Reuters | U Shey Kya/Yangon :
Rohingya Muslims say Myanmar soldiers raped or sexually assaulted dozens of women in a remote village in the northwest of the country during the biggest upsurge in violence against the persecuted minority in four years.
Eight Rohingya women, all from U Shey Kya village in Rakhine State, described in detail how soldiers last week raided their homes, looted property and raped them at gun point. Reuters interviewed three of the women in person and five by telephone, and spoke to human rights groups and community leaders. Not all the claims could be independently verified, including the total number of women assaulted.
Soldiers have poured into the Maungdaw area since Oct. 9, after an insurgent group of Rohingyas that the government believes has links to Islamists overseas launched coordinated attacks on several border guard posts.
Citing evidence garnered by interrogating suspected militants, the government blamed the attacks on an armed group it says is made up of some 400 Rohingya fighters. The militants, who have identified themselves as the previously unknown Al-Yakin Mujahidin in videos posted online, are accused of killing nine police officers and five soldiers, and of stealing a cache of weapons. The crisis in northern Rakhine marks
the biggest challenge Myanmar’s six-month-old civilian government has faced and raises questions over de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s ability to maintain control of the country’s military, observers and diplomats say.
Suu Kyi’s relationship with the army remains strained because of the constitution, drafted by the military in 2008, which bars her from the presidency. It also guarantees the army key ministerial posts, including defense, border affairs and home affairs. Diplomats and United Nations officials say privately that the Oct. 9 attacks and subsequent crackdown have shattered years of work rebuilding trust between the Muslim and Buddhist communities in Rakhine after ethnic and religious violence broke out there in 2012.
A forty-year-old woman from U Shey Kya told Reuters that four soldiers raped her and assaulted her 15-year-old daughter, while stealing jewelry and cash from the family. Men indicate the place where they say a victim from recent violence was buried, at a village outside Maugndaw in Rakhine state, Myanmar October 27, 2016.
“They took me inside the house. They tore my clothes and they took my head scarf off,” the mother of seven told Reuters in an interview outside her home, a cramped bamboo hut. “Two men held me, one holding each arm, and another one held me by my hair from the back and they raped me.” Zaw Htay, the spokesman for Myanmar President Htin Kyaw, denied the allegations. “There’s no logical way of committing rape in the middle of a big village of 800 homes, where insurgents are hiding,” Zaw Htay said.
Zaw Htay telephoned a military commander in Maungdaw, whose name he did not disclose, during an interview with Reuters this week. The commander said troops conducted a sweep of U Shey Kya village on Oct. 19, but left without committing abuses.
The military did not respond to an emailed request for comment about the accusations. The escalation of violence threatens to derail Suu Kyi’s goal of ending years of ethnic war in Myanmar, undermining the nation’s surprisingly smooth democratic transition that started a year ago with her historic election win, observers and diplomats say.
Rohingya Muslims say Myanmar soldiers raped or sexually assaulted dozens of women in a remote village in the northwest of the country during the biggest upsurge in violence against the persecuted minority in four years.
Eight Rohingya women, all from U Shey Kya village in Rakhine State, described in detail how soldiers last week raided their homes, looted property and raped them at gun point. Reuters interviewed three of the women in person and five by telephone, and spoke to human rights groups and community leaders. Not all the claims could be independently verified, including the total number of women assaulted.
Soldiers have poured into the Maungdaw area since Oct. 9, after an insurgent group of Rohingyas that the government believes has links to Islamists overseas launched coordinated attacks on several border guard posts.
Citing evidence garnered by interrogating suspected militants, the government blamed the attacks on an armed group it says is made up of some 400 Rohingya fighters. The militants, who have identified themselves as the previously unknown Al-Yakin Mujahidin in videos posted online, are accused of killing nine police officers and five soldiers, and of stealing a cache of weapons. The crisis in northern Rakhine marks
the biggest challenge Myanmar’s six-month-old civilian government has faced and raises questions over de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s ability to maintain control of the country’s military, observers and diplomats say.
Suu Kyi’s relationship with the army remains strained because of the constitution, drafted by the military in 2008, which bars her from the presidency. It also guarantees the army key ministerial posts, including defense, border affairs and home affairs. Diplomats and United Nations officials say privately that the Oct. 9 attacks and subsequent crackdown have shattered years of work rebuilding trust between the Muslim and Buddhist communities in Rakhine after ethnic and religious violence broke out there in 2012.
A forty-year-old woman from U Shey Kya told Reuters that four soldiers raped her and assaulted her 15-year-old daughter, while stealing jewelry and cash from the family. Men indicate the place where they say a victim from recent violence was buried, at a village outside Maugndaw in Rakhine state, Myanmar October 27, 2016.
“They took me inside the house. They tore my clothes and they took my head scarf off,” the mother of seven told Reuters in an interview outside her home, a cramped bamboo hut. “Two men held me, one holding each arm, and another one held me by my hair from the back and they raped me.” Zaw Htay, the spokesman for Myanmar President Htin Kyaw, denied the allegations. “There’s no logical way of committing rape in the middle of a big village of 800 homes, where insurgents are hiding,” Zaw Htay said.
Zaw Htay telephoned a military commander in Maungdaw, whose name he did not disclose, during an interview with Reuters this week. The commander said troops conducted a sweep of U Shey Kya village on Oct. 19, but left without committing abuses.
The military did not respond to an emailed request for comment about the accusations. The escalation of violence threatens to derail Suu Kyi’s goal of ending years of ethnic war in Myanmar, undermining the nation’s surprisingly smooth democratic transition that started a year ago with her historic election win, observers and diplomats say.
