Arakan News Agency
Amnesty International called for international action to stop the Myanmar army’s campaign against the Muslim minority of Rohingya, which it described as “systematic and planned.” It called on the international community “to stop military cooperation, impose an arms embargo and impose targeted sanctions against those responsible for human rights violations.”
According to recent UN statistics, more than 600,000 Rohingyas have fled Myanmar to neighboring Bangladesh since 25 August.
“It is time to stop military cooperation, impose an arms embargo and impose targeted sanctions against those responsible for human rights violations,” the rights group said in a report. On the basis of survivor testimonies and satellite imagery, it said, it confirm systematic crimes against humanity aimed at intimidating and expelling Rohingya.”
The report said the crimes were widespread, including torture, murder, rape, expulsion, persecution and starvation. It said dozens of witnesses have repeatedly accused certain military units, the Western Command of the Myanmar Army and the 33rd Infantry Division and Border Police.”
“In the light of its repeated denials, the Myanmar authorities thought that they could commit large-scale murders without any punishment,” said Amnesty’s Tirana Hassan in the report. “The Myanmar army can not hide the blatant violations under the carpet by formally declaring an internal investigation time after time. The army commander must immediately take measures to prevent their forces from committing atrocities. ”
The Buddhist-dominated Myanmar government refuses to recognize Rohingya as an ethnic group and considers them illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. The Myanmar army has announced that it has launched an internal investigation into its operations in the violent state of Arakan, where the United Nations has accused the military of launching a campaign of “ethnic cleansing” against Muslim Rohingya.
Over the past seven weeks, more than half a million Rohingya have fled the state and moved to neighboring Bangladesh, with shocking accounts of the killing, rape and burning of villages destroyed by Burmese soldiers and Buddhist gangs.
