[At least 6,700 Rohingya met violent deaths, including 730 children younger than 5, and hundreds of villages were destroyed as the military and Buddhist residents of the area sought revenge for deadly attacks on police posts by Rohingya insurgents.]
By Richard C. Paddock
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A
photograph said to show 10 Rohingya Muslims before their execution in September last
year. The news agency
Reuters has published a detailed account of
the events. Credit via Reuters
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BANGKOK
— The news agency Reuters
has published a detailed investigation into the massacre of 10 Rohingya men by
Myanmar soldiers and villagers, saying that the work led the Myanmar
authorities to arrest two of its reporters.
The article, which was published on Friday,
describes how soldiers and Buddhist villagers carried out the killings in
September and buried the victims in a single grave. Based on eyewitness
accounts, it includes photographs of the Rohingya men tied up and kneeling
before their execution, and images after their deaths.
Pictures taken later show what appear to be
human bone fragments at the site of the mass grave.
Two of the four journalists who worked on the
report, U Wa Lone and U Kyaw Soe Oo, were arrested in December and face trial
on charges of violating Myanmar’s colonial-era Official Secrets Act. They have
been denied bail and face up to 14 years in prison.
The massacre described in the Reuters report
occurred during a wave of attacks on the Rohingya Muslim minority in Rakhine
State last year that Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson said “constitutes
ethnic cleansing.”
At least 6,700 Rohingya met violent deaths,
including 730 children younger than 5, and hundreds of villages were destroyed
as the military and Buddhist residents of the area sought revenge for deadly
attacks on police posts by Rohingya insurgents.
About 700,000 Rohingya have fled across the
border into Bangladesh to escape the violence.
In its 4,500-word article, Reuters documented
the killings of the 10 Rohingya men in Inn Din village, about 30 miles north of
Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine State.
The report identified the victims by name and
described them as fishermen, shopkeepers and an Islamic teacher. Two were high
school students. They ranged in age from 17 to 45.
At least two of the men were hacked to death
by Buddhist villagers, and the rest were shot by Myanmar troops, Reuters
reported, citing eyewitnesses who are Buddhist
“One grave for 10 people,” said U Soe Chay,
55, a retired soldier who told Reuters that he had helped to dig the grave and
saw the killings. The soldiers shot each man two or three times, he said, but
not all died immediately.
“When they were being buried, some were still
making noises,” Reuters quoted him as saying. “Others were already dead.”
In January, the military confirmed that 10
Rohingya men were killed in Inn Din by villagers and soldiers. It said the men
were terrorists who had attacked security forces, and that the soldiers had
decided to kill them because intense fighting made it impossible to keep them
in custody. The army said it would take action against those involved.
U Zaw Htay, a government spokesman, told
Reuters, “We are not denying the allegations about violations of human rights.”
He added, “If we found the evidence is true
and the violations are there, we will take the necessary action according to
our existing law.”
Reuters said its report was based on scores
of interviews with Rakhine Buddhist villagers, soldiers, paramilitary police
officers, Rohingya Muslims and local administrators.
The villagers told Reuters that the military
and the paramilitary police had organized Buddhist residents of Inn Din and at
least two other villages to set fire to Rohingya homes, and that Buddhist
villagers had participated in the killings of Rohingya in the area.
The government has accused Rohingya
insurgents of burning the homes themselves.
Citing unidentified sources, the report said
that an order to clear Inn Din had been passed down the military chain of
command and that security forces wore civilian clothes to avoid being detected
during raids.
Members of the paramilitary police looted
Rohingya property, including motorcycles and cows, some of which were later
taken by the military, Reuters reported.
None of the 6,000 Rohingya who once lived in
Inn Din were still there by October.
The photographs of the 10 victims before and after
the killings were provided by a Buddhist village elder who said he did not want
to see the events repeated.
Mr. Wa Lone and Mr. Kyaw Soe Oo, the two
journalists being held by the Myanmar authorities, had done extensive reporting
on the massacre before they were arrested on Dec. 12. Reuters said Mr. Wa Lone
had taken some photographs of the mass grave.
Human rights groups have accused the police
of entrapping the two journalists by handing them documents. One relative said
the two men had been seized so quickly that they did not have a chance to
examine the documents.
