Myanmar security forces slit the throats of Muslim Rohingya and burned victims alive, watchdogs said in a report on Wednesday that cited mounting evidence of genocide against the minority group.
\nThe report by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Southeast Asia-based Fortify Rights documents \u201cwidespread and systematic attacks\u201d on Rohingya civilians between October 9 and December of last year, and from August 25 of this year.
\nThe 30-page report, entitled \u201cThey tried to kill us all,\u201d is based on more than 200 interviews with survivors and eyewitnesses, as well as international aid workers. Some world leaders have already described as \u201cethnic cleansing\u201d the scorched-earth military campaign against the Rohingya.
\nEvidence gathered by Fortify Rights and the Holocaust Museum demonstrates that \u201cMyanmar state security forces and civilian perpetrators committed crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing\u201d during two waves of attacks in the majority Buddhist nation, the report says.
\n\u201cThere is mounting evidence to suggest these acts represent a genocide of the Rohingya population,\u201d it says. Almost 700,000 Rohingya, more than half of the population in northern Rakhine state, have been forcibly displaced since October last year when Myanmar\u2019s army began \u201cclearance operations\u201d after a previously unknown group attacked and killed security officers.<\/p>\n
Mass atrocities<\/strong> Global outrage<\/strong> Myanmar security forces slit the throats of Muslim Rohingya and burned victims alive, watchdogs said in a report on Wednesday that cited mounting evidence of genocide against the minority group.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8153,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c102-muslim-minorities"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nThose operations were, in practice, \u201ca mechanism to commit mass atrocities,\u201d the report said. \u201cState security forces opened fire on Rohingya civilians from the land and sky. Soldiers and knife-wielding civilians hacked to death and slit the throats of Rohingya men, women, and children,\u201d it said.
\n\u201cRohingya civilians were burned alive. Soldiers raped and gang-raped Rohingya women and girls and arbitrarily arrested men and boys en masse.\u201d
\nThe report said investigators from Fortify Rights and the Holocaust Museum\u2019s Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide traveled to Rakhine and the Bangladesh-Myanmar border area, where Rohingya have fled. It quoted eyewitness testimony of mass killings in three villages in late August.
\n\u201cWhen the killing was complete, soldiers moved bodies into piles and set them alight,\u201d after soldiers reportedly murdered hundreds in one attack, the report said, adding to chilling and consistent accounts of widespread murder, rape and arson at the hands of security forces and Buddhist mobs.<\/p>\n
\nGlobal outrage is building over the violence, while Myanmar\u2019s army insists it has only targeted Rohingya rebels. The watchdogs\u2019 report came a day after Washington\u2019s top diplomat, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, said there were \u201ccredible reports of widespread atrocities committed by Myanmar\u2019s security forces and vigilantes.\u201d
\nSpeaking during a visit to Myanmar, he urged authorities there to accept an independent investigation into those allegations. The army and administration of de facto civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi — a Nobel peace laureate — have dismissed reports of atrocities and refused to grant entry to UN investigators tasked with probing allegations of ethnic cleansing.
\n\u201cWithout urgent action, a risk of further outbreaks of mass atrocities exists in Rakhine state and possibly elsewhere in Myanmar,\u201d Fortify Rights and the Holocaust Museum wrote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"