UN probes crimes against Rohingya by Burma forces and Arakan Army
YANGON, Burma (MNTV) — United Nations investigators are examining allegations of killings, sexual violence, mass arrests and other serious crimes against Rohingya in western Burma, finding evidence of abuses involving both the country’s military and the Arakan Army as the ethnic minority remains trapped between forces fighting for the control of Rakhine State.
The Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, a U.N. body established to gather evidence of the most serious international crimes committed in Burma, detailed the investigations in its latest annual report.
The mechanism collects and preserves evidence that can potentially be used in future criminal prosecutions.
Among the cases under investigation are nighttime raids, mass arrests and killings involving Rohingya and ethnic Rakhine detainees in Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine State.
Investigators are also examining restrictions on humanitarian aid, including the obstruction of medical and hygiene supplies and reports of deaths linked to starvation.
The findings also put a spotlight on the Arakan Army, an ethnic Rakhine armed group that has seized control of large parts of the state during its war against Burma’s military government.
U.N. investigators said they had gathered evidence concerning alleged rape and other sexual violence against Rohingya women by Arakan Army members, as well as summary executions, the recruitment and use of children younger than 15 and the destruction of mosques.
Investigators also documented the clearing of entire Rohingya areas in Buthidaung and Maungdaw, two areas that were once major centers of Rohingya life in northern Rakhine State.
Sites where mosques previously stood have in some cases been repurposed for settlements for non-Rohingya communities, according to the mechanism.
The U.N. body said it investigates crimes regardless of the political or ethnic identity of those suspected of committing them and stressed that the evidence it collects does not itself amount to a judicial finding of individual guilt.
The mechanism has gathered material from more than 1,600 sources for potential use in future prosecutions.
The findings carry particular significance for hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees living across the border in Bangladesh, many of whom fled a brutal 2017 military crackdown. Prospects for their eventual return have increasingly become tied to conditions in territory now controlled or contested by the Arakan Army, while the U.N. investigation indicates Rohingya civilians continue to face serious threats from multiple sides.
In a separate development, Burma’s military authorities have reportedly formalized a system requiring Rohingya communities around Sittwe to provide people for military service on a rotating basis.
Myanmar Now, an independent news outlet covering Burma, reported that a written military notice dated July 29 requires the Rohingya neighborhood of Aung Mingalar and five associated communities to provide 20 recruits every month.
Residents said that people are selected from participating households, while villages and displacement camps around Sittwe have faced similar recruitment pressure. The written order appears to formalize a coercive recruitment system that residents say had already been operating.
Authorities have also begun new household-registration and photography exercises in Rohingya settlements while tightening restrictions on movement, according to the report. Residents were reportedly warned that registered individuals must be present during inspections and that households could face consequences when members are absent.
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