The Rohingya At Risk Yet Again As Violence Escalates In Myanmar
(ANALYSIS) In 2016-2017, the Rohingya community in Myanmar was subjected to a litany of atrocities aiming at the annihilation of the community and meeting the legal definition of genocide in Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention).
As reported by the United Nations, the atrocities included extrajudicial executions or other killings, including by random shooting; enforced disappearance and arbitrary detention; rape, including gang rape, and other forms of sexual violence; physical assault, including beatings; torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; looting and occupation of property; destruction of property; and ethnic and religious discrimination and persecution. As a result of the atrocities, around a million Rohingyas were forced into Bangladesh in the pursuit of safety.
Through the years, the community continued to face significant challenges, especially after Feb. 1, 2021, when the Burmese military, the Tatmadaw and the very actor standing accused of genocide against the Rohingya staged a coup and took over Myanmar.
What followed can only be described as a brutal crackdown to suppress opposition to its rule, including mass killings, torture and sexual violence. The crackdown on human rights defenders and the opposition in the country was followed by an increase in arbitrary detentions and criminal proceedings, especially targeting protesters, journalists, lawyers, health workers and political opposition.
Recent weeks have seen an increase in the targeting of the community.
In June 2024, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres expressed his deep concern about escalating violence in Myanmar. According to the U.N., Myanmar’s Rakhine State has seen a spike in violence between the Myanmar military and the Arakan army. Reportedly, many of the attacks targeted the minority Muslim Rohingya community. During the attacks, some members of this community experienced beheadings and burning of their homes. Thousands are said to be displaced as a result.
On July 29, 2024, the U.N. special adviser on the prevention of genocide, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, and the U.N. special adviser on the responsibility to protect, Mô Bleeker, expressed concern about the situation since the military coup in 2021 and are alarmed at the increase of violence and conflict across Myanmar.
As they reported: “Since October 2023, civilians across the country are paying the brunt of renewed violence between the ethnic armed groups and the Myanmar military. Regardless of religion, ethnicity, origin, gender, political affiliation, the Myanmar military is primarily responsible to address and counter hate speech and prevent incitement to discrimination, hostility, or violence against minorities, as well as to prevent and protect the entire civil population from and against the crimes of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.”
The special advisers reiterated concerns raised by the high commissioner for human rights in his statement to the Human Rights Council on June 18, 2024, which described the most serious allegations of targeted violence against the Rohingya, by both the Arakan army and the armed forces, including beheadings, burning of villages as people sleep, drone attacks, killings of unarmed people fleeing and evacuation orders with nowhere to go. The situation has seriously deteriorated, and disturbing reports indicate that displaced civilians, many of whom are Rohingya, are being used as human shields.
Nonetheless, this violence continues. Women’s Peace Network, a Burmese civil society and human rights organization that works for the rights of marginalized communities, reported that on Aug. 6, 2024, in Maungdaw township, the Arakan army launched drone attacks near the Naf River, killing at least 200 Rohingya civilians — most of whom were women and children. The civilians had been forcibly displaced from downtown Maungdaw on Aug. 5, to escape the Arakan army’s drone attacks in the area.
Women’s Peace Network reported that a surge of rapidly intensifying atrocities targeted at Rohingya civilians had already been taking place in Maungdaw township prior to the Aug. 6 attack. These atrocities include “mass arrests of Rohingya civilians; takeover of Rohingya homes and villages; looting of Rohingya properties; forced transfer of Rohingya civilians from their homes and villages; and the launch of heavy weapons and further drone strikes.”
They further warned that access to humanitarian aid — including food, water, shelter and medical care — continues to be lacking in the area, disproportionately leaving Rohingya civilians, including internally displaced persons, to die from starvation and other preventable conditions.
Women’s Peace Network has also raised concerns about reports of the Burmese military launching heavy weapons on Rohingya homes and villages, including those forcibly entered by the Arakan army; abducting Rohingya youth for forced labor; and forced recruitment, among others. Reports have also raised the use of sexual and gender-based violence being committed against Rohingya women.
The situation requires urgent attention by the international community as the early warning signs and risk factors of atrocity crimes against the Rohingya are flashing red. The escalation of violence against the community cannot be left unaddressed, and not without tarnishing the obligation to prevent — enshrined in the Genocide Convention.
This piece was republished from Forbes with permission.
Dr. Ewelina U. Ochab is a human rights advocate, author and co-founder of the Coalition for Genocide Response. She’s authored the book “Never Again: Legal Responses to a Broken Promise in the Middle East” and more than 30 UN reports. She works on the topic of genocide and persecution of ethnic and religious minorities around the world. She is on X @EwelinaUO.