IV. Human rights situation of Rohingya Muslims and other minorities
18. Across Rakhine state, civilians from ethnic Rakhine, Rohingya and other minority communities faced constant life-threatening risks due to hostilities between the military and Arakan Army, particularly in central areas. Having lost 14 of 17 Rakhine townships, the military relied largely on airstrikes to prevent further Arakan Army advances towards Sittwe and Kyaukphyu. Credible sources reported that the military had killed at least 191 civilians, including 71 women and 48 children during the reporting period. Of these, 177 died in airstrikes. These figures represent an underestimation due to severe limitations on the flow of information for verification of civilian fatalities particularly applying to Rohingya casualties. Among the deadliest incidents, the military bombed two boarding schools in Kyauktaw in September 2025, the Mrauk-U General Hospital in December 2025, and a market in a village in Ponnagyun in February 2026, cumulatively killing at least 66 civilians, including 28 women and 24 children. In ethnic Rakhine majority areas, military reliance on heavy artillery and drones caused civilian deaths and forced displacement. Both parties to the conflict committed grave violations against children, including killing, maiming, forced recruitment, and denial of aid.
19. Rohingya men, women, and children, suffered systematic discrimination by all parties, with absolute impunity. Contrary to its stated policy of inclusive governance and equal treatment, the Arakan Army, as key duty-bearer in most of Rakhine, continued to subject Rohingya to abuses, while mirroring the military policy of denying Rohingya identity, referring to them as “Bengali”. Across northern Rakhine, arbitrary arrests, torture, sexual and gender-based violence, instances of enforced disappearance, forced labour and recruitment, unlawful confiscation of land and residential property, and the destruction of villages, religious and cultural sites, forcing renewed Rohingya displacement. Local sources reported that – in areas under their control including Pauktaw, Mrauk-U, Kyauktaw and Minbya – the Arakan Army also restricted movement, livelihoods, and access to healthcare, with patterns of forced recruitment, forced labour, unlawful taxation, and extortion, albeit on a lower scale than in northern Rakhine.
20. Gravely, the Arakan Army has seemingly been attempting to reshape land use and ownership in northern Rakhine. Despite reduced conflict in formerly Rohingya-majority areas, the Arakan Army did not allow displaced Rohingya to return to their places of origin. Rather they have been settling non-Rohingya communities on Rohingya land. Interviewees detailed the use of forced labour to achieve these changes, with Rohingya forced to build their own camps, villages for non-Rohingya communities, and buildings for the Arakan Army. They added that both the military and Arakan Army had destroyed mosques, madrassas, and a Rohingya graveyard, including after the military’s withdrawal from northern Rakhine. Individuals from ethnic Rakhine, Mro, and Khumi, and Bangladeshi Rakhine, have been resettled on Rohingya land. Satellite imagery confirmed largescale changes in land use, with an estimated 2,000 acres of Rohingya land reportedly seized. Analysis of available information indicated that 10 informal resettlement sites for displaced Rohingya and eight new non-Rohingya villages have been established on Rohingya land in Buthidaung. Non-Rohingya communities had been moved into 11 former Rohingya villages in Maungdaw, including villages emptied in 2017. In Gona Para, Maungdaw, Rohingya villagers had to dismantle houses with the materials then used to build a police station. In other cases, Arakan Army units had forced Rohingya to dismantle their own homes and use the material to build shelters in camps. Although no official document is available, there are serious concerns about a reported process of renaming Rohingya villages. If confirmed, these changes risk causing further denial of land rights for Rohingya, wider displacement, and loss of any possibility of sustainable return.
21. In the Ywet Nyo Taung village tract in Buthidaung, the Arakan Army forced Rohingya to build a Rohingya displacement camp, a village for non-Rohingya, and also a military base, locally known as “AP Battalion”, for housing forcibly recruited Rohingya. These developments occurred on land where previously three Rohingya villages had stood in 2024 until the Arakan Army reportedly razed them. Rohingya labourers were also forced to build a camp for survivors of the 2024 massacre in Hoya Churi. Currently some 600 displaced Rohingya are held there, constantly guarded, and unable to leave. Sources indicated their belief that the detention-like conditions were intended to prevent the spread of information related to the massacre. One person who managed to flee reported appalling camp conditions that had caused the deaths of eight people within a few months, including a pregnant woman and five new-borns and children under five. Interviewees described a system whereby forced labour is organized at the village level across northern Rakhine, with each village compelled to provide labourers to the Arakan Army for a certain number of days each week or month. One interviewee described being forced to work 57 times over four months. Children are systematically used for labour, with witnesses describing workers as young as six years old clearing jungle, constructing buildings, and doing menial work for Rakhine families. In one case, a child was forced to clear bones and skulls of victims of a massacre. Local sources reported recording 2,353 instances of Rohingya forced labour in northern Rakhine in January 2026 alone, with 75 instances involving children.
22. Arakan Army actions exacerbated the already severe humanitarian crisis caused by the military’s blockade of goods and restriction of access for humanitarian organizations, particularly impacting Rohingya. Instances of Arakan Army units plundering Rohingya livestock and agricultural yield, arbitrary taxation, and systematic movement restrictions exclusively targeting Rohingya prevented access to healthcare and livelihoods. Women and children faced heightened life-threatening risks, aggravating intersecting vulnerabilities. Chronic shortages in medical care resulted in high rates of acute watery diarrhoea, skin infections, various transmittable diseases, and malnutrition, with three women reportedly dying during childbirth in a village in Buthidaung between November 2025 and April 2026.
23. Arakan Army elements forcibly recruited members of all communities, including Rohingya men, women, and children, heightening protection concerns and driving further displacement. Recruiters from the Arakan Army reportedly demanded villagers meet quotas with families being instructed to provide “one boy or one girl” as a recruit. One interviewee described being among 60 women and girls, aged 12 to 23, who were taken from her village in Buthidaung and forced to walk 24 hours under armed guard to the “AP Battalion”. Interviewees described the forcible recruitment of their teenage sons and daughters, including a 13-year-old girl who was taken as her family fled to Bangladesh. A 14-year-old boy was abducted in Rathedaung while trying to prevent the forced recruitment of his sister. Other cases included the forced recruitment of a 16-year-old with developmental problems, and a family who fled to Bangladesh to prevent the Arakan Army from taking their 17-year-old son or his mentally ill father. With hundreds of forced recruits reportedly held in the AP Battalion, women and girls became victims of sexual violence, including rape. Interviewees also reported arrest and detention of Rohingya individuals attempting to escape conscription and cases of Rohingya girls resorting to early marriage in the hope that married girls would be less likely to be forcibly recruited.
24. Numerous interviewees reported other Arakan Army abuses against Rohingya, including arbitrary killings of adults and children. In October 2025, the Arakan Army shot a man and his 16-year-old sister just minutes after curfew while they attempted to fetch water in Maungdaw. She died immediately and his leg was amputated five days later in Bangladesh. Widespread arbitrary arrests of Rohingya continued to be reported throughout the period, with cases that may further amount to enforced disappearances. Families of those taken by the Arakan Army are not informed of their whereabouts and detainees have no access to lawyers, family, or any formal judicial process. Once detained, individuals reported being routinely subjected to ill-treatment with former detainees describing beatings with bamboo, rubber pipes, and belts; being burned with matches and cigarettes; being hung upside down with their bodies spun until they passed out; chili being applied to genitals; and removal of fingernails. Deaths in custody are reported as routine, with dead bodies being left overnight in occupied cells. One interviewee stated that 15 detainees held in his cell in San Go Taung detention centre had died from torture and dire conditions. Another said he woke up in scrubland having passed out during torture in Buthidaung prison. He stated his torturers believed he was dead and disposed of his body. He had been arrested along with his son -- who later died in custody. Families reported having been forced to sign documents accepting that their relatives had died in custody due to natural causes.
25. Albeit at lower intensity, sporadic clashes continued between the Arakan Army and Rohingya armed elements, particularly in areas bordering Bangladesh. Reportedly, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army killed non-Rohingya civilians, eroding intercommunal trust and providing a pretext for the Arakan Army to carry out widespread arrests of Rohingya civilians. Arakan Army officials also reportedly threatened Rohingya residents at village meetings that any family unable to pay taxes or meet recruitment quotas must leave Rakhine state.
26. Such threats, incidents of violence, intercommunal tensions and forced recruitment have motivated Rohingya to continue to flee to seek protection. By the end of April 2026, 149,769 Rohingya were newly registered in Bangladesh. Even in flight, Rohingya faced serious protection risks, including violations, abuses and extortion. As the Arakan Army controls exit routes, interviewees stated that no movement is possible without their approval. Those fleeing reportedly pay fees between USD 300 and 500 to smugglers, village administrators or Arakan Army for travel documents that would permit them to pass through Arakan Army checkpoints and transit through and out of northern Rakhine.
27. In areas under military control in central Rakhine, all communities, including Rohingya, continued to face appalling living conditions amid escalating conflict and prolonged military blockades on humanitarian aid. This led to severe shortages of food, medicine, and essential goods, with staple food prices rising 31 percent between February and May 2026. Rohingya in camps and villages continued to experience critical gaps in food, healthcare, shelter, safe drinking water and sanitation, with overcrowding and limited livelihood opportunities compounding vulnerabilities. Many resorted to harmful coping mechanisms, including unauthorized movements that risked arrest, trafficking, and exploitation. During consultations, humanitarian actors described widespread malnutrition in camps, particularly among children, as well as a reported rise in the numbers of Rohingya children attempting travel to Malaysia.
28. Since the activation of its conscription process, the military subjected Rohingya men and youth to forced military service, under a rotational system that repeatedly called up trained Rohingya to serve at bases, fight on frontlines, and perform forced labour. According to local sources, 1,981 Rohingya from Sittwe had been forcibly conscripted by the military during the reporting period, with reports of high levels of desertion amid abusive conditions, including forced alcohol consumption, denial of rest, and physical abuse. Families of forced recruits were also extorted to pay for the upkeep of recruited family members, although money did not reach the recruits themselves.
29. Military forces have intercepted boats transporting Rohingya from Bangladesh and northern Rakhine, detaining large numbers of passengers, including 513 on a boat in November 2025, 233 on another in December 2025, and 476 in January 2026. On 24 May 2026, the military shot and killed at least four members of one Rohingya family, including a three-year-old as they boarded a boat to leave Sittwe. According to United Nations figures, 2025 was the deadliest year for Rohingya undertaking maritime journeys, with 892 dead or missing. This trend continued into 2026 with 4,665 attempting maritime journeys by May 2026, the highest reported since 2022, with 280 reported dead or missing. In April 2026, an overcrowded boat from Bangladesh capsized in the Andaman Sea, leaving an estimated 270 people missing. Given further deteriorations in the situation in Rakhine, conditions remain non-conducive for safe, sustainable, and dignified returns.
30. Efforts toward international accountability continued, although the Myanmar people’s broader demands for justice remain largely unmet. At the International Court of Justice, oral proceedings on the merits in the inter-State case brought by The Gambia against Myanmar, for alleged violations of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, were completed in January 2026. The Court thereafter began its deliberations; the date for delivery of judgment has to be announced. In September 2025, the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK requested the Federal Court in Argentina to expand the scope of the ongoing universal jurisdiction case in that court to include crimes committed by the Arakan Army. In February 2026, a Court in Timor-Leste appointed a judge to investigate a request brought by the Chin Human Rights Organization for a universal jurisdiction case regarding military crimes against civilians since the coup. In April 2026, a court in Indonesia formally accepted a universal jurisdiction case filed against then Senior General Min Aung Hlaing for alleged genocide. No developments have been publicly announced at the International Criminal Court on the Prosecutor’s request for an arrest warrant for Min Aung Hlaing.
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