Myanmar Continues Israeli-Style Demolition
Campaign on Rohingya Homes
By Rohingya Mirror and Rohingya Eye
January 6, 2016 | RVision TV News
Maungdaw – Myanmar’s Border Guard Police (BGP) continue
their Israeli-style demolition of Rohingya homes across Maungdaw District, a
campaign which began in mid-December 2016, leaving thousands of people homeless
in this winter, more than half of them women and children, local sources said.
The Border Guard Police (BGP) have demolished at least 1,000
Rohingya homes in Maungdaw District that includes Maungdaw and Buthidaung
townships since the mid-December on pretext of building homes without
permission or not being in the household map and left more than 6,000 people
displaced; apart from the burning of more than 4,000 homes in northern Maungdaw
region after October 9, 2016, which had left more than 50,000 people displaced.
Further 100 more Rohingya homes have been demolished in the
district since the last week of last December. In many villages in Maungdaw
Township, the BGP has demolished some homes by themselves but mostly forced the
local Rohingyas to destroy their own homes, while deliberately setting some
homes on fire claiming dismantling homes consumed too much time, said a local
in northern Maungdaw on the condition of anonymity.
At Sinthaepyin (locally known as Haanti Fara) hamlet of
Loundoong village in northern Maungdaw, the house of Mr. Khairul Amin was burnt
down at around 9:30 pm on January 4, 2016. Both Khairul Amin and his wife
haven’t returned home from Bangladesh where they went to treat their 7-year-old
daughter after she had been shot at her leg by the military on November 26,
2016.
Although it is unknown who exactly torched his home, some
BGP personnel were seen roaming in the village earlier in the evening nearby
his home. (Note: the Myanmar’s State Counselor Information Committee has
reported this incident twisting the real facts.)
And following is a list of destructions of homes in the
Maungdaw Township in the recent weeks.
** The administrator of Zawmadat village, U Maung Thar Kyu,
is a Rakhine extremists also indulging in money extortions from the villagers
threatening that he will make the BGP destroy their homes if they don’t give
(ransom) money to him.
The houses and shops being destroyed in the rural villages
are not modern buildings that require officials’ permission(s) but traditional
country-type structures built of bamboos and woods and covered with ‘Nipa Palm
Leaves.’ These widespread destructions of homes are now seen among the locals
as yet another attempt of cleansing their (i.e. Rohingya) population through
systematic displacement of the people.
The order to demolish homes had only been imposed on the
Rohingya community, not on the Rakhine Buddhist community.
[Read related reports:
Rohingya Homes Demolished in Southern Maungdaw
More Rohingya Homes Demolished across Maungdaw
Township
Man Shot at Head for Refusing to Demolish his
Home
Myanmar Continues to Demolish Rohingya Homes
in Maungdaw District]