Benedict Rodgers writes in his column published in UCANews on Aug. 26, 2024, that Rohingyas are facing the gravest threats since 2017 when more than 750,000 were forced to flee to Bangladesh.
The following article was published in the September-October 2024 issue of NewsNotes.
August 25 marked the seventh anniversary of the campaign of massacres, rape, arson, and forced displacement in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine against the persecuted Muslim-majority Rohingya people. This campaign is widely recognized as a genocide.
[On March 21, 2022, “following a rigorous factual and legal analysis,” the United States Secretary of State determined that members of the Burmese military committed genocide and crimes against humanity against Rohingya. “Since the Holocaust, the United States has concluded only seven other times that genocide was committed. This determination marks the eighth,” Secretary Antony Blinken said at that time.]
Myanmar’s desperate human rights crisis continues to worsen by the day, for all the diverse peoples of the country, especially the Rohingyas.
Thousands of Rohingyas are yet again forced to flee their homes and escape by boat on dangerous seas drawing the attention of the UN Secretary-General, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch (HRW).
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has described the worsening humanitarian and security crisis in Myanmar as “dire” and called on all parties to the conflict to “end the violence and ensure the protection of civilians in accordance with applicable international human rights standards and international humanitarian law.”
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk warned that “despite the world saying, ‘never again’ we are once more witnessing killing, destruction and displacement in Rakhine.”
Both HRW and Amnesty International have said that the Rohingyas today are facing the gravest threats since 2017 when more than 750,000 were forced to flee into Bangladesh.
Approximately 630,000 Rohingyas remain in Myanmar in what HRW describes as “a system of apartheid that leaves them exceptionally vulnerable to renewed fighting.”
HRW’s Asia director Elaine Pearson said the human rights violations perpetrated in recent weeks against the Rohingyas are “tragically reminiscent of the military’s atrocities in 2017.”
Amnesty International’s Myanmar Researcher Joe Freeman said, “The horrific situation in Rakhine state looks disturbingly familiar. Rohingya men, women and children are being killed, towns are emptying out, and vestiges of Rohingya history and identity are being eroded. Many are once again seeking shelter in refugee camps across the border in Bangladesh, where economic, security and livelihood conditions have deteriorated.”
The current escalation began on August 5 when at least 200 Rohingya civilians were killed in drone and artillery attacks in Rakhine state’s Maungdaw township while sheltering on the banks of the Naf river along the Bangladesh border.
In what became known as the “Naf River Massacre,” most victims—according to a statement by a group of Rohingya civil society groups—were women and children. They had already been forced to flee to the river from Maungdaw after the rebel Arakan Army (AA) advanced and the Myanmar military sent reinforcements.
Some steps have been taken toward justice and accountability since the 2017 genocide. In June this year, a prosecutor in Argentina requested arrest warrants for 25 individuals within Myanmar’s regime, under the principle of universal jurisdiction, and in July the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accepted interventions from seven governments in the case brought by The Gambia against Myanmar under the Genocide Convention.
The current crisis in Rakhine is not the only tragedy in Myanmar. Human rights atrocities and forced displacement of civilians because of air and ground attacks by the Myanmar military in Kachin, Shan, Karen, Karenni, and Chin states continue relentlessly, and reports are now emerging that torture and mistreatment in Myanmar’s jails are increasing and intensifying.
In a further twist of the knife, the military dictatorship is now enforcing its nationwide policy of conscription for young people into the army and actively preventing eligible youths from leaving the country.
Young people now face a horrible choice—to join the army, against their will, and kill their own people, try to escape, or join the armed opposition against the illegal, brutal, criminal regime.
Myanmar is plunging deeper and deeper into a humanitarian catastrophe. It is hard to imagine how much worse the situation can become, and yet every day the situation worsens. One must ask what it will take for the international community to heed the cries not only of the Myanmar people but of the UN Secretary-General and High Commissioner for Human Rights, and act to stop this horrific carnage.
Photo of Rohingya people from United to End Genocide via Flickr.