Rohingya
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Contents |
The background
Plight of the Rohingyas: Why they remain world's most unwanted, August 28, 2017: The Times of India
Who are Myanmar's Rohingya people?
Widely seen as among the world's most persecuted ethnic groups, the Rohingyas are a Muslim minority group in Myanmar. Ethnically , they are much closer to the indoAryan Indians and Bangladesh than to the Sino-Tibetans that constitute the majority population of the country. They live in Rakhine state in the country's western coast. There is a controversy over their history in Myanmar. The Rohingyas claim to have lived in the country for centuries, but other ethnic groups as well as successive governments call them foreign immigrants. Amnesty International says that LEAR Muslim people have WI been living on the THE T Rakhine coast since the 8th to 9th century . There was, however, a substantial migration of Muslims during the British colonial period from the early 19th to the 20th century where migration from what is now Ban gladesh to this region was encouraged by the British to meet the demand for labour.
How did the 1982 citizenship law affect Rohingyas?
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) the 1982 citizenship law deprived the Rohingyas of Myanmar's citizenship. The law violates several fundamental principles of customary interna tional law. The government has also issued identity cards which need to be carried at all times and are required for virtually everything from buying tickets, registering children in school, staying overnight outside one's own council, applying for any professional post, buying or exchanging land and more.This has effectively resulted in deprivation of fundamental rights and persecution on the basis of ethnicity.
How bad is the situation?
In Myanmar, Rohingyas are subjected to forced labour and are required to work for the government for no pay .UNHCR and other agencies as well as news reports also note that since 1991their freedom of movement is restricted and they are not allowed to find work in the cities.Since most of them are unskilled labourers, even a few days of work without pay paralyses their livelihood.They are also subjected to arbitrary taxation and forced relocation. Between December 1991 and March 1992, over 2 lakh Rohingya Muslims fled to Bangladesh. A similar exodus happened in 1978.These refugees live in pitiable conditions and are often forcefully repatriated. Stories of Rohingya Muslims fleeing to Thailand, Malaysia keep appearing in newspapers. In short, they have no fundamental rights at home and are often not accepted in other countries.
What is the current situation?
Since 2012, Myanmar's Rakhine state has been the site of ongoing riots between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims. Thousands of homes have been torched and Amnesty International estimates that there might be between 50,000 and 90,000 people displaced. Many experts believe that there are about 40,000 Rohingyas living in India. It has been reported that there is pressure from some groups to deport them back, while human rights organisations argue against the deportation citing their persecution at home.
The Bangladesh position
2017: "Safe zones" for Rohingya
Haroon Habib, Hasina proposes ‘safe zones’ for Rohingya, September 20, 2017 : The Hindu
Criticises Myanmar for calling them ‘illegal immigrants’ and ‘Bengalis’
Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina called upon members states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to take a united stand to resolve the Rohingya issue “before it is too late” and placed a set of proposals.
The proposals, placed at the OIC Contact Group at the United Nations headquarters on Tuesday, included a call for an immediate end to atrocities against Rohingya Muslims, the creation of ‘safe zones’ in Myanmar for the protection of civilians and an immediate and unconditional implementation of the recommendations put forward by the Kofi Annan Commission.
Stating that that the crisis has its roots in Myanmar and hence its solution also has to be found in Myanmar, she said, “We want to see an end to the ‘ethnic cleansing’.”
“It’s an unbearable human catastrophe. I myself have visited them and listened to the stories of their grave sufferings, particularly of women and children... We have continued our diplomatic efforts to return all the Rohingya to their homeland, but Myanmar is not responding,” she said.
She also criticised Myanmar for labelling Rohingya as “illegal migrants” and “Bengalis from Bangladesh”. She said historical records clearly suggest that the Rohingya have been living in Rakhine for centuries.
“Myanmar is forcibly driving out the Rohingya Muslims through a planned and organised process. First, they were excluded from the list of recognised ethnic groups of Myanmar. Then in 1982, they were denied their right to citizenship. Later, they were sent to IDP camps in their own country,” she said.
Visit to Cox's Bazar camps
Referring to her recent visit to the Cox’s Bazar refugee camps, she said it was reminiscent of 1971. “When the Pakistani forces burned down our houses and killed our people, around 10 million people crossed the border into India. Now they (Rohingya) are in danger and we definitely need to give them shelter.”
Also, Bangladesh’s ruling 14-party alliance rejected the speech of Myanmarese leader Aung Sang Suu Kyi. The alliance’s spokesperson Mohammad Nasim said on Wednesday that it was unfortunate that Ms. Suu Kyi did not even mention the word ‘Rohingya’ in her speech.
The Indian position
2017
HIGHLIGHTS
After PM Modi's Myanmar visit, India called on Myanmar to stop the violence and control the refugee outflow..
A four-pronged policy on Rohingya refugee problem is being worked on by the government.
India will assist in the development of the Rakhine province to tackle the problem at its source.
PM Narendra Modi's apparent endorsement of Myanmar's military crackdown on Rohingya extremist groups set off alarm bells in Bangladesh and India — though for different reasons — and is likely to result in a multi-dimensional approach that will include India pressing for apolitical solution.
Within hours of Modi's return, his decision to skip addressing the refugee issue had the wires between India and Bangladesh buzzing and senior officials conferred to tweak the Indian approach. After Bangladesh high commissioner Muazzem Ali met foreign secretary S Jaishankar, India made a significant course correction, calling on Myanmar to stop the violence and control the refugee outflow.
India has run daily flights with relief material for the Bangladesh government to deal with Rohingya refugees. The development comes even as the Supreme Court is hearing a petition challenging the proposed deportation of illegal Rohingya migrants and it remains a political issue for the BJP government, as articulated by minister of state for home Kiren Rijiju. But sifting through disparate statements and conversations with senior government sources, show that a four-pronged policy is being worked on. This will find articulation in the statements by foreign minister Sushma Swaraj, who will lead the Indian delegation to the UN General Assembly for the second time running.
India will continue to support Myanmar's right to go after ARSA or AMM and any other Rohingya terror group. In a statement of September 9, the MEA stated, "We had earlier condemned the terrorist attacks on Myanmar security forces in Rakhine.The two countries have since affirmed their shared determination to combat terrorism and not allow its justification under any pretext." In addition, India will assist in the development of the Rakhine province as a means of tackling the problem of deprivation at its source. India will also push Myanmar to find a political solution to the crisis.
As Swaraj told Sheikh Hasina in a phone conversation on Friday, India will oppose Myanmar's acts of pushing Rohingyas into Bangladesh or other countries. The situation can substantially increase the possibility of Pakistan-based terror groups like LeT, Al Qaeda and even ISIS exploiting displaced Rohingyas for terror activities. There is enough evidence that a number of Rohingyas have been radicalised by such agencies.
In Bangladesh, which is already battling its own terrorist problem, addition of a radicalised population could be used by opposition Jamaat and BNP for political ends. Sources said the Indian government will defend its right to evict illegal migrants. The issue is politically sensitive for BJP which campaigned against such migration in the north-east states. The presence of Rohingyas in Jammu has sparked more such fears. Others have pointed to terror leaders like Zakir Musa supporting the Rohingyas as reason to deport them.
While security concerns are still paramount, Myanmar faces the difficult task of a political solution to the Rohingya issue. This will be hard for state counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi as it will impact her support among Buddhists, whose resurgent nationalism is one of the reasons for the Rohingyas' plight.
On the other hand, Sheikh Hasina is battling with the prospect that stateless Rohingyas can become a political tool against her. Using Kashmir as a comparison point, Suu Kyi said, "Because (there is) a large Muslim community in India and in places like Kashmir, you had this trouble of sorting out terrorists from innocent citizens".
"Operation Insaniyat"
September 14, 2017: Business Standard
Operation Insaniyat: India sends food for Rohingya Muslims in Bangladesh
India sent rice, pulses, sugar, salt, cooking oil, tea, ready to eat noodles, biscuits, mosquito nets
India extended humanitarian assistance for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh by flying down food and other essential items to the neighbour to help it deal with the huge influx of Rohingyas who have fled from Myanmar.
The relief material will be delivered in multiple consignments under "Operation Insaniyat", with the first tranche to be flown to Chittagong by an Indian Air Force plane later on Thursday evening.
The assistance, according to an External Affairs Ministry statement, was extended in response to the "humanitarian crisis being faced on account of the large influx of refugees into Bangladesh".
Dhaka had earlier sought New Delhi's help in addressing the problems faced by the Bangladesh government as hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims have entered that country after fleeing persecution in Myanmar's restive Rakhine state.
The relief material consists of items required urgently by the affected people, namely rice, pulses, sugar, salt, cooking oil, tea, ready to eat noodles, biscuits, mosquito nets, the statement said.
"India has always responded readily and swiftly to any crisis in Bangladesh, in keeping with the close ties of friendship between the peoples of India and Bangladesh.
"India stands ready to provide any assistance required by the government of Bangladesh in this hour of need," the statement said.
2018
The issue of deportation
Vijaita Singh, Rohingya issue: The road to deportation, October 5, 2018: The Times of India
Rohingya are an ethnic group from Myanmar, mostly Muslims, who are based in Rakhine province of West Myanmar. Myanmar has not granted them full citizenship and they are classified as “resident foreigners” or as “associate citizens.”
They speak a dialect of Bengali as against Burmese. They left Myanmar in large numbers, first in 2012, during the first wave of organised attack against them by the Burmese army .The attacks revived last year when lakhs took shelter in Cox’s Bazaar area of Bangladesh. Around five lakh Rohingya have taken shelter in Saudi Arabia since 2012.
How many Rohingya are there in India?
Though there is no definite number but earlier home ministry told the Parliament that there are around 40,000 Rohingya in India, of which around 5,700 are in Jammu. Of these, only 16,000 are said to be registered with the United Nations. As per an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court on Thursday, there are at least 12 Rohingya in detention camps in Assam. In 2017, Border Security Force apprehended 87 Rohingya along the Bangladesh border and 76 were sent back to Bangladesh.
What is the process of deportation?
There are no separate rules for Rohingya. All illegal immigrants are detected, detained and deported under provisions of the Passport Act, 1920 or the Foreigners Act, 1946. The powers to identify and deport them have been delegated to the State governments/Union Territories. Once a ‘foreigner’ has been apprehended by the police for staying here illegally, without any document, he or she is produced before the local court. The court after hearing the police and the alleged foreigner examines the case. If the accused is found guilty, they can be imprisoned for three months to eight years.
Is there an advisory by union home ministry to States specific to the Rohingya?
On August 8, 2017, MHA wrote to all the States that “infiltration from Rakhine State of Myanmar into Indian territory specially in the recent years, besides being burden on the limited resources of the country also aggravates the security challenges posed to the country.” It also said that the rise of terrorism in last few decades has become a concern for most nations and illegal migrants are more vulnerable for getting recruited by terrorist organisations.
What happens after the completion of the sentence?
Once the accused have completed the sentence in jail, the court orders their deportation and they are moved to detention centres till the country of origin verifies and accepts them. The State government writes to the concerned country and consular access is provided to the detainees.
Was the deportation of seven Rohingya on October 4, 2018 the first instance?
While deportations of foreigners staying illegally have taken place earlier, this is the first time when Myanmar has accepted the Rohingya and issued them a certificate of identity two months ago. The seven persons were caught in 2012 in Assam. After they were moved to detention centre from a prison, they wrote to the Myanmar Embassy in 2016, expressing their desire to return to their country. The process of establishing their identity started then.
Did they give any undertaking?
All the seven Rohingya gave individual undertakings. Mohammad Jamal, one of the Rohingya who was deported said in the undertaking “I was satisfied with the facilities and amenities of the jail authorities, I am thankful to the administration for safe and comfortable departure to my country of origin.”
Migration, from Myanmar to Bangladesh
Bangladesh seeks peaceful solution to Rohingya crisis
Haroon Habib, NOVEMBER 24, 2016
Bangladesh has expressed “great concern” over the ongoing crisis in Myanmar’s Rakhine State where a military operation against “Islamist jihadists” has triggered a humanitarian emergency.
The foreign office has handed a formal letter to Myanmar asking the authorities to intervene so that the Rohingya Muslims fleeing the conflict-zone can return to their homes.
In a meeting with Myo Myint Than, Myanmar’s envoy in Dhaka, the foreign office has requested Myanmar to take immediate steps to take back the Rohingyas already entered Bangladesh recently, sources said. Additional Foreign Secretary Kamrul Ahsan later told reporters that Bangladesh is looking forward to a peaceful resolution of the ongoing crisis.
Tension has been rife on the Myanmar-Bangladesh border after militants allegedly linked to Aqa Mul Mujahidin group launched attacks on Myanmar’s border police and the army, resulting in the deaths of a dozen law enforcers early this month. The Myanmar Army has since been conducting operations in Rakhine, home for the country’s over a million Rohingya people.
Meanwhile, the local commanders of the Bangladesh Border Guard and Myanmar Border Police held a meeting in Cox’s Bazar, a border town, on Wednesday to discuss migration and security issues.
Local media reported that hundreds of Rohingyas were now floating in boats in the Naaf river, struggling to enter Bangladesh territory. Bangladesh has already tightened its border security by deploying more personnel to prevent a further influx of Rohingyas as officials say the country already hosts a large number such refugees from Myanmar.
Despite tight security, many Rohingya families have entered Bangladesh along river routes after the latest crisis broke out. In some cases, the border security guards pushed them back after giving humanitarian assistance.
The UNHCR on November 18 urged Bangladesh to keep its border with Myanmar open for the Rohingyas.
An unending crisis
The Hindu, January 2, 2017
Suvojit Bagchi
In Cox’s Bazaar, Rohingyas huddle together in shacks in a harsh winter
Describing the influx of refugees from Myanmar to southeast Bangladesh as a “forgotten crisis”, Sarat Dash, chief of mission of the International Organisation for Migration in Bangladesh, has said the crisis is worsening in the Rohingya refugee camps.
Mr. Dash visited the camps in Cox’s Bazaar district with the Foreign Ministers of Indonesia and Bangladesh and said “34,000 refugees” had moved from Myanmar to Bangladesh since the recent spate of ethnic violence in Rakhine state of Myanmar. While at least half-a-dozen international humanitarian agencies were working in the area, the situation was worsening with the advent of winter, Mr. Dash said.
Difficult times
“With severe crisis of shelter and food [as] the winter is approaching, there is a serious need of winter clothes; also an urgent need of medical assistance and psycho-social help,” Mr. Dash said. He said a “lot of the refugees are visibly depressed [as] they had traumatic experiences”.
Since the beginning of an anti-Rohingya cleansing drive in parts of Myanmar from the early 1990s, three lakh to five lakh refugees have settled in southeastern Bangladesh, according to the National Strategy on Myanmar Refugees report by the Bangladesh Government in 2013.
Besides the 32,000 officially registered refugees, there are nearly 50,000 in the makeshift settlements near the camps, says the Prime Minister’s National Strategy report.
The report also says that another three lakh to five lakh “undocumented Myanmar nationals” are living across Cox’s Bazaar. They are mainly settled in the upazilas (sub-districts) along the 62-km western bank of the Naaf river.
The Foreign Ministers and Mr. Dash visited these sub-districts and the IOM has concluded that 34,000 more refugees have arrived since early October.
Influx on
“The condition of the refugees already settled is not any good. But since they are staying over a period of time, they have managed to somewhat put together their lives. But these new people came empty-handed and without resources and thus their living condition is worse than pavement dwellers in Kolkata. Unlike the pavement dwellers, they are living in forest land or uninhabited land,” Mr. Dash said.
As the Rohingya refugees, many of whom speak Bengali, are pouring in large numbers, on an average of 500 a day, the sub-districts are getting crowded by the hour, increasing pressure on hygiene, sanitation and security.
“But do we have an option other than to give them shelter in our tiny plastic thatched boxes,” asked Mahmudulla, a schoolteacher. Mr. Mahmudulla came to Cox’s Bazaar in the early 1990s and speaks urban Bengali.
He has documented the violence on the Rohingyas in Rakhine state on the other side of the Naaf river.
“The villages on the other side — at least 20 — are decimated and we could only see the smoke, hear them screaming for help. It is gut-wrenching as I had experienced similar attacks a quarter century ago,” Mr. Mahmudulla told The Hindu on the phone from Cox’s Bazaar.
The photographs — mutilated bodies, charred corpses covered with banana leaves and burning villages — that Mr. Mahmudulla received on his mobile phone, describe the trauma that the Rohingyas are experiencing. Nearly 90 people are officially killed till last week. While the killings are denied by the Myanmar government, Rohingya refugees in the camps in Bangladesh said they had now “stopped counting the bodies” of their family members.
15 to a room
“It is locally called “doubling” as the refugees are entering the semi-permanent shack of another refugee family, which perhaps arrived few years ago,” Mr. Dash said. The space shortage was acute. “Fifteen or 16 persons living in a tiny room which has only plastic on all sides.”
At night, the men take their turn to rest in the local mosque.
“The temperature is dropping and there is an immediate need to provide some basic comfort, especially to children,” Mr. Dash said. One in every three children was severely malnourished. The IOM has set up medical camps, provided drinking water and set up toilets in the camps.
Israel helps Myanmar army against Rohingyas
HIGHLIGHTS
Israel has sold Myanmar more than a 100 tanks, and weapons and boats
Notably, the US and the European Union (EU) have an arms embargo on Myanmar
The EU's embargo on Myanmar refers to the ban on sales of "equipment which might be used for internal repression"
Israel has refused to stop supplying arms to the Myanmar army, which human rights groups say is involved in the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims+ , saying, "the matter is clearly diplomatic", reported online news portal Middle East Eye (MEE).
Not just that, Israeli arms companies like TAR Ideal Concepts have even trained Myanmar's special forces in Rakhine state where most of the violence against the Rohingya has taken place, added MEE.
The weapons Israel has sold Myanmar include more than a 100 tanks, and weapons and boats used to police its border, said human rights groups and Burmese officials.
Notably, the US and the European Union (EU) have an arms embargo on Myanmar. The US cites the International Religious Freedom Act and uses the embargo on countries that have "engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom".
The EU's embargo on Myanmar refers to the ban on sales of "equipment which might be used for internal repression".
In the latest bout of violence that began August 25, and that was triggered by an attack on Myanmar police posts, at least 400 Rohingya have been killed, and as many as 146,000 have made their way, starving and terrified, to Bangladesh, reported the Associated Press. Satellite images show dozens of Rohingya villages burned to the ground by the Myanmar army, agencies reported. On Tuesday, even the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, expressed concern the violence could spiral into a "humanitarian catastrophe".
Last December, Israeli lawyers and human rights activists wrote to their country's defence ministry urging it to suspend a military shipment ordered by the Myanmar Army. They said Myanmar still commits human rights abuses against minority groups, reported The Irrawaddy, a website run by exiles from Myanmar in Thailand.
"It is surprising that the State of Israel, while struggling for continued sanctions against Iran, has no qualms about ignoring the US and EU sanctions against Burma for the most severe crimes being committed there," read the letter.
In January this year, following visits by Israeli officials to Myanmar and vice versa, to discuss arms deals, activists in Israel filed a petition urging their government to stop arms exports to Myanmar.
The petition is expected to be heard later this month, but in March, in a preliminary reply, the Israeli defence ministry said the court had no jurisdiction over the issue. The ministry said arms sales to Myanmar were "clearly diplomatic", reported MEE.
Myanmar-Israel ties
In fact, diplomatic and military ties between Israel and Myanmar flourished even during the military dictatorship in the latter, said Ofer Neiman, an Israeli human rights activist, to MEE.
In September 2015, two months before the country's first election in 25 years, one of the heads of the then Myanmar junta, General Min Aung Hlaing, who's now chief of the armed forces, visited Israel on a "shopping trip" of Israeli military manufacturers, reported Israel's Haaretz. His delegation met President Reuven Rivlin and other military officials including the army's chief of staff. Hlaing also visited military bases and defense contractors Elbit Systems and Elta Systems, added Haaretz
In June 2015, the head of Israel's defence export department Gen Michel Ben Baruch visited Burma and met with leaders of the Burma Army, reported The Irawaddy.
Israel's relationship to Myanmar is linked to Israel's ongoing occupation of Palestinian territory in the West Bank, said Neiman, Neiman, the Israeli human rights activist, to MEE.
"This policy is strongly related to Israel's oppression and dispossession of the Palestinian people. Weapons used against the Palestinians are being sold as 'field-tested' to some of the worst regimes on the planet," said Nieman to MEE.
Some analysts say they aren't surprised that Israel refuses to stop arms sales to Myanmar.
"It's not at all surprising that the latest escalation in Myanmar's genocide of the Rohingya has not moved the Israeli state to cease its supply of weapons to Myanmar's military," said Penny Green, director of the International State Crime Initiative at London's Queen Mary University, to MEE.
"Its own record of violence and terror against the Palestinian people of Gaza is clear enough evidence that the Israeli government is unmoved by ethical concerns and human rights," added Green.
Rohingyas as aggressors
2017, August: Massacre of Hindus in Rakhine, Myanmar
From: Myanmar: New evidence reveals Rohingya armed group massacred scores in Rakhine State, May 22, 2018: Amnesty International
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From: Myanmar: New evidence reveals Rohingya armed group massacred scores in Rakhine State, May 22, 2018: Amnesty International
From: Myanmar: New evidence reveals Rohingya armed group massacred scores in Rakhine State, May 22, 2018: Amnesty International
A Rohingya armed group brandishing guns and swords is responsible for at least one, and potentially a second, massacre of up to 99 Hindu women, men, and children as well as additional unlawful killings and abductions of Hindu villagers in August 2017, Amnesty International revealed today after carrying out a detailed investigation inside Myanmar’s Rakhine State.
Based on dozens of interviews conducted there and across the border in Bangladesh, as well as photographic evidence analyzed by forensic pathologists, the organization revealed how Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) fighters sowed fear among Hindus and other ethnic communities with these brutal attacks.
“Our latest investigation on the ground sheds much-needed light on the largely under-reported human rights abuses by ARSA during northern Rakhine State’s unspeakably dark recent history,” said Tirana Hassan, Crisis Response Director at Amnesty International.
Our latest investigation on the ground sheds much-needed light on the largely under-reported human rights abuses by ARSA during northern Rakhine State’s unspeakably dark recent history.
Tirana Hassan, Crisis Response Director at Amnesty International “It’s hard to ignore the sheer brutality of ARSA’s actions, which have left an indelible impression on the survivors we’ve spoken to. Accountability for these atrocities is every bit as crucial as it is for the crimes against humanity carried out by Myanmar’s security forces in northern Rakhine State.”
Massacre in Kha Maung Seik
At around 8am on 25 August 2017, ARSA attacked the Hindu community in the village of Ah Nauk Kha Maung Seik, in a cluster of villages known as Kha Maung Seik in northern Maungdaw Township. At the time of the attack, the Hindu villagers lived in close proximity to Rohingya villagers, who are predominantly Muslim. Rakhine villagers, who are predominantly Buddhist, also lived in the same area.
Armed men dressed in black and local Rohingya villagers in plain clothes rounded up dozens of Hindu women, men and children. They robbed, bound, and blindfolded them before marching them to the outskirts of the village, where they separated the men from the women and young children. A few hours later, the ARSA fighters killed 53 of the Hindus, execution-style, starting with the men.
Eight Hindu women and eight of their children were abducted and spared, after ARSA fighters forced the women to agree to “convert” to Islam. The survivors were forced to flee with the fighters to Bangladesh several days later, before being repatriated to Myanmar in October 2017 with the support of the Bangladeshi and Myanmar authorities.
[The men] held knives and long iron rods. They tied our hands behind our backs and blindfolded us. I asked what they were doing. One of them replied, ‘You and Rakhine are the same, you have a different religion, you can’t live here. He spoke the [Rohingya] language. They asked what belongings we had, then they beat us. Eventually I gave them my gold and money.
Bina Bala, a 22-year-old survivor of an ARSA massacre Bina Bala, a 22-year-old woman who survived the massacre, told Amnesty International:
“[The men] held knives and long iron rods. They tied our hands behind our backs and blindfolded us. I asked what they were doing. One of them replied, ‘You and Rakhine are the same, you have a different religion, you can’t live here. He spoke the [Rohingya] language. They asked what belongings we had, then they beat us. Eventually I gave them my gold and money.”
All eight survivors interviewed by Amnesty International said they either saw Hindu relatives being killed or heard their screams. Raj Kumari, 18, said: “They slaughtered the men. We were told not to look at them … They had knives. They also had some spades and iron rods. … We hid ourselves in the shrubs there and were able to see a little … My uncle, my father, my brother – they were all slaughtered.”
Formila, around 20, told Amnesty International that she did not see when the Hindu men were killed, but that the fighters “came back with blood on their swords, and blood on their hands” and told the women the men had been killed. Later, as Formila and the other seven abducted women were being marched away, she turned back and saw ARSA fighters kill the other women and children. “I saw men holding the heads and hair [of the women] and others were holding knives. And then they cut their throats,” she said.
According to a detailed list of the dead, given to Amnesty International, the victims from Ah Nauk Kha Maung Seik include 20 men, 10 women, and 23 children, 14 of whom were under the age of eight. This is consistent with multiple testimonies the organization gathered in both Bangladesh and Myanmar, from survivors and witnesses as well as Hindu community leaders.
The same day, all of the 46 Hindu men, women, and children in the neighbouring village of Ye Bauk Kyar disappeared. Members of the Hindu community in northern Rakhine State presume the community was killed by the same ARSA fighters. Combined with those from Ah Nauk Kha Maung Seik, the total death toll is believed to be 99.
The bodies of 45 people from Ah Nauk Kha Maung Seik were unearthed in four mass graves in late September 2017. The remains of the rest of the victims from that village, as well as all 46 from Ye Bauk Kyar, have not been found to date.
In this brutal and senseless act, members of ARSA captured scores of Hindu women, men, and children and terrorized them before slaughtering them outside their own villages. The perpetrators of this heinous crime must be held to account.
“In this brutal and senseless act, members of ARSA captured scores of Hindu women, men, and children and terrorized them before slaughtering them outside their own villages. The perpetrators of this heinous crime must be held to account,” said Tirana Hassan.
ARSA’s other unlawful killings of Hindus
Amnesty International has also documented ARSA’s involvement in other killings and violent attacks against members of other ethnic and religious communities.
On 26 August 2017, ARSA members killed six Hindus – two women, a man, and three children – and injured another Hindu woman on the outskirts of Maungdaw town, near Myo Thu Gyi village.
Kor Mor La, 25, was one of two women who survived the attack, along with four children. Her husband Na Ra Yan, 30, and five-year-old daughter Shu Nan Daw were both killed. “The people who shot us were dressed in black. … I couldn’t see their faces, only their eyes. … They had long guns and swords,” Kor Mor Lar said. “My husband was shot next to me. I was shot [in the chest]. After that I was barely conscious.”
The killings came just days after ARSA fighters unleashed a series of attacks on around 30 Myanmar security posts on 25 August 2017, prompting an unlawful and grossly disproportionate campaign of violence by Myanmar’s security forces. Amnesty International and others have documented in detail how this campaign was marked by killings, rape and other sexual violence, torture, village burning, forced starvation tactics, and other violations which constitute crimes against humanity under international law. More than 693,000 Rohingya people were forced to flee to Bangladesh, where they still remain.
Tens of thousands of people from other ethnic and religious communities were also displaced within Rakhine State during the violence. Although most have returned to their homes, some continue to live in temporary shelters, either because their homes were destroyed or because they fear further ARSA attacks if they return to their villages.
Independent investigations needed
The Myanmar government cannot criticize the international community as being one-sided while at the same time denying access to northern Rakhine State. The full extent of ARSA’s abuses and the Myanmar military’s violations will not be known until independent human rights investigators, including the UN Fact-Finding mission, are given full and unfettered access to Rakhine State.
“ARSA’s appalling attacks were followed by the Myanmar military’s ethnic cleansing campaign against the Rohingya population as a whole. Both must be condemned – human rights violations or abuses by one side never justify abuses or violations by the other,” said Tirana Hassan.
“All the survivors and victims’ families have the right to justice, truth, and reparation for the immense harm they have suffered.”
At a UN Security Council meeting last week, Myanmar’s permanent representative criticized some in the UN for only listening to “one side” of the story and failing to acknowledge abuses committed by ARSA.
“The Myanmar government cannot criticize the international community as being one-sided while at the same time denying access to northern Rakhine State. The full extent of ARSA’s abuses and the Myanmar military’s violations will not be known until independent human rights investigators, including the UN Fact-Finding mission, are given full and unfettered access to Rakhine State,” said Tirana Hassan.
Briefing: Attacks by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) on Hindus in northern Rakhine State
Early in the morning of 25 August 2017, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), a Rohingya armed group, attacked around 30 security force outposts in northern Rakhine State. The attacks, which were carefully planned and coordinated, came just hours after the release of the final report of the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State, led by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, which had been tasked with identifying solutions for peace and development in one of Myanmar’s most underdeveloped and volatile regions.[1] In the days that followed, ARSA fighters, along with some mobilized Rohingya villagers, engaged in scores of clashes with security forces.[2]
The Myanmar security forces, and in particular the military, responded to the attacks and subsequent clashes with an unlawful and grossly disproportionate campaign of violence marked by killings, rape and other sexual violence, torture,[3] village burning, forced starvation tactics, and other human rights violations and crimes under international law, all of which has been well documented by Amnesty International and others.[4] The military’s attacks, which targeted the entire Rohingya population living in northern Rakhine State, have been both widespread and systematic, constituting crimes against humanity under international law. To date, some 693,000 Rohingya have been forced to flee to Bangladesh.[5]
Also known as Harakah al-Yaqin, or “the faith movement”, ARSA first came to prominence in October 2016 after launching similar, albeit smaller-scale, attacks on border police posts in northern Rakhine State, prompting a disproportionate military response also amounting to crimes against humanity.[6] The group was established in the aftermath of violence between Buddhist and Muslim communities in Rakhine State in 2012 and is comprised of a core group of trained fighters, estimated as in the hundreds, with access to small firearms and some home-made explosives. On 25 August, ARSA mobilized a large number of Rohingya villagers – likely around several thousand. The villagers were overwhelmingly armed with bladed weapons or sticks.[7] While Amnesty International has confirmed that some Rohingya villagers participated in ARSA attacks, the overwhelming majority of Rohingya did not. Even in the specific villages where attacks occurred, there is no question that most villagers did not take part in ARSA attacks.
Amnesty International has documented serious human rights abuses committed by ARSA during and after the attacks in late August 2017. This briefing focuses on serious crimes – including unlawful killings and abductions – carried out by ARSA fighters against the Hindu community living in northern Rakhine State. At the time of the unlawful killings, none of the victims were armed or endangering the lives of ARSA fighters or other Rohingya. In the refugee camps in Bangladesh in September 2017, Amnesty International conducted 12 interviews with members of the Hindu community who left Myanmar during the violence. In April 2018, Amnesty International conducted research in Sittwe, Myanmar on ARSA abuses and attacks, interviewing 10 additional people from the Hindu community and 33 people from ethnic Rakhine, Khami, Mro, and Thet communities, all of whom were from northern Rakhine State. Six more people from an area where Hindu killings occurred were interviewed by phone from outside the region in May 2018.
The full extent of human rights abuses by ARSA is difficult to determine, in large part because the Myanmar authorities continue to restrict access to northern Rakhine State. Access restrictions have made it extremely difficult for members of all ethnic minorities and religious communities still living in the region to speak about their experiences and to get the support and assistance they require. In addition, those who speak about ARSA abuses face threats and intimidation from the group. The killing of Rohingya suspected of acting as government informers throughout 2017, and reports of ARSA-related killings in the refugee camps in Bangladesh, have only heightened such fears.[8]
MASSACRE IN KHA MAUNG SEIK VILLAGE TRACT
At around 8 a.m. on 25 August 2017, ARSA attacked the Hindu community in the village of Ah Nauk Kha Maung Seik, located in Kha Maung Seik village tract in northern Maungdaw Township. ARSA fighters, some of whom were dressed in black and others dressed in ordinary clothing, rounded up all 69 Hindu men, women, and children present in the village at the time. A few hours later, ARSA fighters killed, execution-style, the vast majority of them, and abducted the rest.
The same day, the Hindu community present in the neighbouring village of Ye Bauk Kyar – 46 men, women, and children – disappeared. To date, their fate and whereabouts remains unknown. Relatives and other members of the Hindu community in northern Rakhine State told Amnesty International that they presume the entire group was killed by the same perpetrators.[9]
Kha Maung Seik is a mixed-ethnicity and religion village tract, home to Hindu, Rohingya, and ethnic Rakhine villagers, all of whom lived in close proximity. Amnesty International conducted in-depth interviews in a Hindu refugee camp in Bangladesh in September 2017, and in the Rakhine State capital of Sittwe, Myanmar in April 2018, and by telephone in May 2018 with eight survivors, five family members of victims, three men who were part of the group that uncovered the mass graves, and several witnesses to related events in and around Kha Maung Seik, including ARSA attacks and the movements of Myanmar security forces.[10]
“[It was morning], I was praying at the time,” recalled 22-year-old Bina Bala,[11] who was one of eight women abducted and taken to Bangladesh by ARSA fighters. “They came to our house. Some were wearing black and others were wearing normal clothes … I recognized them [from the village].”[12]
Bina Bala said the men confiscated the family’s mobile phones before ordering them out in to the courtyard, where other Hindu villagers were also being gathered. She told Amnesty International, “[The men] held knives and long iron rods. They tied our hands behind our backs and blindfolded us. I asked what they were doing. One of them replied, ‘You and [ethnic] Rakhine are the same, you have a different religion, you can’t live here’. He spoke the [Rohingya] dialect. They asked what belongings we had, then they beat us. Eventually I gave them my gold and money.”[13]
Rika Dhar, 24, was also at home with her family at the time of the attack. “We didn’t have a chance to run,” she told Amnesty International. “Muslim people took our gold. … I was blindfolded, and they tied my hands behind my back.”[14] Like other women Amnesty International interviewed, Rika Dhar said she knew some of the attackers, who were members of the Rohingya community living in Kha Maung Seik village tract.
After binding, robbing, and blindfolding the Hindu villagers, ARSA fighters marched them to a creek area on the outskirts of the village. There, the fighters sat the villagers down and burned their ID cards, which they had confiscated earlier. They then divided the men from the women and children, and brought the women into the forest.[15]
The fighters killed, execution-style, 53 of the Hindus from Ah Nauk Kha Maung Seik, according to a list of the dead seen by Amnesty International that is consistent with testimony from survivors, other Kha Maung Seik residents, and Hindu community leaders. The victims include 20 men, 10 women, and 23 children, 14 of who were under the age of 8.[16] Only 16 people – eight women and eight of their children – survived, their lives spared on the condition that the women agreed to “convert” from Hinduism to Islam and then marry people selected by ARSA fighters.[17]
According to all eight survivors, the ARSA fighters took the men away and killed them. Formila, around 20, told Amnesty International that “the Muslim men came back with blood on their swords, and blood on their hands. They told us that they had killed our husbands and the village headman.”[18] Raj Kumari, 18, said: “They slaughtered the men. We were told not to look at them … They had knives. They also had some spades and iron rods. … We hid ourselves in the shrubs there and were able to see a little. … My uncle, my father, my brother – they were all slaughtered. … After slaughtering the men, the women were also slaughtered.”[19]
Shortly after, a group of about 10 to 15 fighters took the eight survivors and their children and removed them from the larger group. The fighters then began to kill the other women and children. Two of the survivors – Aur Nika, around 18; and Formila – told Amnesty International that, as the fighters were leading them away, they looked back and saw women being killed.[20] Formila recalled, “I saw some Muslim men kill Hindu women. Then I cried. … I saw men holding the heads and hair [of the women] and others were holding knives. And then they cut their throats,” she said.[21] Bina Bala told Amnesty International that although she did not see the killings, she heard women and children screaming shortly after being taken away.[22]
The 16 survivors were held captive inside a house in the area for two nights, before being forced to flee alongside their captors to the Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh.[23] According to five of the women, the group fled the same day helicopters were seen flying over the village.[24] The presence of helicopters in the area at the time was separately corroborated by San Nyunt, the Village Administrator from neighbouring Min Kha Maung; and by Shawlyee Shawltee, a 20-year-old woman who lived in Kha Maung Seik village tract but who had left her village on 24 August and was taking shelter in BGP post in Ah Shey Kha Maung Seik village at the time of the massacre.[25]
Shortly after arriving in Bangladesh on 28 August, the eight Hindu women were forced to make a false statement on video, claiming that the massacre had been carried out by ethnic Rakhine villagers.[26] “[One of the kidnappers] told us that if anyone asks we should say that the Rakhine and the military attacked us,” recalled Bina Bala. “He said if people come to interview you, you must say this or you will be killed.” [27] Soon after the video was posted on Facebook, members of the Hindu community in northern Rakhine State alerted friends in Bangladesh who proceeded to locate the survivors. The survivors were then relocated to a camp designated for Hindu refugees, where they were eventually protected by Bangladeshi security forces.[28] In early October, all sixteen survivors were repatriated to Myanmar with the support of the Bangladeshi and Myanmar authorities.[29]
On 23 September, members of the Hindu community in northern Rakhine State and members of the Myanmar security forces travelled to the site of the massacre and, over the course of two days, unearthed four mass graves, which in total contained the remains of 45 people.[30] On 27 September, the government temporarily lifted its ban on access to the area and brought local and international journalists to visit the site of the mass graves.[31]
According to the list that identified by name, biographical data, and village the 99 Hindus reportedly killed, given to Amnesty International by Hindu community leaders, all of the 45 excavated bodies have been identified as people from Ah Nauk Kha Maung Seik or people who were visiting Ah Nauk Kha Maung Seik at the time of the attack.[32] The bodies of the other eight people killed from Ah Nauk Kha Maung Seik have not been found; according to the list of those killed, seven of those eight were young children – including four who were under three months old.[33] The fate and whereabouts of villagers from Ye Bauk Kyar remain unknown, although they are presumed to have been killed by the same perpetrators.
In a press statement posted on its Twitter account and in responses to media inquiries, ARSA has denied any involvement in the incident.[34] The Myanmar authorities’ restrictions on access mean no independent journalist or human rights investigator has been granted unfettered access to Kha Maung Seik and the surrounding areas.
Several of the survivors, including at least three of the eight interviewed by Amnesty International, have been interviewed multiple times by different media organizations. The vast majority of these interviews took place either in the Bangladesh refugee camps during the days after the women were rescued, or in Myanmar in the weeks after the mass graves were uncovered. Over the course of these interviews, the women provided accounts which were at times inconsistent with the testimony of other survivors and even contradicted their own previous statements.
As noted, the survivors’ initial declaration on video in Bangladesh placed the blame for the killings on ethnic Rakhine villagers,[35] as they did several days later in interviews with Reuters.[36] In subsequent interviews in Bangladesh with media and with Amnesty International, the survivors were at times equivocal about the identity of the perpetrators, and other times said it was ARSA, “Rohingya,” or “Muslims”; throughout this period, they typically described attackers as wearing black.[37] On their return to Myanmar, survivors unambiguously asserted that Rohingya, believed to be ARSA fighters, were responsible.[38] The survivors’ evolving stories made it difficult for journalists and human rights investigators – including Amnesty International – to come to a conclusion about the facts.
After careful review of evidence obtained in Bangladesh and Rakhine State, Amnesty International has concluded that ARSA fighters are responsible for the massacre.
First, the inconsistencies of the Hindu survivors’ testimonies are largely explained by the pressures and threats to personal safety that they faced while in Bangladesh, as described above by Bina Bala. Such pressure continued even while they lived in a separate camp area protected by the Bangladeshi security forces.
Second, the physical descriptions that the Hindu survivors provided of the ARSA attackers in Ah Nauk Kha Maung Seik – descriptions which have largely remained consistent over time – are also consistent with descriptions of ARSA fighters around the time of the massacre from witnesses in other parts of Kha Maung Seik village tract and from witnesses in other villages across northern Rakhine State.
Ten Hindu in Ta Man Thar, Thit Tone Nar Gwa Son, and Myo Thu Gyi villages; three ethnic Mro residents of Khu Daing village, which was attacked and burned by ARSA on 28 August 2017; and two ethnic Rakhine residents of Koe Tan Kauk village tract all separately described to Amnesty International seeing a core group of fighters in black, often with their faces covered except for their eyes.[39] Many from those villages, as well as an ethnic Rakhine villager from Auk Pyue Ma, also described seeing among the attackers some Rohingya men who they recognized as neighbours or residents from nearby villages, similar to in Kha Maung Seik.[40] Witness descriptions of ARSA fighters covering their faces are likewise consistent with known photographs and videos of ARSA fighters, including those posted by ARSA itself in the weeks immediately before and after the 25 August attacks.[41]
Third, all of the survivors and many of the witnesses stated that they could hear the fighters speaking in the Rohingya dialect, which is very similar to the dialect spoken by the Hindu population in northern Rakhine State.[42]
Fourth, Amnesty International sent a forensic anthropological expert 31 photographs taken in Kha Maung Seik on 23 and 24 September 2017 by a person who was present when bodies were discovered in mass graves.[43] In a peer-reviewed analysis, the forensic expert concluded, after categorizing the decomposition of the bodies and estimating the soil temperature and water level, that “the appearance of the human remains exhumed from the grave at Kha Maung Seik on 24 September 2017 is entirely consistent with what would be expected had those individuals been killed and buried at that site on 25 August 2017.”[44]
The expert also identified the “presence of blindfolds on multiple victims (and the possible presence of sharp and blunt or projectile trauma), [which] is indicative of homicide in the form of extrajudicial and summary executions.”[45] When enlarging one of the images, the expert determined that a female victim “exhibits an injury to the anterior neck that is consistent with sharp force trauma, e.g. a knife slash to the throat,” though could not conclude from the photograph alone whether the trauma was the cause of death or had occurred during the excavation of the bodies.[46] The presence of blindfolds, as well as a wound suggestive of a throat being slit, is consistent with the testimonies of the surviving Hindu women.[47]
Fifth, testimonies from a Hindu villager and a Rakhine Village Administrator in Kha Maung Seik village tract confirms that the Myanmar military sent reinforcements to the area after the massacre was carried out, and the that at least one helicopter arrived in the area several days later, on 27 August.[48] That testimony gives further credence to the likelihood that the Myanmar security forces were not in control of Kha Maung Seik on the day the massacre occurred and therefore could not have carried it out.
Sixth, survivors identified specific individual perpetrators, one of whom Amnesty International was able to confirm was a Rohingya resident of Kha Maung Seik village tract.
Together, the evidence overwhelmingly indicates that ARSA was responsible for the massacre, and that it has actively tried to cover up the crimes by forcing the surviving women to appear on camera implicating other perpetrators and through more general intimidation aimed at distorting the story.
The attack in Kha Maung Seik shook the Hindu community in Rakhine State. Many of those whom Amnesty International interviewed in Sittwe expressed concerns about further violence. “I never imagined this could happen, we had a good relationship [with the Rohingya]. Why did they attack us?” asked Shawlyee Shawltee, from Kha Maung Seik.[49] Like other people displaced during the violence, she is worried about the future and does not want to return to her village. “I lost everything, my house, all our property. My husband is suffering [psychologically] after all his family members died,” she said.[50]
UNLAWFULL KILLING OF SIX HINDUS IN MYO THU GYI
While the massacre in Kha Maung Seik village tract is the most egregious incident of human rights abuses by ARSA that Amnesty International has documented, fighters perpetrated other killings and violent attacks against members of Hindu and Buddhist ethnic groups. On 26 August 2017, ARSA fighters killed six Hindus – two women, a man, and three children – and injured another Hindu woman, on the outskirts of Maungdaw town, near Myo Thu Gyi village.
The six victims were part of an extended family of twelve who had fled from U Daung village tract, in Maungdaw Township, after ARSA fighters threatened them the day before. After seeking refuge for a night in the house of the ethnic Rakhine Village Administrator, the group was driven to the outskirts of Maungdaw town. Shortly after they arrived, a gunfight broke out between ARSA and the Myanmar military. The Hindu family took cover in a nearby building under construction. According to the only two adult survivors, men dressed in black and carrying guns entered the building and then proceed to shoot at the group at close range.[51]
Kor Mor La, 25, was one of the two women who survived the attack, along with four children. Her husband Na Ra Yan, 30, and 5-year-old daughter, Shu Nan Daw, were both killed. “The people who shot us were dressed in black. … I couldn’t see their faces, only their eyes. … They had long guns and swords,” Kor Mor Lar said. “My husband was shot next to me. I was shot [in the chest]. After that I was barely conscious.”[52]
Kor Mor La showed Amnesty International a scar on her left breast that she said was from the gunshot wound. “The bullet wound is still sore,” Kor Mor La said, explaining that she had to visit a doctor for ongoing treatment.[53]
Phaw Naw Balar, 27, was the only other adult to survive the attack. She told Amnesty International, “The men wearing black came from the direction of Myo Thu Gyi village. They didn’t say anything, they just started shooting. After they left, my children were crying, so I took them to the next floor up and we hid together in an empty water tank.”[54]
She explained that they hid until the ARSA fighters had left the area. “When I came back downstairs, I saw the dead bodies,” she recalled. “Six of my relatives were dead. Some had been shot in the front, in their abdomen and chest, [and] others in the back. My sister-in-law [Kor Mor La] was shot. I tried to bandage her, then we left for the three mile checkpoint.”[55] From there, the group travelled to Buthidaung town, and then on to Sittwe, where Kor Mor La received treatment for her injuries. In addition to Kor Mor La’s husband and daughter, ARSA fighters killed Chou Maw Tet, 27; her husband Han Mon Tor, 30; the couple’s 10-year-old son, Praw Chat; and their 3-year-old daughter, Daw Maw Ne.[56]
Today, the two surviving woman and their four children remain displaced in Sittwe, where they are living in a Hindu temple. Without her husband, the breadwinner of the family, Kor Mo La explained that she is worried how her family will survive. “I have had a very difficult time,” she said. “I have two children, just trying to survive is very hard. We are suffering so much.”[57]
CONCLUSION
The Rohingya in Rakhine State have for decades suffered systematic discrimination by the Myanmar authorities. Amnesty International has concluded that the deeply discriminatory way the authorities treated the Rohingya, even before the atrocities from August 2017 onwards, amounted to the crime against humanity of apartheid. Following the 25 August attacks these violations and crimes reached a peak, with unlawful killings, rapes, and burning of villages on a large scale, leading the majority of the population to flee the country. Nothing can justify such violations. But similarly, no atrocities can justify the massacre, abductions, and other abuses committed by ARSA against the Hindu community, as documented in this briefing.
Since the outbreak of violence in August, the Myanmar authorities have refused to grant access to northern Rakhine State to Amnesty International and other independent investigators, which has made it incredibly difficult to access those communities affected by ARSA and to corroborate witness accounts. Despite the restrictions, Amnesty International has now determined that ARSA fighters are responsible for the unlawful killing and abduction of members of the Hindu community in northern Rakhine State. These are serious crimes and abuses of human rights. They should be investigated by a competent body, and where sufficient, admissible evidence is found, those responsible should be held to account before independent civilian courts, in trials which meet international standards of fairness and which do not impose the death penalty.
For the full extent of the human rights abuses and crimes committed in northern Rakhine State to be uncovered, including those committed by ARSA, the Myanmar authorities must immediately allow independent investigators, including the UN Fact-Finding Mission, full and unfettered access throughout the region. Victims, survivors, and their families have the right to justice, truth, and reparation for the harm they have suffered. To this end, the authorities must also ensure full and unfettered humanitarian assistance to communities in need, and ensure that proper psycho-social support is available to all survivors of violence in northern Rakhine State.
[1] See International Crisis Group, Statement: Myanmar Tips into New Crisis after Rakhine State Attacks, 27 August 2017; International Crisis Group, Myanmar’s Rohingya Crisis Enters a Dangerous New Phase, Report No. 292 / Asia, 7 December 2017.
[2] Amnesty International interviews, Myanmar, April 2018. See also International Crisis Group, Myanmar’s Rohingya Crisis Enters a Dangerous New Phase.
[3] Under international law, rape by officials is also, and invariably, a form of torture.
[4] See Amnesty International, “My World Is Finished”: Rohingya Targeted by Crimes Against Humanity in Myanmar (Index: ASA 16/7288/2017), 18 October 2017; Amnesty International, Myanmar forces rob, starve and abduct Rohingya, as ethnic cleansing continues (Index: ASA 16/7835/2018), 7 February 2018; Amnesty International, Remaking Rakhine State (Index: ASA 16/8018/2018), 12 March 2018; Human Rights Watch, “All of My Body Was Pain”: Sexual Violence against Rohingya Women and Girls in Burma, November 2017; Médicins Sans Frontières (MSF), “No One Was Left”: Death and Violence against the Rohingya in Rakhine State, Myanmar, March 2018; Reuters, “Massacre in Myanmar,” 8 February 2018.
[5] Inter Sector Coordination Group (ISCG), Situation Report: Rohingya Refugee Crisis, 10 May 2018, https://www.humanitarianresponse.info/sites/www.humanitarianresponse.info/files/documents/files/20180510_-_iscg_-_sitrep_final.pdf.
[6] See International Crisis Group, Myanmar: A New Muslim Insurgency in Rakhine State, Report No. 283 / Asia, 15 December 2016; International Crisis Group, Myanmar’s Rohingya Crisis Enters a Dangerous New Phase; Amnesty International, “We Are at Breaking Point”: Rohingya: Persecuted in Myanmar, Neglected in Bangladesh (Index: ASA 16/5362/2016), 19 December 2016.
[7] Amnesty International interviews, Sittwe and Yangon, Myanmar, April and May 2018. See also International Crisis Group, Myanmar’s Rohingya Crisis Enters a Dangerous New Phase.
[8] Amnesty International interviews, Sittwe and Yangon, Myanmar, April and May 2018. See also International Crisis Group, The Long Haul Ahead for Myanmar’s Rohingya Refugee Crisis, Report No. 296 / Asia, 16 May 2018; Kayleigh Long, “Rohingya insurgency takes lethal form in Myanmar”, Asia Times Online, 20 June 2017, http://www.atimes.com/article/rohingya-insurgency-takes-lethal-form-myanmar/.
[9] Amnesty International interviews, Sittwe, Myanmar, April 2018; and telephone interview, 18 May 2018.
[10] Amnesty International interviewed three of the survivors twice – in Bangladesh in September 2017 and again in Myanmar in April or May 2018.
[11] The spelling of Hindu names in this briefing reflects how the interviewees gave their names to interpreters with whom Amnesty International worked. This presents challenges, as the original name was often burmanized and then anglicized in the course of transliteration. While Amnesty International has tried to record the spelling of names as accurately as possible, it is likely some spellings deviate from the original. In reporting by local and international media outlets, there are often small spelling differences in the names of Hindu individuals interviewed multiple times, reflecting the same challenge. Amnesty International has on file more complete biographical data of each individual interviewed.
[12] Amnesty International interview, Sittwe, Myanmar, 27 April 2018.
[13] Amnesty International interview, Sittwe, Myanmar, 27 April 2018.
[14] Amnesty International interview, Sittwe, Myanmar, 25 April 2018.
[15] Amnesty International interviews, Hindu refugee camp in Bangladesh, 28 September 2017, and in Sittwe, Myanmar, 25-30 April 3018; and telephone interviews, Rakhine State, Myanmar, 17-21 May 2018.
[16] List of Hindu killed in Kha Maung Seik village tract, on file with Amnesty International.
[17] Amnesty International interviews with survivors, Hindu refugee camp in Bangladesh, 14 and 28 September 2017, and in Sittwe, Myanmar, 25-30 April 2018; and telephone interviews with survivors, Sittwe, Myanmar, 17 May 2018.
[18] Amnesty International telephone interview, Sittwe, Myanmar, 17 May 2018.
[19] Amnesty International interview, Hindu refugee camp in Bangladesh, 28 September 2017.
[20] Amnesty International telephone interviews, Sittwe, Myanmar, 17 May 2018.
[21] Amnesty International telephone interview, Sittwe, Myanmar, 17 May 2018.
[22] Amnesty International interview, Sittwe, Myanmar, 27 April 2018.
[23] Amnesty International interviews with survivors, Hindu refugee camp in Bangladesh, 14 and 28 September 2017, and in Sittwe, Myanmar, 25-30 April 2018; and telephone interviews with survivors, Sittwe, Myanmar, 17 May 2018.
[24] Amnesty International interview, Sittwe, Myanmar, 29 April 2018; and telephone interview, Sittwe, Myanmar, 17 May 2018.
[25] Amnesty International interview, Sittwe, Myanmar, 29 April 2018; and telephone interview, 14 May 2018.
[26] Several people posted the video to Facebook, including here: https://www.facebook.com/noman.alhossain.9/videos/1405458619572008/ (last accessed 18 May 2018). Amnesty International delegates viewed and had the clip translated into English.
[27] Amnesty International interview, Sittwe, Myanmar, 27 April 2018.
[28] Amnesty International interviews, Hindu refugee camp in Bangladesh, September 2018, and in Sittwe, Myanmar, April 2018.
[29] See Myanmar Information Committee, “Eight Hindu women and eight children who were abducted by ARSA extremist terrorists to an IDP camp in Bangladesh were brought back to Myanmar,” 4 October 2017, https://www.facebook.com/InfomationCommittee/posts/810620129111095.
[30] Amnesty International interviews with three people who helped discover the bodies, Sittwe, Myanmar, April 2018; and with Hindu community leaders, Sittwe, Myanmar, April 2018. See also Agence France-Presse, “17 more bodies found as Myanmar unearths mass Hindu graves,” 25 September 2017.
[31] See Agence France-Presse, “Hindus recount massacre as mass graves unearthed,” 28 September 2017; Reuters, “Slaughtered Hindus a testament to brutality of Myanmar's conflict,” 27 September 2017.
[32] List of Hindu killed in Kha Maung Seik village tract, on file with Amnesty International.
[33] List of Hindu killed in Kha Maung Seik village tract, on file with Amnesty International.
[34] ARSA Press Release, Ref. No. ARSA/PR/13/2017, 27 September 2017, https://twitter.com/ARSA_Official/status/913061262958911494; Reuters, “Myanmar says bodies of 28 Hindu villagers found in Rakhine State,” 24 September 2017.
[35] See, e.g., https://www.facebook.com/noman.alhossain.9/videos/1405458619572008/ (last accessed 18 May 2018).
[36] Reuters, “Rohingya say their village is lost to Myanmar's spiraling conflict,” 7 September 2017. See also Mahadi Al Hasnat, “Who really attacked the Rohingya Hindus in Rakhine?” Dhaka Tribune, 1 October 2017, https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2017/10/01/who-really-attacked-the-rohingya-hindus-in-rakhine/ (discussing the change in testimony to Reuters and other media outlets).
[37] Amnesty International interviews, Bangladesh refugee camps, 14 and 28 September 2017. See also Agence France-Presse, “Hindus recount massacre as mass graves unearthed,” 28 September 2017 (describing men in black, but not specifying who the attackers were); Mahadi Al Hasnat, “Who really attacked the Rohingya Hindus in Rakhine?” Dhaka Tribune, 1 October 2017 (discussing the evolution in stories, with descriptions of men in black but different versions of who those men were); Suliman Niloy, “Hindu refugees blame 'Rohingya militants' for attacking them in Myanmar,” bdnews24.com, 24 September 2017, https://bdnews24.com/bangladesh/2017/09/24/hindu-refugees-blame-rohingya-militants-for-attacking-them-in-myanmar (describing attackers in black who spoke the Rohingya dialect); Moe Myint, “Hindu Refugee Shares Eyewitness Account of Maungdaw Violence,” The Irrawaddy, 26 September 2017, https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/hindu-refugee-shares-eyewitness-account-maungdaw-violence.html (identifying the attackers as Muslims).
[38] See, e.g., Radio Free Asia, “Witnesses Provide New Details of Killings of Hindus in Myanmar’s Rakhine,” 5 October 2017, https://www.rfa.org/english/news/myanmar/witnesses-provide-new-details-of-killings-of-hindus-10052017152154.html; Global New Light of Myanmar, “’This area is our territory’: ARSA extremist terrorists,” 5 October 2018, http://www.globalnewlightofmyanmar.com/area-territory-arsa-extremist-terrorists/; Shaikh Azizur Rahman, “Mystery surrounds deaths of Hindu villagers in Myanmar mass graves,” The Guardian, 12 October 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/oct/12/myanmar-mass-graves-mystery-surrounds-deaths-of-hindu-villagers-dirty-tricks-rohingya.
[39] Amnesty International interviews, Hindu refugee camp in Bangladesh, 14-28 September 2017, and in Sittwe, Myanmar, 25-30 April 2018; and telephone interview, 18 May 2018.
[40] Amnesty International interviews, Hindu refugee camp in Bangladesh, 14-28 September 2017, and in Sittwe, Myanmar, 25-30 April 2018.
[41] See, e.g., @ARSA_Official Twitter Account, 30 August 2017, https://twitter.com/ARSA_Official/status/902985387139887105 (linking to http://faithmovementarakan.blogspot.ae/2017/08/a-r-s-commander-on-ongoing-situation-in.html?m=1, where a video shows two armed men with dark cloth covering their faces except for their eyes, standing next to ARSA’s reported head, Ata Ullah, as he speaks); @ARSA_Official Twitter Account, 29 August 2017, https://twitter.com/ARSA_Official/status/902590044807892992 (indicating that YouTube took down an ARSA video and linking to http://faithmovementarakan.blogspot.sg/2017/08/arsa-commander-addresses-international.html?m=1, where a video shows two armed men with cloth covering their faces except for their eyes, standing next to ARSA’s reported head, Ata Ullah); @ARSA_Official Twitter Account, “ARSA Commander Addresses International Community and Rakhine People,” 16 August 2017, https://twitter.com/ARSA_Official/status/897875808349544448 (showing four armed men with cloth covering their faces except for their eyes, standing next to ARSA’s reported head, Ata Ullah, as he speaks).
[42] Amnesty International interviews, Hindu refugee camp in Bangladesh, 25 and 28 September 2017, and in Sittwe, Myanmar, 25-30 April 2018; and telephone interviews with survivors, Sittwe, Myanmar, 17 May 2018.
[43] Amnesty International was able to geolocate several photographs in the set, which show members of the security forces and other people wading through a creek near where the massacre occurred and the bodies were found. That matches the description of the person who provided the photographs to Amnesty International, who said that he was among a group who crossed a creek in order to get to the site of the mass graves. The close-up photographs of the mass graves and bodies could not be geolocated, as there were not enough identifiable features in the surrounding environment. They are consistent, however, with photographs taken by media outlets including Agence France-Press several days later, when the Myanmar authorities brought journalists to the site.
[44] Forensic Anthropological Analysis of Human Remains from Kha Maung Seik, Myanmar with a focus on Postmortem Interval Estimation, 16 May 2018, p. 12 (on file with Amnesty International).
[45] Forensic Anthropological Analysis of Human Remains from Kha Maung Seik, Myanmar with a focus on Postmortem Interval Estimation, 16 May 2018, p. 12 (on file with Amnesty International).
[46] Forensic Anthropological Analysis of Human Remains from Kha Maung Seik, Myanmar with a focus on Postmortem Interval Estimation, 16 May 2018, p. 2 (on file with Amnesty International).
[47] Amnesty International interviews, Hindu refugee camp in Bangladesh, 28 September 2017, and in Sittwe, Myanmar, 25-30 April 2018.
[48] Amnesty International interview, Sittwe, Myanmar, 29 April 2018; and telephone interview, 14 May 2018.
[49] Amnesty International interview, Sittwe, Myanmar, 29 April 2018.
[50] Amnesty International interview, Sittwe, Myanmar, 29 April 2018.
[51] Amnesty International interviews, Sittwe, Myanmar, 29 and 30 April 2018.
[52] Amnesty International interview, Sittwe, Myanmar, 29 April 2018.
[53] Amnesty International interview, Sittwe, Myanmar, 29 April 2018.
[54] Amnesty International interview, Sittwe, Myanmar, 30 April 2018.
[55] Amnesty International interview, Sittwe, Myanmar, 30 April 2018.
[56] Amnesty International interviews, Sittwe, Myanmar, 29 and 30 April 2018.
[57] Amnesty International interview, Sittwe, Myanmar, 29 April 2018.
