Maungdaw — The Myanmar authorities accompanying Ms. Yanghee Lee, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Myanmar who is on a four-day visit in Arakan, duped her into visiting a wrong village in southern Maungdaw last Saturday (Jan 14), it has been reported.

On Saturday morning, the UN Rapporteur set off to meet the villagers of ‘Koetankauk (Dounsay Fara) in Rathedaung Township as initially scheduled. However, the authorities took her to the village of ‘Thawan Chaung’ in southern Maungdaw bypassing ‘KoeTankauk’ (in northern Rathedaung). 

She came to know she was in a wrong place when she asked the villagers of Thawan Chaung after being in the village. Angered with the accompanying authorities double-crossing her, she left the place and didn’t return to ‘KoeTankauk’ village again. 

On Sunday (Jan 15) morning, she visited the violence-hit northern Maungdaw region which has been sealed off since the Myanmar military began offensives on the Rohingya civilians in the region on October 9, 2016.

Deceived by the Myanmar Authorities once earlier, she asked the authorities to stop accompanying her in northern Maungdaw and instead, she chose to visit a few Rohingya villages in the region on her own accompanied only by her interpreters.

She visited the village of Kyikanpyin (locally known as Hawar Bil) and met up with the villagers especially women. After that, she visited Wapeik (Wabek) village but couldn’t meet anyone as the village had been deserted by the villagers due to brutal operations by the Myanmar armed forces (i.e. the Military and the Border Guard Police).

Post that, she visited a few other Rohingya villages such as KyetYoePyin (Kiyari Ferang), PyaungPaik (Haant Gojja Fara), Ngakura (Nagpura) and Sinthaepyin (Haanti Fara). 

During the visits by the UN Rapporteur especially without any members of Myanmar armed force accompanying her , the victims in the region were able to open up to her how the Myanmar armed forces torched their homes, unlawfully killed hundreds of innocent people, raped more than 200 women, arbitrarily arrested hundreds of civilians and plundered their properties. It has been learnt that Ms. Yanghee Lee got chance to also talk to some victim women who have become pregnant after being raped by the Myanmar forces.

Some locals in Maungdaw have raised their concerns over the possible distortions in interpretations by a female interpreter named Ms. Khet Khet that accompanied the UN Rapporteur during the visits. The interpreter is a Rakhine woman known for being an anti-Muslim racist remarks on the Rohingya during her term with UNHCR as a Community Development Facilitator in Arakan State.

Ms. Lee’s trip to assess the human rights situation in Arakan will end today and overall it could be considered successful one.

Buthidaung — A Rohingya Cleric was tortured to death by the Myanmar military in Buthidaung Township last Sunday (on Jan 15), a reliable source has reported.

The victim cleric is identified as Mv. Badullah (60) from the village of ‘Ngaran Chaung’ in ‘Taung Bazaar’ area in Northern Buthidaung. 

Last Friday (on Jan 13), approximately 30 military personnel from the ‘Battalion 552’ raided the house of Mv. Badullah and arrested him was along with his son Hala Bodiya apparently with the accusation of possessing weapons. 

The cleric was inhumanely tortured for two days leading him to an unfortunate demise on Sunday. 

On Monday (Jan 16) morning, the military took the dead body of the cleric to Taung Bazaar hospital for autopsy. Afterwards, the military summoned the remaining family members of the cleric and some elderly persons from his (the deceased’s) neighborhood and forced them to give statement and sign (on papers) that he was an asthma patient and died because of the disease.

After that, the military handed over the dead body to the family members for funeral and he was buried in the evening. 

Earlier, the military arrested three more villagers of Ngaran Chaung on January 9 on arbitrary allegation of involving in the raids on the three Border Guard Police (BGP) posts in Maungdaw on October 9, 2016. They were publicly tortured after the arrests and taken to the Battalion 552. From there, they were transferred to the Buthidaung Prison in the evening on January 9 without any trial. 

They are:

1) Abu Sufyan

2) and his son Burshah

3) Sultan Ahmed

The Myanmar military have since recently started conducting sporadic raids on Rohingya villages in ‘Taung Bazaar’ area on pretext of searching weapons hidden in the region. The military have ordered the villagers of ‘Ngaran Chaung’ through the village administrator, U Maung Lone, to stay home and also threatened them (the villagers) to be shot dead in case of fleeing from homes (in fear of arrests) during raids.

Maungdaw — Two exhumed mass graves at the village of ‘Dar Gyi Zar’ in Northern Maungdaw have revealed decomposed dead bodies of at least a dozen of people, reliable sources have reported.

The gruesome scenes of the skulls and skeletons found in the mass graves in ‘Dar Gyi Zar’ locally known as ‘Bor Gozi Bil’ (as shown in the pictures below) show the shocking scale of the local Rohingya Muslims massacred by the joint forces of Myanmar’s military and Border Guard Police (BGP) reported between 12th-14th November 2016.

A local in Northern Maungdaw (as his identity can’t be disclosed for security reasons) said “we unearthed the mass graves on January 10 in the hope that we would show them to the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Myanmar, Ms. Yanghee Lee, as a proof of how the Myanmar military and BGP have committed massacres of our people. Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to visit ‘Bor Gozi Bil’ during her visit that has left us disgruntled.

However, we are still hopeful and want to show the pictures of the mass-graves to the world and Ms. Yanghee Lee through media.”

According to the accounts of the surviving victims in the locality, at least 31 civilians were massacred by the Myanmar armed forces at the Dar Gyi Zar village alone in mid November 2016.

Human Rights groups backed with satellite images, accounts of the survivors in Bangladesh (who fled from Maungdaw to escape from killings) , reliable reports from the ground (in Maungdaw) and other credible sources, firmly claim that the atrocities and crimes being committed against the Rohingya ethnic group in Northern Maungdaw since October 9, 2016, amount to ethnic cleansing or genocide. However, the office of Myanmar’s State Counsellor, Suu Kyi, have always been quick to dismiss the reports and claims of the ethnic cleansing or genocide as Fake, while successfully sealing off the northern Maungdaw region from humanitarians, international media and international investigation teams and keeping the international community in dark.