Rohingya crisis in Myanmar: Refugees recount horror of 'slaughter,' then a perilous jou... - 0 views
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They fired shots in the air, and then, the villagers say, turned their guns on fleeing residents, who fell dead or wounded in the monsoon-green rice paddies. The military’s retribution for a Rohingya militant attack on police posts earlier that day had begun.
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The Burmese military’s “clearance operation” in the hamlet of Maung Nu and dozens of other villages populated by Burma’s ethnic Rohingya minority has triggered an exodus of an estimated 400,000 refugees into Bangladesh, an episode the United Nations human rights chief has called “ethnic cleansing.
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Rights groups say it will take months or years to fully chronicle the devastation the refugees are fleeing. Satellite photos show widespread burning, witnesses recount soldiers killing civilians, and the Burmese government has said that 176 Rohingya villages stand empty. No total death toll is yet available because the area remains sealed by the military.
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The crisis has sparked widespread outcry and condemnation of Burma and its de facto leader, Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. She and her government have said little about the plight of the Rohingya, except to reframe the situation as a national security matter as the new militancy has coalesced.
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But their peaceful coexistence ended when Rohingya insurgents launched their attack on police posts. The military crackdown has continued unabated since then, black smoke scudding across the skyline, visible in southern Bangladesh even this past week.
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Zubair said he had followed to see what was to become of his vessel. He says he watched in horror as the military began stacking the boat with dead bodies, one after another like lumber, including those of two 13-year-old boys he had known well.