Myanmar army razed Rohingya villages in Rakhine state to build security outposts: Report

The Myanmar military destroyed villages, mosques and cemeteries in the Rakhine state after the expulsion of the Muslim minority Rohingya in 2017 and used their land for security outposts, says a UN-backed report released on Monday. Violence against the Rohingya escalated in August 2017 when Myanmar’s military launched an operation against militant attacks and drove out hundreds of thousands from their homes in the coastal state. Around 1.3 million Rohingya refugees live in densely packed camps in Bangladesh since the military operation that the United Nations later termed a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”.

“Myanmar authorities systematically destroyed Rohingya villages, mosques, cemeteries and farmland. They had knowledge of Rohingya land rights and tenure through official records,” said the report by the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM), which said the report is based on first-hand accounts of witnesses, geospatial imagery, video footage, official records and documentation.

Myanmar’s military previously said it did not commit genocide against the Rohingya in the 2017 operation, but crimes may have been committed on an individual level.

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The report was released a day before a UN high-level meeting in New York on the Rohingya crisis, the conditions in Bangladesh’s refugee camps and the stalled repatriation efforts.

“Private companies and associated individuals played a direct role by providing machinery and labour to bulldoze villages and build infrastructure under state contracts,” the report says.

“The base was built directly over the remains of Inn Din (East and Rakhine) villages, with cleared land replaced by new roads, permanent buildings, fortified compounds and two helipads,” the report said.

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Myanmar has been in political turmoil since the military staged a coup in February 2021, ousting a civilian government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and triggering a civil war. The IIMM, established by the UN Human Rights Council in 2018 to investigate serious international crimes committed in Myanmar since 2011 to facilitate prosecutions, is grappling with funding cuts, and its investigation team does not have funds to continue its work beyond year-end.

The Rohingya now face renewed threats of violence and displacement as fighting rages in Rakhine state, with some members of the minority community taking up arms.

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“There is widespread agreement in the international community that Rohingya must be allowed to return home once conditions allow, but in many cases their homes and villages no longer exist,” said IIMM chief Nicholas Koumjian.