NEW YORK: The Myanmar military executed dozens of Rohingya Muslims in many villages across the troubled Rakhine state on August 27, days after the recent spate of violence began, according to the Human Rights (HRW).
Soldiers had sexually assaulted, beaten up, shot and stabbed the villagers who had gathered for safety, it said. "Satellite imagery analysed by Human Rights Watch shows the near total destruction of the villages of Maung Nu and nearby Hpaung Taw Pyin," the New York-based watchdog body said in a statement. "The damage signatures are consistent with fire."
"All the horrors of the Burmese armys' crimes against humanity against the Rohingya are evident in the mass killings in Maung Nu village," Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said. "These atrocities demand more than words from concerned governments; they need concrete responses with consequences."
On Sept. 28, the United Nations Security Council met to discuss Myanmar publicly for the first time in eight years, but took no action.
Human Rights Watch repeated its call for the 15-member council and concerned countries to adopt an arms embargo and individual sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, against Burmese military commanders implicated in abuses.
The rights organizations spoke with 14 survivors and witnesses from Maung Nu and surrounding villages in the Chin Tha Mar village tract of Buthidaung Township. The witnesses, now refugees in Bangladesh, said that after the militant attacks they feared Burmese military retaliation. Several hundred gathered in a large residential compound in Maung Nu. Several Burmese soldiers entered the compound while others surrounded it. They took several dozen Rohingya men and boys into the courtyard and then shot or stabbed them to death. Others were killed as they tried to flee. The soldiers then loaded the bodies "some witnesses said a hundred or more" into military trucks and took them away.
Over 500,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh to escape mass atrocities by Burmese security forces. The crackdown followed after militants from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), on August 25, attacked a military camp and about 30 security force outposts throughout northern Rakhine State. The government reported that the militants killed 11 security force personnel during the attacks.