Rights group: Myanmar troops admit to killing Rohingya
Two members of Myanmar’s military have admitted to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to perpetrating atrocities against minority Rohingya Muslims in the country’s western Rakhine State, a statement from an international rights group claimed Tuesday.
Two members of Myanmar’s military have admitted to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to perpetrating atrocities against minority Rohingya Muslims in the country’s western Rakhine State, a statement from an international rights group claimed Tuesday.
“Both men separately claimed to be acting on orders from senior commanders to ‘exterminate all [Rohingya],’ to ‘shoot all that you see and that you hear,’ and to ‘kill all’ Rohingya in specific areas,” Fortify Rights said in a statement.
Rights activists and experts have marked this as a major development in seeking justice for Rohingya against Myanmar authorities on genocide and ethnic cleansing allegations. They represent the first time such confessions implicated the Southeast Asian country’s armed forces in alleged mass killings, rape and crimes against humanity since reports of attacks on Rohingya emerged in 2012.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Matthew Smith, the chief executive officer of Fortify Rights, said the confessions would help the case against Myanmar’s army for persecuting Rohingya in the ongoing trial in the ICC.
“No perpetrators from Myanmar have ever officially been anywhere near the ICC, and now we have two perpetrators in The Hague who may become insider witnesses,” Smith said.
He added: “Significantly, both men were operational in two separate townships, simultaneously following orders under different commanders, which may indicate operational consistency between battalions, coordination and intent to commit genocide.”
According to Amnesty International, more than 750,000 Rohingya refugees, mostly women and children, fled Myanmar and crossed into Bangladesh after Myanmar forces launched a crackdown on the minority Muslim community in August 2017, pushing the number of persecuted people in Bangladesh above 1.2 million.
Since Aug. 25, 2017, nearly 24,000 Rohingya Muslims have been killed by Myanmar’s state forces, according to a report by the Ontario International Development Agency (OIDA).
As many as 18,000 Rohingya women and girls were raped by Myanmar’s army and police and over 115,000 Rohingya homes burned down while 113,000 others vandalized, it added.
