No Script

Please Wait...

Al-Ahed Telegram

Myanmar Crackdown: Regime Builds Military Bases on Rohingya Land

Myanmar Crackdown: Regime Builds Military Bases on Rohingya Land
folder_openAsia-Pacific... access_time6 years ago
starAdd to favorites

Local Editor


An international rights organization revealed that Myanmar's regime forces are building army bases in locations where Rohingya Muslims used to live before a campaign of state-sponsored violence drove them out.

Myanmar Crackdown: Regime Builds Military Bases on Rohingya Land

Since late 2016, Myanmar's armed forces joined by Buddhist mobs launched a campaign of terror against Muslim families living in the Rakhine State, killing and raping them, and torching their houses, forcing hundreds of thousands of them to flee.

In the same context, many settled in camps in neighboring Bangladesh. Small numbers remain on a stretch of land known as the no man's land between the two countries. 

In the Rohingya's absence, Myanmar has been bulldozing their villages, according to satellite imagery, and in what rights groups described as a campaign to destroy scenes of potential crimes against humanity.

Amnesty International said in a new report on Monday that the Myanmarese forces bulldozed the remaining structures that had not been torched or razed earlier.

"What we are seeing in Rakhine State is a land grab by the military on a dramatic scale," Tirana Hassan, Amnesty's crisis response director, said in a statement. "New bases are being erected to house the very same security forces that have committed crimes against humanity against Rohingya."

Amnesty added that Myanmar's "reshaping" of the region where the Rohingya used to live appeared to be designed to accommodate more security forces and non-Rohingya villagers, and could deter refugees from agreeing to return.

"Rohingya who fled death and destruction at the hands of the security forces are unlikely to find the prospect of living in close proximity to those same forces conducive to a safe return, especially given the continuing lack of accountability for human rights violations," the group said.

Myanmar blockaded Rakhine and consistently denied that any violence has been taking place against the Rohingya, despite numerous witness accounts and other documents, including the satellite images.

The United Nations, for its part, said it has strong suspicions that "acts of genocide" have taken place against the Rohingya.

Bangladesh has struck a deal with Myanmar to return the Rohingya refugees, but the implementation of the deal remains unlikely in the face of continued unaccountability.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team

Comments