04 October 2017•Update: 04 October 2017
By Kyaw Ye Lynn
YANGON, Myanmar
Myanmar security forces summarily executed dozens of Muslim Rohingya villagers in Rakhine state two days into a crackdown on the persecuted group this August, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday.
In a press release, the international rights group said it was told by witnesses that soldiers had beaten, sexually assaulted, stabbed, and shot villagers who had gathered for safety in a compound in the village of Maung Nu in the Maungdaw area on Aug. 27.
“All the horrors of the Burmese army’s crimes against humanity against the Rohingya are evident in the mass killings in Maung Nu village,” said Phil Robertson HRW’s deputy Asia director, using Myanmar’s former name.
The group said satellite images show Maung Nu and nearby Hpaung Taw Pyin had been razed to the ground, but it was unable to verify how many villagers killed.
“These atrocities demand more than words from concerned governments; they need concrete responses with consequences,” said Robertson.
HRW interviewed 14 survivors and witnesses from Maung Nu and surrounding villages who have since taken refuge in neighboring Bangladesh.
Witnesses told HRW that the massacre happened on Aug. 27 when hundreds of Rohingya villagers gathered in a large residential compound in Maug Nu as they feared the military crackdown.
Since Aug. 25, some 507,000 Rohingya have crossed from the Maungdaw area of Rakhine into Bangladesh, according to the UN.
The refugees are fleeing a military operation in which security forces and Buddhist mobs have killed men, women, and children, looted homes, and torched Rohingya villages.
According to Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Abul Hasan Mahmood Ali, around 3,000 Rohingya have been killed in the crackdown.
The Rohingya, described by the UN as the world's most persecuted people, have faced heightened fears of attack since dozens were killed in communal violence in 2012.
The UN has documented mass gang rapes, killings -- including of infants and young children -- brutal beatings, and disappearances committed by security personnel. In a report, UN investigators said such violations may have constituted crimes against humanity.
