Source: https://youtu.be/SCr6STpL8hM
Since August 2017, nearly a million Rohingya Muslims have
fled a brutal crackdown by the Burmese army. Today, they live in the world’s
largest refugee camp in neighbouring Bangladesh, a stone’s throw from the land
they have inhabited for generations. Across the barbed wire are their
persecutors, who have always considered them illegal immigrants. Will the
Rohingya ever be able to return home to Myanmar? FRANCE 24’s Clovis Casali
reports.
The United Nations has described the Burmese army's
crackdown on the Rohingya as "ethnic cleansing" and
"genocide". In little over a year, hundreds of thousands of civilians
from this Muslim minority have fled Myanmar’s western Rakhine state to seek
refuge in neighbouring Bangladesh.
In the Bangladeshi town of Cox's Bazar, the world’s
largest refugee camp has emerged, with nearly one million Rohingya surviving on
international aid. FRANCE 24’s reporter Clovis Casali met traumatised civilians
there who told of Burmese soldiers systematically raping women and spreading
terror in the Rohingya villages.
A few weeks after that initial outbreak of violence last
year, FRANCE 24 had been allowed into Rakhine state, a rare visit closely
supervised by the army. At the time, we managed to film Rohingya villages that
had been burned down and met terrified civilians trying to flee to Bangladesh.
Their chilling testimonies bore witness to the brutality of the army.
Also read and Watch: Burma in denial over
Rohingya crisis
http://f24.my/22pB.T
A year later, we again met up with Burmese soldiers
accused of ethnic cleansing. Our reporter followed them for three days,
travelling on roads damaged by the monsoon.
Vegetation was already growing over the ashes of the
razed Rohingya villages. On the road, our reporter saw brand new housing
developments that looked out of place in the agricultural state of Rakhine.
These houses, built for Burmese Buddhists, appear to show that the authorities
want to replace the Rohingya.
Police officers and officials refuse to acknowledge they
have carried out a campaign of ethnic cleansing. They insist that they only
targeted members of the armed rebel group ARSA (Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army)
and that the rest was collateral damage.
This report, filmed in both Bangladesh and Myanmar, shows
that the two opposing versions of events are irreconcilable. Confronted with
eyewitness accounts of Rohingya civilians, the Burmese authorities remain
unyielding. Their denial of the facts is clear, making it impossible for
Muslims to return to Rakhine, in spite of a few reassuring statements from
officials.