[Following those attacks, Myanmar security forces and armed local residents carried out a campaign of mass violence against Rohingya that killed more than 200 people in Chut Pyin, a village in Rakhine State, according to Fortify Rights, a human rights group that focuses on Southeast Asia. The organization based its report on interviews with survivors and eyewitnesses.]
By Austin Ramzy
 |
|
Bangladeshi villagers
covered the bodies of Rohingya women and children who died
when the boats in which
they were fleeing violence in western Myanmar capsized.
Credit Suvra Kanti
Das/Associated Press.
|
HONG
KONG — At least 46 people
believed to be Rohingya fleeing violence in western Myanmar have been found
dead on the banks of a river along the boundary with Bangladesh, Bangladeshi
officials said on Friday.
The dead, which included 19 children, 18
women and 9 men, were found at points along the Naf River over the past three
days, the officials said.
“We believe they were Rohingyas,” said Lt.
Col. S. M. Ariful Islam, commanding officer of the local border guard
battalion. “They died because their boats capsized when they were coming to
Bangladesh by boat from Myanmar.”
An Associated Press photo showed Bangladeshi
villagers on a beach covering the bodies of dead Rohingya women and children
with a tarp.
The Rohingya are a predominantly Muslim
ethnic group that faces oppression in Myanmar, which denies them citizenship
rights.
Last week a Rohingya militant group attacked
police posts and a military base in Rakhine State in western Myanmar, near the
country’s border with Bangladesh. More than 100 people were killed, including
at least 12 members of the security forces and 80 militants.
Following those attacks, Myanmar security
forces and armed local residents carried out a campaign of mass violence
against Rohingya that killed more than 200 people in Chut Pyin, a village in
Rakhine State, according to Fortify Rights, a human rights group that focuses
on Southeast Asia. The organization based its report on interviews with
survivors and eyewitnesses.
“The situation is dire,” Matthew Smith, chief
executive of Fortify Rights, said in the group’s statement. “Mass atrocity
crimes are continuing. The civilian government and military need to do
everything in their power to immediately prevent more attacks.”
The violence touched off an exodus of
Rohingya to Bangladesh, where more than 300,000 Rohingya live in squalid refugee
camps. Since the fighting began one week ago, at least 27,000 people have
crossed into Bangladesh, with another 20,000 stranded between the two
countries, the United Nations said Thursday.
Many Rohingya have been blocked at the border
by Bangladeshi guards, according to the United Nations’ human rights agency,
which called on Bangladesh to allow people fleeing violence to cross freely
into the country from Myanmar.
A Rohingya extremist group called the Arakan
Rohingya Salvation Army claimed responsibility for the attacks last week. The
government of Myanmar also blamed the group for the Aug. 26 killing of six
Hindu villagers on in Maungtaw Township in northern Rakhine State.
The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army has also
killed some civilians it accused of being government informants and blocked
Rohingya men and boys from fleeing Maungdaw, a township in Rakhine, Fortify
Rights said.
The government of Myanmar denies that the
Rohingya are citizens, instead calling them illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
About one million of them live in Rakhine State, where their ability to work
and travel is limited.
Fires broke out in several parts of Rakhine
State last week. The government said it was the result of “Bengalis” setting
fire to their own homes, using the term that Myanmar officials often use in
referring to the Rohingya.
Human Rights Watch, which documented the
fires from satellite photos, said it was impossible to tell the causes
remotely, but said the information “bears a close resemblance to that found
during widespread arson attacks in Rakhine State during violence against the
Rohingya in 2012 and 2016.”
In 2012, 10 Rohingya men were killed after
three Rohingya were accused of raping and murdering a Buddhist woman. In the
riots that followed, dozens of people were killed and some 90,000 Rohingya fled
into Bangladesh.
The United Nations top human rights official
condemned the attacks last week and called on Myanmar’s military to show
restraint toward civilians. Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights, also criticized statements from the office of
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s de facto leader, accusing United Nations
agencies of aiding Rohingya militants.
The fighting last week began just over a day
after a panel created by Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi and headed by Kofi Annan, the
former United Nations secretary general, issued a report saying that Myanmar
need to grant basic freedoms to the Rohingya or risk more “violence and
radicalization.”
In February, a United Nations report said a
wide-ranging anti-insurgency campaign in Rakhine state had led to the killings
of hundreds of men, women and children by the military and police. Those acts
were “very likely” crimes against humanity, the report said.
Julfikar Ali Manik contributed reporting from
Dhaka, Bangladesh.