Experts sound alarm on new Rohingya crackdown in Myanmar
The persecuted and stateless Rohingya minority is caught in a new violent crackdown in Myanmar, with children among those killed, two reports from influential expert groups warned Tuesday.
In 2017, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya were forced to flee to Bangladesh due to a military crackdown in Myanmar, which is now the focus of a genocide case at the United Nations. However, approximately 600,000 Rohingya remain in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, where they are now caught in an intensifying conflict between Myanmar's military, controlled by the junta, and the Arakan Army, a rebel group.
The situation has deteriorated further due to the Myanmar military’s coercion of Rohingya civilians into fighting against the Arakan Army. According to Fortify Rights, a watchdog organization, eyewitness accounts reveal that the Arakan Army recently carried out drone and mortar attacks on Rohingya civilians. These attacks, which took place near the Bangladesh border, resulted in the deaths of over 100 Rohingya men, women, and children.
Fortify Rights noted that the use of a surveillance drone before the assault indicates that the attack was deliberately aimed at a civilian gathering. Despite these findings, the Arakan Army has denied responsibility for the attack, issuing statements on August 7 and again ten days later through its political wing.
The International Crisis Group, a prominent think tank, reported that many Rohingya in the region attribute the attack and other acts of violence to the Arakan Army. These new reports follow recent findings by the United Nations Human Rights Office, which indicated that both the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army have committed severe abuses against the Rohingya, including extrajudicial killings, abductions, forced recruitment, indiscriminate bombings of villages, and arson.
Currently, Bangladesh hosts around 1.2 million Rohingya refugees, most of whom fled the 2017 crackdown.
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