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Stop Rohingya Genocide in Arakan
PR of Arakan Rohingya National Organisation ( ARNO),5 September 2017
Since 11 August, with the massive deployment of army in northern Arakan/Rakhine State, the Myanmar authorities have resumed unprecedented campaign of genocide against Rohingya population. From 25 August the human rights situation of Rohingya became worse after an armed group calling itself Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) made desperate attacks on multiple police outposts and an army camp in response to criminal atrocities and other inhuman acts against the civilians held in confinement in some villages of Rathedaung township in order to starve them to death.
Rohingya villages were torched and destroyed; mass killings of civilians took place all over northern Arakan. The brute forces are carrying out methodical assaults on Rohingya villages using machineguns, rocket launchers and helicopter gunships. Members of the Hindu community were also targeted.
Security forces cordoned off the villages, as the fire raining down, and then shot and stabbed civilians. The helpless people were subject to indiscriminate attacks everywhere — in houses, villages, escape routes, hiding places, mountain passes, dales and rivers. An estimated 5,000 people, including children, women and old men, were killed and over 50 villages were wholly destroyed. Death toll is rising every day. Independent verification of the figure is almost impossible as no independent international media, humanitarian NGOs and human rights actors are given access to northern Arakan. There were instances that dead bodies were gathered, poured petrol over the bodies and burned down into ashes.
Acts of mass atrocity and genocide against the defenceless Rohingya civilians can never be a purely internal matter of Myanmar. The UN and international community have jurisdiction over it and should intervene solely to save the millions of lives and human security.
