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People stand among debris after fire destroyed shelters at
a
camp for internally displaced Rohingya Muslims in the
western Rakhine State
near Sittwe, Myanmar.
© 2016 Reuters/Soe Zeya Tun
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HRW Report: Burma: Rohingya Recount Killings, Rape, and Arson
By Human Rights Watch
December 22, 2016
Video Testimony Matches Satellite Images of Attacks
New
York
–The Burmese military has conducted a campaign of arson, killings, and rape
against ethnic Rohingya that has threatened the lives of thousands more, Human
Rights Watch said today. Refugees who fled the recent violence told Human
Rights Watch that since the October 9, 2016 attacks by Rohingya militants on
government border guard posts in northern Rakhine State, Burmese security
forces have retaliated by inflicting horrific abuses on the Rohingya
population.
**
Burma’s government should immediately allow unfettered
humanitarian access to all parts of northern Rakhine State as the United
Nations and others have urged, in order to reach people without adequate access
to food, shelter, health care, and other necessities. Governments with
influence in Burma should press the military and civilian authorities to
urgently end abuses and grant access.
“Refugee accounts paint a horrific picture of an army that
is out of control and rampaging through Rohingya villages,” said Brad Adams,
Asia director. “The Burmese government says its crackdown is in response to a
security threat, but what security advantage could possibly be gained by raping
and killing women and children?”
The Burmese military has
conducted a campaign of arson, killing and rape against ethnic Rohingya that
has threatened the lives of thousands. https://youtu.be/Fx8Z-ahYfE0
Human Rights Watch interviewed a dozen Rohingya refugees who
had recently arrived in Bangladesh after fleeing Rakhine State’s Maungdaw
Township. In video testimony, Rohingya residents described Burmese soldiers
using automatic weapons, looting and burning homes, killing villagers,
including entire families, and raping women and girls.
“Kasim,” 26, described the military’s destruction of homes
in the village of Kyet Yoe Pyin, also known as Kari Paraung, and other abuses.
“The military came into the village and shot indiscriminately whomever they
found. Elderly and children were shot dead…. Many people were killed,” he said.
“[The soldiers] dragged the women from the houses by their hair. They took off
the women’s clothes and longyi [sarongs]. They trampled their necks. They
pulled up their blouses and removed their bras. They raped them right there in
the yard.”
Another resident of the same village, “Jamal,” 24, watched
soldiers arrest Shukur, a 55-year-old man: “I saw that he was arrested by four
soldiers. Then I saw him lying on the ground. After that, I saw them slaughter
him with a knife that was about one-and-half feet long.”
“Jawad,” 23, a resident of Dar Gyi Zar village, said that
soldiers were shooting indiscriminately when they entered his village. “They
didn’t spare the young ones,” he said. He watched from an embankment as
soldiers killed his older brother and his two children, and then tossed their
bodies into a fire. The soldiers also burned crops and dispersed cultivated
rice so that it could not be harvested. No crops were spared and cows were
shot, he said.
Several refugees said that government security forces were
sometimes accompanied on raids by ethnic Rakhine Buddhist civilians, and Mro or
other non-Rohingya villagers. They were often involved in looting Rohingya
homes but also took part in other abuses. Kasim said that during a raid he and
his neighbors recognized some non-Rohingya people from nearby villages wearing
ordinary clothes.
The Burmese government has failed to keep its public
commitment to allow the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to
open an office with a full protection mandate despite the UN General Assembly
urging it to do so in a December 2015 resolution that was adopted without a
vote. The UN special rapporteur on Burma, Yanghee Lee, reported in August 2016
that the prompt creation of such an office “could give vital assistance to the
Government in addressing the complex and wide-ranging human rights challenges”
facing the country. Burmese authorities should immediately invite the UN human
rights office to send staff to northern Rakhine State to investigate and publicly
report back on abuses by all sides.
On December 1, the government announced the creation of a
committee to investigate the situation in Rakhine State and report by January
31, 2017. On December 16, the Myanmar Times reported that the committee, after
a three-day visit to Maungdaw Township, concluded that military clearance
operations had been conducted “lawfully.” This summary rejection of
allegations, as well as concerns about the committee’s composition and mandate,
raise serious doubts that its investigation will be thorough and impartial. A
similar commission created by the Rakhine State parliament in October has also
thus far failed to seriously investigate alleged military abuses.
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A Rohingya Muslim woman looks on as she waits to enter
the
Kutupalang Refugee Camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.
© 2016 Reuters/Mohammad
Ponir Hossain
|
On December 16, the UN high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, said: “The repeated dismissal of the claims of serious human rights violations as fabrications, coupled with the failure to allow our independent monitors access to the worst affected areas in northern Rakhine, is highly insulting to the victims and an abdication of the Government’s obligations under international human rights law.” He further characterized the Burmese government’s response as “short-sighted, counterproductive, even callous.”
The ongoing military operations have had a major impact on
the local population. Since October 9, authorities have kept Maungdaw Township
in a state of virtual lockdown, curtailed freedom of movement, blocked
humanitarian aid, and denied entry to journalists and human rights monitors.
Tens of thousands of peoplehave been displaced internally, but government and
military restrictions on aid agencies have prevented them from conducting
adequate needs assessments. The UN has reported that an estimated 27,000
Rohingya have become refugees in Bangladesh. Humanitarian organizations told
Human Rights Watch that while some aid is reaching Maungdaw Township, the worst
affected areas are still receiving no assistance. Since early October, the UN
and other international NGOs have been unable to reach 130,000 highly
vulnerable people in northern Maungdaw Township who previously received food,
cash, and nutrition assistance. Limited government access has allowed some
assistance to resume for only 20,000 of the 150,000 people that normally
receive aid.
Burma’s failure to end military abuses against Rohingya and
hold those responsible to account demands an independent inquiry with UN
participation. National and state governments have appointed commissions that
are neither credible nor independent to look into allegations of abuses.
“The government’s failure to appoint credible commissions to
thoroughly and impartially investigate the allegations undermines claims that
it is building a country based on the rule of law,” Adams said. “However, it is
not too late to reverse course and allow aid agencies and impartial observers
into affected areas to document what has happened and ensure the delivery of
food, medicine, and other life-saving services.”
Testimonies by Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh
The accounts below are drawn from interviews Human Rights
Watch carried out in Bangladesh between December 2 and 6, 2016. All names are
pseudonyms unless stated otherwise. Interviews were conducted with
interpreters.
Abu Hafsah
Abu Hafsah and his family endured a 43-day journey from
their village before reaching Bangladesh. On October 9, Hafsah, 46, heard
distant gunfire while at home in Kyet Yoe Pyin, a village within the Kyet Yoe
Pyin village tract of Maungdaw Township. Frightened, he moved his family into
hiding among the bushes and, when gunshots got closer, to hills around the
village. They returned home on October 11, but the gunshots continued
sporadically. Soldiers entered the village that day. He said he later heard
loud explosions coming from an adjacent village and saw hundreds of soldiers:
“There was no place where there was no military.”
On October 12, the soldiers returned. In the evening they
started firing rocket launchers and automatic weapons at villagers and their
homes. Villagers fled to escape injury. Abu Hafsah said that bullets were
whizzing past him and he jumped into the forest to avoid being hit: “They shot
[ordinary people]. Not anyone else. We have nothing. They fired [rocket]
launchers from some distance and more closely with guns. We thought that day
they would kill all of us.”
Abu Hafsah said that the next morning, soldiers fatally shot
six of his acquaintances when they emerged from hiding to tend to their cattle.
Abu Hafsah and his family then decided to flee Kyet Yoe Pyin, leaving with only
with the clothes they were wearing. They sought refuge in a nearby village,
where they stayed for about 10 days. Abu Hafsah then returned briefly to Kyet
Yoe Pyin, hoping the situation had improved. He estimates that hundreds of
homes and shops in the village were burned to the ground. Satellite imagery
analyzed by Human Rights Watch shows large burn scars consistent with arson
attacks confirming that at least 245 buildings were destroyed in Kyet Yoe Pyin
between October 9 and 14.
Abu Hafsah and his family then decided to flee Burma and go
to Kumar Khali along the border in Bangladesh. He said throughout the journey,
military patrols, forcing the family to move from one place to another and hide
in the hills or forest. Throughout their 43-day journey, food was scarce and
they often only had water to drink. Once in Kumar Khali, they pleaded with
local villagers to help them cross the border. Eventually, the family put
together, the 25,000 Burmese kyat (US$18), per person to pay an agent to get
them across the Naf River. They crossed by boat, eventually reaching Tolatuli
in Bangladesh on November 24.
Rohima
Rohima, 50, from Yae Khat Chaung Gwa Son village, said the
military entered her home, tied up her husband, and shot and killed him. She then
watched as soldiers dragged her four adult sons out of the house. She and the
other women in the house were crying, but she could not do anything to stop
them, she said. The soldiers then moved the women into another house and fired
rocket launchers at the house, but she survived. She came out of that house and
saw the soldiers set fire to her property.
Rohima said she then went to the pond beside her house and
found piles of bodies that had been set on fire with straw. She could smell
burning skin. She said that soldiers killed her four sons and her husband:
Shoona Ali, 35; Ijjod Ali, 25; Syed Ali, 30; Musa Ali, 45; and Yusuf Ali, 60.
Hiding in someone else’s home, Rohima watched soldiers
rampage through the village, “They cut the children with their knives. Then
they threw them into the fire,” she said.
She said she saw Rakhine villagers entering with the
military, including some whose faces she recognized wearing military uniforms.
They were dragging people from houses and using belts to beat people, she said.
Rohima decided to flee Burma with her extended family and
eventually reached Kumar Khali. They did not have any money to pay for the
crossing, but others helped them to cross. All 15 family members crossed the
river and arrived in Bangladesh on November 25.
Abdul
Abdul, 30, fled his home in Kyet Yoe Pyin village when
soldiers entered the town and began firing their weapons. “They shot at us
while we were escaping from the village,” he said. Some were killed while
others managed to escape.
Making it to the outskirts of Kyet Yoe Pyin, Abdul hid on a
hillside. The gunfire increased throughout the day. He said soldiers were
beating and shooting at villagers. The next day, he watched from the hillside
as soldiers in green uniforms with red shoulder patches set homes on fire and
shot at people. “At first, they fired at the houses with rocket launchers from
some distance,” he said. “When they fired, people ran away. Then they came into
the village and poured gasoline and set fire to the houses.”
Abdul said he watched as the soldiers burned a mosque. He
saw them physically abuse women. Fearful of further violence, he fled north:
“We understood that we had no way to return.” He traveled through several
villages, but soldiers were present until he reached Kumar Khali. There he was
reunited with his wife, who told him that soldiers had slit the throat of their
4-year-old son when they were trying to flee the village. The couple then
crossed by boat to Bangladesh.
Kasim
After the October 9 violence, Kasim, 26, watched the
military approach Kyet Yoe Pyin from the south in vehicles. After arriving,
they encircled his village. Kasim said that when soldiers entered the village
on October 12, he watched them destroy homes. Soldiers started firing rocket
launchers, causing the men to flee and the women to hide in their homes. Kasim
said he hid in a nearby paddy field. Before noon, soldiers set the local market
on fire. “On the first day, the military came into the village and set fire to
the houses by shooting rocket launchers,” he said. “Some set fire to the
houses. Some went inside the houses and looted them.”
Kasim said the soldiers also attacked local residents:
The military were shooting indiscriminately at whomever they
found. Elderly people and children were being shot dead…. Many people were
killed. They killed many people. The bullets hit people in the chest, stomach,
back, head and neck. They shot from 100 yards, 200 yards, and longer distances.
The abuses continued. Because soldiers were tearing down the
fences that surrounded homes, he had a clear view as soldiers dragged women out
of houses:
They dragged the women out of the houses by their hair. They
took off the women’s clothes and longyis [sarongs]. They trampled their necks.
They pulled up their blouses and removed their bras. They raped them right
there in the yard.
Kasim said he saw soldiers shoot his wife in the chest,
killing her and his young daughter whom she was carrying in her arms. He said
he also saw a nearby house, occupied by six women, being looted. He said
soldiers shot all six women inside.
Kasim said he saw people in ordinary clothes enter the town
with the soldiers. He and his neighbors recognized some people from nearby
villages among them. These villagers, together with the soldiers, looted homes
and in some cases dragged women from houses.
Kasim then decided to flee to Bangladesh. He moved from
village to village, hiding in the surrounding hills for days at a time while
trying to avoid the military at nearly every village in which he stayed. After
reaching a village near the border, he escaped across the Naf River to
Bangladesh with 13 members of his extended family. He arrived in Bangladesh on
November 30.
Jamal
Jamal, 24, saw the military approach from the eastern side of
Kyet Yoe Pyin village two days after the October 9 attacks. Some came on foot,
while others rode dark-colored trucks, the kind, he said, that were used for
transporting goats and other livestock. A set of different trucks carrying
people others recognized as ethnic Rakhine villagers arrived about the same
time. When the military entered the town, Jamal hid in a prawn lake (a small
pond where shrimp is produced and farmed) with others, covering himself with
palm leaves so that the soldiers could not see them, but he could see what was
happening.
He said that the soldiers first deployed on a hill next to
the village and fired rocket launchers at structures. They then entered the
village and began setting fire to houses, fired rocket launchers and shot at people
as they swept through the village. Villagers were either beaten or shot in the
streets.
Jamal said that the previous night his uncle brought two
female family members home. One was pregnant and gave birth that night. When
the soldiers came in the morning, the men left, assuming that the women would
not be harmed. From their hiding place, Jamal and the others watched soldiers
kill and rape the female villagers. “First, they slaughtered two women. One
woman wasn’t dead, so they tried to rape her. She pretended to be dead. They
raped her and left her. Then they slaughtered three more [women].” Jamal and
others returned the next day, they found the woman who had given birth recently
to be alive. However, he says she died shortly thereafter, but her newborn baby
survived. He said he also saw soldiers throw three children into a burning
house.
Jamal said that Shukur, 55, who was hiding with them in a
field, attempted to walk back to the village, but he was stopped along the way
and killed by four soldiers. Jamal said:
We all told him not to go. We warned him how the military
was killing people. His sons and daughters also tried to stop him. He said, “I
am an old man, what will they do to me?” Then he left. The military stopped him
when he reached a shop. I saw that he was arrested by four soldiers. Then I saw
him lying down on the ground. After that, I saw them slaughter him with a knife
about one-and-half feet long.
Jamal described seeing many women assembled in an area after
the men fled, and soldiers rushing to the area. He said the soldiers
“repressed” the women (a common euphemism for rape) and otherwise abused them,
causing some women to faint.
Jamal fled Kyet Yoe Pyin and later saw the military in
several other villages. In at least two villages, including Dar Gyi Zar, Jamal
saw helicopters firing automatic weapons from the air. The gunshots, he said,
were like a flurry of sparks. He watched the helicopter firing at people hiding
and trying to flee from the military. “They would shoot anything moving,” he
said.
Jamal was eventually able to flee to Bangladesh from a
village bordering the Naf River in Maungdaw Township. His family had no money,
but received help from other villagers to pay the 25,000 Burmese kyat (US$18)
per person to have someone help them across. Jamal arrived in Bangladesh on
December 1 with 13 other members of his family.
Kamal
Kamal, 32, said that when the military entered Kyet Yoe Pyin
village on October 11, he ran from the advancing soldiers, attempting to hide.
He watched soldiers burn houses, beat people, and shoot them as they fled.
Eight to 10 soldiers surrounded his house. Then they soaked articles of
clothing in jars of gasoline, lit them on fire, and threw them on the roof,
setting his home ablaze.
He said that his brother, who had recently contracted
malaria, was lying in the yard outside his house when the soldiers arrived.
Kamal watched as they tied his brother up with a rope and then shot him. He
then fled to a nearby home shared with relatives and from this vantage point
watched soldiers arrest other villagers, tie them up with rope, and carry some
away to waiting vehicles. He saw about five soldiers enter an uncle’s house,
adjacent to his hiding place, and arrest two of his uncles. In total, he saw
about nine people taken away, and heard that another 60 had been arrested. The
soldiers then torched the market by firing rocket launchers at it. He saw metal
scraps he believes were from the rockets on the ground and lodged in the
coconut trees.
He and his family left Kyet Yoe Pyin for eight days. They
decided to return to the village, but soldiers also soon returned. He said the
military attempted to gather and abuse the “sisters and daughters” of the
village. The villagers resisted by screaming at the soldiers.
When it became clear that there was not enough food to feed
all his family members, Kamal and his family decided to leave for Bangladesh.
“Subsistence was not possible,” he said. They evaded security forces in Burma,
and paid 26,000 Burmese kyat (US$19) to be taken across the border by boat.
Ali
Ali, 52, said the military arrived in Kyet Yoe Pyin on a
night when he and his family of 13 were leaving on foot to deliver some
business documents to Bora Para, a neighboring village where his father-in-law
lives. As they set out, they saw the military approaching in vehicles. Although
it was hard to tell, he thinks there were about 100 soldiers.
After Ali and his family arrived in Bora Para, they heard
gunfire. There was so much shooting that he said “the soil was trembling.” They
were so panicked they decided to stay with his father-in-law. The gunshots
lasted for four days. When the gunfire intensified, Ali and his family fled to
Jamoinna, a neighboring village. From there, he could see soldiers – he
estimates about 400 to 500 – moving around Kyet Yoe Pyin.
After eight days in Jamoinna, Ali went back to Kyet Yoe
Pyin. He found that about three-quarters of the homes were burned. Other
villagers that returned to Kyet Yoe Pyin had to borrow cooking utensils just to
eat because theirs had been destroyed or were gone.
Ali said he and the other villagers found corpses all over
the village. Some were in shallow graves. Foxes dragged some of the bodies out
of the graves, while others had various body parts protruding from shallow
earthen tombs. One grave had four corpses, all of which had been beheaded. Some
of the limbs appeared to have been eaten by foxes and dogs. Ali and the others
identified the bodies as those of Kadir Hussein, 60; Nur Alam, 50; Kala Mian,
30; and Mohamed Rashid, 26. He heard that Shukur, 55, had been executed, but
they never found his body. They dug deeper graves and placed the bodies they
could find in them. Many bodies of the missing were not found, but the longyi
and other garments of those missing were found among the dead and throughout
the village. Ali and the other villagers tried to gather the names of those
that no one had heard from or seen since the violence. In total, they counted
76 people missing.
Ali said that on a subsequent Saturday, the military raided
the village and arrested about 80 men. Several of his relatives were arrested,
including three cousins and his son-in-law.
Ali and his family eventually fled to Bangladesh. He paid a
trafficker 25,000 kyat (US$18) per person to get his family across the river.
They arrived in Bangladesh on December 3.
Kháled
Kháled, 26, said that the military first came to Myaw Taung
village tract to impose a curfew. They returned the next day and started
shooting people “without giving them a chance.” People were fleeing in every
direction they could, he said.
Kháled saw the military firing rocket launchers at homes,
setting them on fire. After the soldiers would fire rocket launchers, ethnic
Rakhine and Mro villagers, whom Kháled said he saw alongside the soldiers,
would loot the homes.
While he was hiding in a nearby outdoor toilet, his elder
brother came out of his house to investigate what was happening. Kháled heard
gunfire and fled up the hill behind his house. When he looked back, he saw that
his brother had been shot and killed. The soldiers, he said, left his brother’s
wife half-dead after raping her and shot and killed Kháled’s 5-year-old son. He
said that the soldiers threw the bodies of his brother and 5-year-old son along
with others into the fire.
After the violence, Kháled decided to flee to Bangladesh.
While he was waiting to cross a river at the border, he saw that people in
another boat had been caught by Burma’s Border Guard Police and “beaten to
black and blue.” So Kháled’s group waited. Three days later, on November 28,
they crossed into Bangladesh.
Jawad
Jawad, 23, cannot remember the exact date that the military
first entered his village, Dar Gyi Zar, but said that about 500 soldiers
arrived during morning prayers. He said the soldiers shot people and set fire
to houses. They fired rocket launchers and threw lit bamboo sticks onto
rooftops. By the time they were done, all the houses in his village were burned
down, he said. He watched them shoot an old man sitting in front of his door.
“They didn’t spare the young ones,” he said. “They slaughtered infants with
large knives and threw the bodies of the dead into fires.”
Jawad watched from an embankment as the military shot his
older brother, Mohamed. He says that Mohamed was with his son and daughter when
the military called out. He stopped and they shot him. They then took Mohamed’s
son and daughter and killed them with a large knife, Jawad said, tossing their
bodies into a fire. He doesn’t know why his brother was killed. “The military
did this, they should know,” he said.
Jawad said the military “tortured” and abused women and
girls, especially those that looked pretty. Two women who saw the deaths of
Mohammed and his children were taken by the military. One was beaten with the
bottom of the soldier’s rifle. The other was dragged into a house. Jawad saw
altogether about 15 soldiers enter the house. From his hiding place he could
hear the woman screaming. The soldiers emerged one hour later. After another
hour, Jawad and an elderly woman entered the house to tend to the victim. They
tried to get the woman to a doctor, but she died. He believes the soldiers
gang-raped her.
In mid to late November, Jawad saw soldiers going into the
fields disguised as farmers and then arresting people harvesting their crops
with machetes. The soldiers then set fire to the crops. Other soldiers took
stored rice and threw it away in such a manner that it could not be gathered.
No crops were spared and cows were shot, he said.
After being sent back once by the Border Guard Bangladesh
force, Jawad crossed into Bangladesh in late November after paying an agent
25,000 kyat (US$18).
Chomi
Chomi, 35, watched on November 13 as approximately 400
soldiers encircled his village of Dar Gyi Zar. He fled and watched from a field
as the military fired rocket launchers at homes and saw at least 10 people
shot. “They shot whomever they saw,” he said.
Chomi said that during the raid, the soldiers killed entire
families including Abul Hussein and his family of eight, the Yusuf family of
similar size, and Moulavi Saleh Ahmed’s family.
Chomi fled Dar Gyi Zar with his family on November 13 and
headed north. They stayed with relatives for two days, but the village
administrator asked them to leave, so the family lived in a field. Chomi
estimates that about 2,000 other people lived with them in the field for 10
days. The township and district then ordered them to return home.
On November 23, before being ordered to return home, Chomi
watched from a hill to see the situation in his village. He said he saw about
200 soldiers and smoke rising from the village. When he returned to his home,
he found many things missing or destroyed: clothes, cooking kettles, and food
had been taken. Of the 419 houses in his village, he said, only 12 were not
burned. His own home, he learned, was spared until a further round of burnings
on November 23. He said now it was a pile of ash and warped corrugated metal.
He went back, gathered his family and fled to Bangladesh.
After crossing some barbed wire, they joined other Rohingya who made their way
to two waiting boats, each carrying about 20 people, including children. Just
as they began to cross the river, they were spotted by a boat full of Burmese
security forces, who fired their guns in the air in the direction of the two
boats. The boat then sped toward them; the wake from the speeding boat caused
both Rohingya boats to capsize. Tossed from the boats, some people swam to
Bangladesh, while others swam back to Burma. Some couldn’t swim and drowned.
Chomi swam back to the Burmese side and hid from the military and Border Guard
Police patrols. Eventually, he was able to evade the patrols and cross the
border in the early hours of December 5 on a boat with eight other people.
Ahmet
In mid-November, the military entered Yae Khat Chaung Gwa
Son village. Ahmet said that helicopters fired as 200 to 250 soldiers encircled
the village. Soldiers who entered the town gathered together a large group of
women. They dragged the women by their hands and scarves, tearing their
clothing. He said the soldiers told the villagers they would “take” the women.
Ahmet said some villagers confronted the soldiers. In
response, a helicopter flying overhead started firing. He watched the
helicopter fly low, the guns on either side firing down on the villagers. The
soldiers then began burning houses. They carried gasoline in jars and threw
them on rooftops, burning them one by one. He learned that about 450 houses
were burned and only 35 survived.
When the burning of the village started, he and his family
fled to a village on the border with Bangladesh. They waited for about 15 days
and then left for Bangladesh, arriving on December 1.