Around 500 Hindus have crossed the border into Bangladesh along with over 436,000 Rohingya Muslims after fleeing conflicts in Buddhist-majority Myanmar's Rakhine State since an army crackdown triggered by ARSA Rohingya insurgent attacks on security forces on Aug 25.
The Hindu refugees have taken shelter beside two temples at Ukhia in Cox's Bazar near the refugee camps for Rohingyas at Kutupalong. On Saturday, police recovered the body of a Hindu refugee at a canal in the area. The Hindus alleged Rohingyas murdered the man following a dispute over money the Muslims took as loan back home in Myanmar.
Earlier, before this incident, several Hindu refugees told bdnews24.com that Rohingya militants, not army, had attacked them in Myanmar during the conflict. At least 10 Hindus described the attackers as 'Kala Party', who covered their face with black clothes and used Rohingya language along with Burmese and Rakhine.
A Hindu victim of the conflict, requesting anonymity for safety, said, "The Burmese usually don’t know the Rohingya language. Though the attackers covered their face with dark clothes, they seemed to be Rohingyas."
A young Hindu man, who had arrived in Bangladesh before the conflict, heard about the death of his parents, sister and a nephew during the fighting. He said his neighbours in Myanmar told him that they came under attack by Rohingya militants.
He also said he was afraid to return home in Maungdaw's Sabbazar. "I don't know whether all the Rohingyas have crossed the border into Bangladesh," he said, expressing fear of further attack by the remaining Rohingyas in Myanmar.
An elderly Hindu man from Chikanchharhi in Rakhine said, "A terrorist group has entered Rakhine. They demand that the government recognise the Rohingyas. These terrorists tortured us."
"I said we are Hindus and we cannot call ourselves Rohingyas. The terrorists confined 50 to 60 people of our Parha (a part of a village) for six to seven days. We didn't even have water to drink. We fled when the fighting started after a week," he said. "We saw from a hill that our houses were burnt," he added. Another Hindu man said, "No one cared about the Hindus there when the fighting erupted between those two sides."
Bangladesh has condemned Myanmar for the violent persecution of Rohingyas and called for taking the refugees back. Fear of deterioration of law and order situation has risen in Bangladesh along with the increase in the number of refugees. Many also suspect that Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, which claimed credit for the Aug 25 attacks, has links with international terrorist groups.
(Following are the edited articles and photos from the Burma Army’s reports of Hindu massacre by ARSA Rohingyas in Maungdaw District during the August-25 terrorist attacks there.)
August-26: The Day Of Hindu Massacre by ARSA Rohingya Terrorists
On August-26,27 Burma police and army had the first news of ARSA Rohingyas raiding a Hindu village called Yebawkya in Maungdaw Township. But because of worsening security situation all over the Maungdaw township they couldn't do anything to investigate the suspected massacre. Only in mid-September the confirmed news of Hindu massacre was received by the authorities.
According to the police report a young Hindu woman Ma Binarbarlar the daughter of U Sway Larm from Yebawkya Village phoned, from Bangladesh, a Hindu elder U Ni Maul, the Hindu leader from Fourth-Mile Village, who was already fleeing the Muslim Killers and staying in Sittwe City.
According to Ma Binarbarlar around 800 armed ARSA Rohingya terrorists entered their Yebawkya village at about 9:30 pm on August-25 and rounded up more than 100 men and women of Hindu faith. The Rohingyas then marched the captives out of village into the wood at about 1km west of the village. There in the wood Muslims picked 8 young women and forced them to convert Islam and sent them to Bangladesh across the border.
The Rohingya Muslims then brutally killed all the Hindu men and women in their captivity and put the bodies in few shallow pits. After hearing the massacre news confirmation U Ni Maul contacted the authorities and army columns had been sent to the location to verify the massacre news and also to find the remains of the killed Hidus. But because of the severe fightings going on between ARSA and army all over the Northern Arakan the massacre investigation was kept on hold for more than a week.
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| Map showing the ARSA attack on Hindu villages in Maungdaw. |
In the morning of August-31 local Hindu people from the Latha Village in Maungdaw Township informed the local army unit HQ through the Maungdaw Township Administrator that they were seriously threatened by ARSA Rohingya terrorists from surrounding Bengali villages so many times after the terrorist incident which happened in northern part of Rakhine State on 25 August 2017. Therefore, they were impossible to continuously live there as their lives were in critically dangerous situations.
As soon as they received information, the security forces, the township administrator and party went to the village of local Hindu people at 1 pm that day and met with Hindu village elders. They then moved 444 people from 70 Hindu households to No 2 Basic Education High School in Maungtaw which is a safe place from danger of ARSA extremist Bengali terrorists.
Similarly, a total of 199 Hindu people residing in Ward 9 of Ngayantchaung Village of Buthidaung Township were evacuated under escort of security troops to Ward 4 which is a safe place from danger of ARSA extremist Bengali terrorists.
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| Relocation to the safety of local Hindus under police and army escorts. |
On September-7 the Commander of Western Regional Command (Na-Pa-Kha) Maj. Gen Maung Maung Soe and party provided 392 Hindus taking shelter at a Hindu temple in No.2 ward in Buthidaung Township due to terror attacks by ARSA extremist Bengali terrorists in Rakhine State, with foodstuff and personal goods donated by the families of Tatmadaw (Army, Navy and Air) and well-wishers.
Similarly, the security froces transported relief aid for 194 local ethnics taking shelter at Sasanbeikman monastery in Maungtaw Township, 1,783 in Taungpyowel Village and 327 ethnics in Sinphyutaung Village with the use of Tatmadaw’s helicopters and cars.
Today, Tatmadaw medical teams provided medical care to 138 locals at a monastery in Kyeinchaung Village in Maungtaw Township, 78 people at local battalion in Taungpazar, 41 in Taungpyowel Village and 36 people in Khamaungseik Village for hypertension, anaemia and common diseases and gave health talks.
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| Army is taking care of the displaced Hindu refugees fleeing ARSA Rohingyas. |
Security forces found 28 bodies of Hindus who were brutally killed by ARSA extremist Bengali terrorists near Yebawkya Hindu Village in Maungtaw Township in Rakhine State today.
U Ni Maul a local Hindu elder, who had detail information on alleged massacre, together with security forces and some Hindu people from Khamaungseik and Tamanthar villages went to Yebawkya Village this morning to search for the bodies of local Hindus killed by ARSA Rohingyas.
At about 11 am today they found a recently-disturbed ground with foul smell hovering above at about 1.2 km northwest of the village. In excavating it, they found two 13 feet square large pits at ten feet apart where dead bodies were suspected to be there.
The security troops and Hindu people excavated the pits. So far they unearth 12 women bodies from the first pit at 2.20 pm. And six bodies of boys under 10 years old, two men bodies and eight women bodies were also found in the second pit at 2.30 pm. They excavated 28 dead bodies in total.
Local Hindu elder U Ashikuma from Taung Village in Khamaung-seik Village-tract of Maungdaw Township and U Ni Maul of 4th-MileVillage, who accompanied the security troops together with some other local Hindu people, had already confirmed that the bodies inside two mass graves were missing Hindu people from Yebawkya Village. The security troops continue searching for other missing Hindu people around at the same location.
More remains of Hindus brutally killed by ARSA extremist Bengali terrorists found. Security forces and local Hindus had already found 28 bodies of Hindus who were brutally killed by ARSA extremist Bengali terrorists near Yebawkya Village in Maungtaw Township on September 24. Today, they continued their search for the remaining bodies of missing Hindus.
This afternoon, a suspicious place was found at about 400 meters northeast of the two mass graves where the remains of Hindus were found yesterday. As security forces and Hindus got foul smell, they dug two pits at a distance of 10 feet a pit measuring three feet in diameter and five feet in depth.
From those two pits 17 more bodies of men were retrieved. 14 bodies of men from the first pit and three bodies of men from the second pit. To date, a total of 45 corpses of nearly 100 missing Hindus have been recovered.
Also on today the Union Minister for Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement Dr Win Myat Aye, Rakhine State Chief Minister U Nyi Pu and state cabinet members, members of the National Human Rights Committee, the deputy commander of the military command headquarters and senior military officers inspected the scene.
Officials of Maungtaw Township Public Health Department are performing necessarily forensic inspections over the excavated Hindu bodies. Those bodies will be cremated according to the Hindu religious traditions.
Local Hindu elders U Shimawtaw of Middle Kyeinchaung Village from Maungtaw Township, U Phyamhawri of Thaman Village and some other Hindu people who participated in the searching tasks had already confirmed the identities of the recovered bodies as those of the missing Hindu people from Yebawkya Village.
Security forces together with local Hindu
people are still searching for the bodies of remaining missing Hindu at the
scene and nearby.
Myanmar's army unearthed the bodies of 17 Hindu villagers on Monday, taking to 45 the number authorities suspect were killed by Muslim insurgents last month at the onset of a wave of violence that has sent 436,000 refugees fleeing to Bangladesh.
Myanmar's army unearthed the bodies of 17 Hindu villagers on Monday, taking to 45 the number authorities suspect were killed by Muslim insurgents last month at the onset of a wave of violence that has sent 436,000 refugees fleeing to Bangladesh.
The bodies have been found since Sunday
buried outside a village in Rakhine State in western Myanmar, where bloodshed
erupted on Aug 25 when Rohingya Muslim insurgents launched coordinated attacks
on about 30 police posts and an army camp.
The United Nations has described a
sweeping military response to those attacks as "ethnic cleansing" aimed
at driving Rohingya out of Buddhist-majority Myanmar. Myanmar rejects that,
saying it is fighting terrorists.
"There is no ethnic cleansing.
There is no genocide," Myanmar's UN Ambassador Hau Do Suan told the UN
General Assembly in New York on Monday. "The leaders of Myanmar who have
long been striving for freedom and human rights would not espouse such
policies."
"We will do everything to prevent
ethnic cleansing and genocide," the diplomat said. "It is the
responsibility of every government to fight against terrorism and protect
innocent civilians. We condemn all human rights violations and violent
acts."
Myanmar said before the mass graves
were found that more than 400 people had been killed, most of them insurgents. Members
of Myanmar's small Hindu minority appear to have been caught in the middle. Some
have fled to Bangladesh, complaining of violence against them by soldiers or
Buddhist vigilantes. Others have complained of being attacked by the insurgents
on suspicion of being government spies.
A search was launched on the weekend after a Hindu woman refugee in
Bangladesh contacted a Hindu community leader in Myanmar to say insurgents of
the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) marched about 100 people out of their
village on Aug. 25 and killed them, the government said.
Twenty-eight bodies were found on
Sunday. "This afternoon, a suspicious place was found about 400 metres
northeast of the mass grave where the remains of Hindus were found
yesterday," the army said in a statement.
"Seventeen bodies of men were
retrieved." The government has not speculated as to why the Hindus were
killed. The army said the security forces and Hindu community leaders would
continue the search. Access to the area by journalists as well as human rights
workers and aid workers is largely restricted.
An ARSA spokesman denied his group had
killed the Hindus, saying Buddhist nationalists were trying to divide Hindus
and Muslims. "ARSA has internationally pledged not to target civilians and
that remains unchanged, no matter what," the spokesman, who is based in a
neighbouring country and identified himself only as Abdullah, told Reuters
through a messaging service.
