(Lisa Schlein’s article from The VOA NEWS on 25 May 2024.)
GENEVA — Reports
are emerging of new atrocity crimes being committed in a concerted campaign of
violence and destruction by Myanmar’s military (or Arakan Army) against the
largely Muslim Rohingya people in northern Rakhine state.
“We are receiving frightening and disturbing reports
from northern Rakhine state in Myanmar of the impacts of the conflict on
civilian lives and property,” Liz Throssell, spokesperson for the U.N. High
Commissioner for Human Rights, said Friday in a briefing to journalists in
Geneva.
“Some of the
most serious allegations concern incidents of killing of Rohingya civilians and
the burning of their property,” she said, noting that tens of thousands of
civilians have been displaced in recent days by fighting in Buthidaung and
Maungdaw townships.
She said that information gathered in testimony from
victims, eyewitnesses, satellite images, and online video and pictures over the
last week indicate that “Buthidaung town has been largely burned. We have
received information indicating that the burning started on 17 May, two days
after the military had retreated from the town and the Arakan Army claimed to
have taken full control,” she said.
Speaking in
Bangkok, James Rodehaver, head of Myanmar Team, Office of the High Commissioner
for Human Rights, said his team had spoken to many sources on the ground and
reviewed numerous materials, many of which “were deemed to be credible.”