DHAKA: The Myanmar military is deliberately burning ethnic Rohingya villages near the Bangladesh border, Human Rights Watch said in a statement Friday.
It said that the new satellite images confirmed that such acts of arson, after forcing residents to leave their villages, appear central to the Myanmar military’s ethnic cleansing campaign against the Rohingya Muslim population in Rakhine State.
The new satellite imagery and sensory data showed that 62 villages in northern Rakhine State were targeted by arson attacks between August 25 and September 14, 2017. The rights watchdog identified 35 of these villages with extensive building destruction from very high resolution satellite imagery, and an additional 26 villages that had active fires detected in near-real time with environmental satellite sensors.
“Our field research backs what the satellite imagery has indicated – that the Myanmar military is directly responsible for the mass burning of Rohingya villages in northern Rakhine State,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director.
“The United Nations and member countries should urgently impose measures on the Myanmar government to stop these atrocities and end the forced flight of Rohingya from Myanmar.”
The HRW conducted a detailed building damage assessment in six of the 35 affected villages and identified nearly complete destruction in each case. The total number of destroyed buildings was 948.