Arakan News Agency | Exclusive
The Arakan Buddhist militia (Arakan Army) is trying again to disavow responsibility about killing 600 Rohingya people in the city of “Buthidaung” after it tried earlier to blame other parties for the Buthidaung massacre.
The militia spokesperson “U Khaing Tho Kha” presented a new scenario of events to deny the militia’s involvement in the killing of Rohingya residents.In a press conference on Monday, the spokesperson, presented a new scenario of events in the village of “Than Shau Kan” where the massacre took place. He denied that the bodies belonged to the Rohingya in the first place, claiming that they were of soldiers of the Myanmar Army killed by the militia forces during clashes that took place last year.
The spokesperson said that the village of ” Than Shau Kan ” witnessed intense fighting with the Myanmar Army for three days, during which more than 200 Myanmar Army soldiers were killed. He explained that the bodies belonged to these soldiers and that the Myanmar Army buried them in groups of dozens in those areas, and that the bodies did not belong to the Rohingya in the first place.
A Rohingya resident told the Arakan News Agency, “As always, the Arakan Buddhist militias distort the truth in an attempt to portray the massacre of Rohingya civilians as the killing of Myanmar Army soldiers in battle, thus trying to evade accountability for the ethnic genocide, but one day they will be forced to take responsibility.”
These statements come just days after the Arakan Buddhist militias attempted to force residents of the village of “Thin Taung,” near the village of “Than Shau Kan” to record videos and sign statements under pressure accusing the Myanmar Army of responsibility for the Rohingya massacre, while working to remove skeletal remains and burn bodies to erase evidence.
Recently, 600 bodies were discovered, which residents confirmed belonged to the Rohingya who were killed in the massacre by the militias during their raid on the village on May 2, 2024. Numerous photos documenting the massacre were published, and there were live testimonies from those who witnessed the massacre and saw their family members killed by the militias.
The massacre involved gathering villagers, confiscating their belongings, and then killing them. Some were shot, but most were slaughtered before the militias burned the village and threw many residents, including adults and children, alive, into burning houses. The bodies of the Rohingya victims were burned, and the skulls and bones were buried in the ground.
In the same conference, the spokesperson for the Arakan Buddhist militias claimed that 920 were killed, 1950 were injured, and 947 were arrested from the Rakhine residents by the Myanmar Army since the resumption of fighting between the two sides in November 2023.
The militias launched a military campaign in November 2023 against the Myanmar Army to control the state, managing to take control of 14 out of 17 cities. The conflict has affected the Rohingya, who have been subjected to violence, forced displacement, and persecution from both sides, having also faced a “genocide” campaign by the Myanmar Army in 2017 that forced nearly a million of them to flee to Bangladesh.
