Myanmar's government claims it is fighting a terrorist insurgency
The UN Security Council has condemned the violence in a rare unanimous rebuke
CNN
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Almost 40% of all Rohingya villages in Myanmar’s Rakhine State are now empty, a government spokesperson has confirmed.
More than 370,000 Rohingya – many of them women and children – have fled to Bangladesh to escape violence since August 25, according to the United Nations, an average of almost 20,000 a day. The refugees speak of indiscriminate clearance operations, huts set on fire and family members being taken away and never heard from again.
Zaw Htay, a spokesman for Myanmar’s Presidential Office, said the reason people abandoned their homes was because many were told to leave by family members who were involved in terrorist activities.
Who are the Rohingya?
The Rohingya are a stateless Muslim minority in Myanmar’s Rakhine state thought to number about 1 million people.
Myanmar does not recognize them as citizens or one of the 135 recognized ethnic groups in the country.
Myanmar regards them as illegal immigrants, a view rooted in their heritage in East Bengal, now called Bangladesh.
Though many Rohingya have only known life in Myanmar, they are widely viewed as intruders from across the border.
According to Human Rights Watch, laws discriminate against the Rohingya, infringing on their freedom of movement, education and employment.
They are denied land and property rights and ownership, and the land on which they live can be taken away at any given time.
“Some of them are directly involved with terrorist activities and some are sympathizers for the terrorist group,” Zaw Htay wrote in an email to CNN. “And some are running away to avoid arrest by police because they had some connections with the terrorist group.”
The government says 176 out of 471, or 37.4% of all Rohingya villages are now empty of people, and an additional 34 villages were “partially abandoned.”
Prior to the current wave of violence, Myanmar’s population of Rohingya was estimated to number about 1 million, with the majority clustered in small often isolated villages in the northern part of Rakhine State along the border with Bangladesh and India.
Myanmar’s government maintains that the actions of its military are a necessary measure to protect against “terrorist activities” in Rahkine State by Rohingya militants.
Among the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees pouring across the border into Bangladesh, stories of murder, rape and devastation are common.
Communities ripped apart
Some have been injured by landmines they accuse Myanmar of planting along the border, while others described people being tortured to death or burned alive.
The United Nations said the crisis has left at least 1,000 people dead.
Photos: Rohingya refugees flee Myanmar
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Rohingya children wait to receive food from an aid group at a refugee camp in Ukhiya, Bangladesh, on Tuesday, November 14. More than 600,000 of the Rohingya Muslim minority group from Myanmar's Rakhine state have fled to Bangladesh, according to the United Nations.
Photos: Rohingya refugees flee Myanmar
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Rohingya Muslims paddle a makeshift raft as they cross the Naf River from Myanmar into Bangladesh on November 12. Human rights activists consider the Rohingya to be among the world's most persecuted people.
Photos: Rohingya refugees flee Myanmar
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A young Rohingya refugee begs for food through the glass of a car window at Balukhali refugee camp in Bangladesh on October 7.
Photos: Rohingya refugees flee Myanmar
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Rohingya refugees carry their belongings across muddy waters at a camp on October 5.
Photos: Rohingya refugees flee Myanmar
Photos: Rohingya refugees flee Myanmar
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Rohingya refugees mourn beside the bodies of relatives who died when a boat capsized in late September.
Photos: Rohingya refugees flee Myanmar
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Sona Banu is carried ashore on September 27 by Nobi Hossain after crossing the Naf River by boat from Myanmar to near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh.
Photos: Rohingya refugees flee Myanmar
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Dildar Begum, a Rohingya woman, and her daughter, Noor Kalima, recover from injuries at Sadar Hospital in Cox's Bazar after fleeing their home in Rakhine state.
Photos: Rohingya refugees flee Myanmar
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Burnt villages are visible near Maungdaw in Myanmar's Rakhine state on September 27.
Photos: Rohingya refugees flee Myanmar
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People scramble to catch food distributed by aid groups on September 18 at the Balukhali refugee camp in Bangladesh.
Photos: Rohingya refugees flee Myanmar
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Rohingya refugees take cover from monsoon rains on September 17 in the Balukhali refugee camp in Bangladesh.
Photos: Rohingya refugees flee Myanmar
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A Bangladeshi border guard keeps watch September 16 near the beach of Sharapuri Dwip, where many Rohingya refugees land after crossing from Myanmar.
Photos: Rohingya refugees flee Myanmar
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Rohingya refugees disembark from a boat on September 13 on the Bangladeshi side of the Naf River.
Rohingya refugees fleeing Myanmar hold their infant son Abdul Masood, who died when their boat capsized before reaching Bangladesh on September 13.
Photos: Rohingya refugees flee Myanmar
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Rohingya refugee Rashida Begum stands next to her 15-year-old son, Azizul Hoque, as he is treated on September 13, at a hospital in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. He sustained a landmine injury while crossing from Myanmar to Bangladesh.
Photos: Rohingya refugees flee Myanmar
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Rohingya refugees bury Nur Ali in Kutupalong, Bangladesh, on September 13. Ali was a 50-year-old man who died of gunshot wounds he sustained while fleeing violence in Myanmar.
Photos: Rohingya refugees flee Myanmar
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Nur Ali's son, Abul Basar, reacts while attending his father's funeral on September 13, in Bangladesh. In Myanmar, the latest outbreak of violence came after a series of alleged attacks by Rohingya militants on government border posts. In response, Myanmar's military intensified "clearance operations" against "terrorists," driving thousands of people from their homes. Satellite photos released by Human Rights Watch showed entire villages torched to the ground in clashes between Myanmar's armed forces and local militants.
Photos: Rohingya refugees flee Myanmar
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Rohingya children flee the Rakhine state by boat on Tuesday, September 12.
Photos: Rohingya refugees flee Myanmar
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A woman collapses on September 12, after the wooden boat she and other refugees were traveling in crashed into the shore in Dakhinpara, Bangladesh.
Photos: Rohingya refugees flee Myanmar
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The woman is carried to shore after her boat crashed in Dakhinpara.
Photos: Rohingya refugees flee Myanmar
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A Rohingya woman cries after the boat crash in Dakhinpara on September 12.
Photos: Rohingya refugees flee Myanmar
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Refugees jump from the boat in Dakhinpara on September 12.
Photos: Rohingya refugees flee Myanmar
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A Rohingya child holds a baby on September 12, as refugees wade through the Naf River in Bangladesh.
Photos: Rohingya refugees flee Myanmar
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Rohingya men pray on September 11, in a makeshift shelter near Cox's Bazar.
Photos: Rohingya refugees flee Myanmar
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Bangladeshi volunteers distribute food on September 10, to Rohingya refugees in Chittagong, Bangladesh.
Photos: Rohingya refugees flee Myanmar
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Rohingya refugees walk across paddy fields on September 9, after crossing the border in Gundum, Bangladesh.
Photos: Rohingya refugees flee Myanmar
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A boat full of Rohingya refugees arrives on September 9, on the Bangladeshi side of the Naf River.
Photos: Rohingya refugees flee Myanmar
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A girl is carried to safety after crossing the Naf River on September 9.
Photos: Rohingya refugees flee Myanmar
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Rohingya men reach out for relief supplies on September 9, at a refugee camp in Bangladesh.
Photos: Rohingya refugees flee Myanmar
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A Rohingya girl carries supplies on September 9, at a refugee camp in Ukhia, Bangladesh.
Photos: Rohingya refugees flee Myanmar
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Refugees gather on the shoreline after arriving September 8, in Dakhinpara.
Photos: Rohingya refugees flee Myanmar
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A Bangladeshi border guard orders Rohingya refugees to return to the Myanmar side of a small canal on August 29. Bangladesh has been struggling to cope with the influx of refugees.
Photos: Rohingya refugees flee Myanmar
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Bangladeshi border guards stand watch on August 26, as Rohingya refugees escape fresh gunfire near Myanmar's Rakhine state.
On Wednesday, the flight of the Rohingya Muslims prompted a rare rebuke from the UN Security Council.
In a statement, the first the UN’s most powerful body has made in nine years on the situation in Rakhine State, the 15-member council acknowledged the initial militant attacks on Myanmar security forces but “condemned the subsequent violence,” and called for “immediate steps to end the violence in Rakhine.”
Earlier on Wednesday, UN Secretary General António Guterres said the crisis involving the Rohingya in Myanmar’s Rakhine state had become “catastrophic.”
“Grievances that have been left to fester for decades have now escalated beyond Myanmar’s borders, destabilizing the region,” Guterres told reporters at the United Nations. “The humanitarian situation … is catastrophic.”
Guterres said many women and children were arriving in Bangladesh “hungry and malnourished.” Reports of attacks on civilians by Myanmar security forces are “disturbing” and “completely unacceptable,” he said.
US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley tweeted her gratitude to Bangladesh for taking in the deluge of refugees.
In a statement the government of Bangladesh said it was expanding the camp for the Rohingya refugees and was doing all it could to help, “but it is nearing its limits.”
Bangladesh “urgently calls on the government of Myanmar to repatriate the Rohigya within Bangladesh’s borders, and on the international community to pressure Myanmar to do so.”
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Patrick Murphy summoned Myanmar’s ambassador to the US, Aung Lynn, Wednesday to express US concerns about the violence, including recent attacks on Rohingya villages, according to a senior State Department official, who called the message sent by the move “a tough one.”
Bangladesh’s appeal was echoed by Guterres. “I call on the Myanmar authorities to suspend military action, end the violence, uphold the rule of law and recognize the right of return of all those who had to leave the country,” Guterres said, who also urged countries to provide aid.
The Rohingya Muslims “must be granted nationality or, at least for now, a legal status that allows them to lead a normal life, including freedom of movement and access to labor markets, education and health services,” he added.
Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who earlier this week canceled a planned trip to the UN General Assembly, has been heavily criticized for not speaking out against the violence in Rakhine State. Suu KyI has previously claimed a “huge iceberg of misinformation” about the Rohingya crisis was being distributed to benefit “terrorists.”
“One is the current situation in Rakhine state. We have terrorist attacks and also there are many works on public safety and humanitarian works,” spokesman Zaw Htay said in a statement.
“And the second reason is we have received reports that there are possibilities of terrorist attacks in our country.”
Htay later announced Suu Kyi would give a “state of the union” speech next Tuesday in which she would address the Rohingya crisis fully.
The latest outbreak of violence in Rakhine state was sparked last month by a series of alleged attacks by Rohingya militants on government border posts.
UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein on Monday described what was happening in Rakhine state as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing.”
