\u00a9 2024 Maxar Technologies<\/span> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThe entire town is burning,\u201d said Nay San Lwin, a Rohingya activist originally from Buthidaung, and co-founder of the Free Rohingya Coalition. \u201cFew houses remain intact, only a few.\u201d <\/p>\n
The violence echoes attacks on the stateless Rohingya community in 2016 and 2017, when Myanmar\u2019s military launched a brutal campaign of killing, rape and arson that is currently subject to a genocide investigation at the International Court of Justice. <\/p>\n
An estimated 1 million Rohingya people live now in what many consider to be the world\u2019s largest refugee camp in Bangladesh, after hundreds of thousands fled the military\u2019s \u201cclearance operations.\u201d <\/p>\n
Many of those who remained in Myanmar live in apartheid-like conditions and face heavy restrictions on their movement, education and healthcare. More than 100,000 Rohingya people have been kept in squalid displacement camps by the military and government in the Rakhine state capital for the past 10 years. Others have made perilous boat journeys to Indonesia, choosing to risk their lives at sea over enduring inhumane conditions at home. <\/p>\n
Young Rohingya men also face forcible conscription from the junta, the AA and armed Rohingya insurgent groups both in Myanmar and in the sprawling Bangladesh camps where gang violence is escalating. <\/p>\n
Experts with the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar on Sunday warned that the Rohingya are \u201cagain at risk of genocide\u201d and urged the UN Human Rights Council to convene a special session to address the \u201cworsening human rights emergency in Myanmar.\u201d UN rights chief Volker T\u00fcrk said in a statement on Sunday that \u201cthis is a critical period when the risk of yet further atrocity crimes is particularly acute.\u201d <\/p>\n
Fighting between the Arakan Army and Myanmar\u2019s military erupted in November after a shaky ceasefire broke down. The AA has made significant territorial gains in Rakhine state in recent months and last week announced that it had taken control of all junta military bases around Buthidaung, as well as the town itself. <\/p>\n
Aung Kyaw Moe, a Rohingya adviser to Myanmar\u2019s shadow National Unity Government \u2013 a continuation of the administration deposed in the coup \u2013 wrote on Saturday that the AA had ordered residents to leave the town in the days before the attack. <\/p>\n
\u201cTwo days before AA call elders for meeting to leave the houses as soon as possible AA will confiscate the Buthidaung downtown,\u201d he wrote on X, adding \u201cthe Rohingya said they will not leave because they have no where to go.\u201d <\/p>\n
In recent weeks, the population of Buthidaung had swelled as residents fled fighting in nearby villages, Rohingya activists said. <\/p>\n
Nay San Lwin from the Free Rohingya Coalition \u2013 who managed to speak with several residents of Buthidaung \u2013 said that, at 9:30 p.m. local time on May 17, AA soldiers entered the town and shortly after began torching homes. Reports also suggested that junta airstrikes and artillery had hit Buthidaung that day but there were no military soldiers left in the town, he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI asked them about who are conducting the burning \u2013 they strictly said the AA members came into town and started shooting into the air and warning people to get out of their houses or you will be burned alive,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
John Quinley, director of human rights group Fortify Rights, said there is \u201cclear destruction of civilian infrastructure including Rohingya civilian homes.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we have in Buthidaung over the last few days is the junta conducting artillery shelling and airstrikes\u2026 and signs pointing to the AA conducting widespread arson over the weekend,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
AA spokesperson Khaing Thu Kha wrote on Telegram Friday evening that the armed group was \u201cevacuating the Muslim communities in Buthidaung and providing food, shelter, and medical care for them including the children, the women, and elderly persons.\u201d <\/p>\n
The AA has denied it torched the town, saying in a statement on May 20 that it \u201cadheres to its principle of fighting under the military code of conduct and never targets non-military objects.\u201d <\/p>\n
It accused the Myanmar military, along with allied Rohingya militant groups \u2013 which it refers to as \u201cBengali terrorists\u201d \u2013 of destroying Buthidaung. <\/p>\n
The AA said that on May 17 the Myanmar military \u201claunched a prolonged aerial attack on Buthidaung township until midnight as their last desperate attacks.\u201d <\/p>\n
A previous statement from the AA in late April said that homes of non-Muslim people living in Buthidaung had been burned down in attacks by \u201cjunta-backed Bengali Muslim terrorist groups\u201d and \u201cother Muslim militants recently armed and trained by the junta.\u201d <\/p>\n
Farooq, whose family were forced to flee the fires, said it was the AA who set fire to villages and the homes of the Rohingya. There was no active fighting with the military at the time, he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn Buthidaung, when my (family) home and when my mom was asked to leave the village, there was no fight at all. There is no military left, no base, no junta there,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
He said AA soldiers had warned residents there not to contact people living abroad and anyone caught with a Bangladesh SIM card \u201cwill be executed.\u201d <\/p>\n
Nay San Lwin also said he had heard reports that AA soldiers were taking cash and mobile phones from fleeing Rohingya. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey are afraid they have footage (of them) torching these houses,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Humanitarian offices of Medecins Sans Fronti\u00e8res in the town were burned down on April 15, the group said. \u201cWe hear reports of more than 200 homes being burned down and witness thousands of people who are displaced by the violence seeking refuge in an area directly across from where our office was located,\u201d it said at the time. <\/p>\n
An immediate concern is a humanitarian crisis in Rakhine state, with newly displaced residents unable to access food or clean water. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere are no NGOs at all, who will distribute food for them? The Myanmar military has blocked all access,\u201d said Nay San Lwin. \u201cAlso they are confining people to these villages. They are not allowed to leave.\u201d <\/p>\n
The violence has sparked a flurry of condemnations from human rights groups and the international community, calling for a halt in the fighting, to protect civilians, and for humanitarian aid to be allowed into Rakhine. <\/p>\n
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the US is \u201cdeeply troubled by the reports of increased violence\u201d in Rakhine state and warned there are \u201crisks of further atrocities occurring.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThe military\u2019s previous acts of genocide and other crimes against humanity targeting Rohingya, in addition to its history of stoking intercommunal tensions in Rakhine State and elsewhere across the country, underscore the grave dangers to civilians.\u201d <\/p>\n
Myanmar\u2019s National Unity Government said on Tuesday that it has \u201crepeatedly acknowledged that shameful past actions and failures in Myanmar allowed horrendous atrocities to be committed against minority communities, including the Rohingya, Rakhine and others in Rakhine state.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are committed to ensuring that these crimes are never repeated.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>\n
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