The number of deaths is "likely to be an underestimation," MSF said as it could not survey all refugee settlements in Bangladesh. More than 630,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Myanmar to escape violence in Rakhine State.
Image: Reuters/D. Sagoli
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At least 6,700 Rohingya Muslims were killed during a crackdown by Myanmar's security forces between August and September this year, according to a field study released Thursday by the international aid group Doctors Without Borders.
The number far exceeds the 400 people Myanmar's Ministry of Information said died after a militant Rohingya group attacked police posts on August 25, prompting a crackdown by Myanmar troops.
The ministry has blamed Rohingya militants for the violence in Myanmar's Rakhine state and labeled the 400 as "extreme terrorists” who died during military "clearance operations.”
Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, said in a statement that it conducted the survey in Bangladesh refugee camps and estimated that at least 9,000 Rohingya had died of various causes in Rakhine state between August 25 and September 24.
MSF said 70 percent of the deaths were due to violence and the dead included 730 children below the age of five.
MSF said that among children below the age of 5, more than 59 percent who were killed in the month after August 25 were reportedly shot, 15 percent burnt to death in their homes, 7 percent beaten to death and 2 percent died due to landmine blasts.
More than 630,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled the Buddhist-majority country to escape violence in Rakhine State, which the United Nations has called "ethnic cleansing."
"The peak in deaths coincides with the launch of the latest 'clearance operations' by Myanmar security forces in the last week of August," MSF medical director Sidney Wong said in a statement.
Wong said the findings were staggering, both in terms of the numbers of people who reported a family member dead as a result of violence and the horrific ways in which they said they were killed or severely injured.
Rohingya children: Raped, kidnapped, orphaned
The plight of the Rohingya Muslims forced to flee the atrocities committed by militants and the army in Myanmar is hard to stomach. The most vulnerable are children, as John Owens' photo series shows.
Image: DW/J. Owens
Shot and stabbed
Since August, more than 600,000 Rohingya have fled from Myanmar into Bangladesh. "The day the military came, they burnt down the village and shot my mother as she was trying to escape. My father couldn’t walk, so they stabbed him. I saw this with my own eyes," says 10-year-old Mohammed Belal who managed to run away from his village.
Image: DW/J. Owens
Haunted by the trauma
Mohammed’s sister Nur also watched the slaughter. She and her brother now live in a shelter for unaccompanied children in Bangladesh. She can play there and gets regular meals, a stark contrast to her journey from Myanmar where she and her brother nearly starved. But she is still haunted by the trauma of the recent weeks. "I miss my parents, my home, my country," she says.
Image: DW/J. Owens
Deep-rooted conflict
The conflict, which has been going on for 70 years and is rooted in the post-World War II social organization of the country, has claimed more than 2,000 victims since 2016, including the mother of 12-year-old Rahman, above. "They set fire to my home, and my mother was ill, so she could not leave," he says.
Image: DW/J. Owens
Save the children
Dilu-Aara, 5, came to the camp with her sister Rojina after she witnessed her parents being murdered by the military. "I was crying all the time and the bullets were flying over our heads. I escaped somehow." The international aid agency Save the Children is helping minors who come to Kutupalong without parents. Children make up to 60 percent of all Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.
Image: DW/J. Owens
Hunted like animals
Jaded Alam is among the hundreds of kids who came to Kutupalong without parents. Fortunately, his aunt cares for him — and very well, he admits. Jaded grew up in a village called Mandi Para where he used to love playing football, but everything changed when the military attacked. "They told us to leave our home. When I was running with my parents, they shot them. They died on the spot," he says.
Image: DW/J. Owens
Child abductions
Not all families have been separated during their plight, however. Rahman Ali has been scouring the refugee camp for weeks now after his 10-year-old son Zifad disappeared. Rumors of child abductions have swirled around the camp for years, and Rahman fears his son has fallen prey to human traffickers. "I can't eat, I can’t sleep. I’m so upset! It’s like I’ve gone mad."
Image: DW/J. Owens
"My mind is not normal"
When the shooting started, Sokina Khatun did all she could to protect her children — but she couldn't save Yasmine,15, and Jamalita, 20, who were in a neighboring village at the time. "Their throats were cut in front of their grandparents," she says. "I was numb, I couldn’t feel the pain. Right now my mind is not normal," she says. She managed to rescue nine of her offspring.
Image: DW/J. Owens
Attacked, raped and robbed
Yasmine thinks she might be 15 but looks considerably younger. In her village, she used to play with marbles and run in the nearby fields, but different memories haunt her now: The attack by Myanmar forces, the beating and murder of her beloved father and brothers, and the rape by a group of Burmese soldiers who also robbed her. "I felt lots of pain in my body," she says.
Image: DW/J. Owens
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"We heard reports of entire families who perished after they were locked inside their homes, while they were set alight," she said.
International aid and rights groups have accused the military of arson, killings and rapes of Rohingya villagers.
More than 1 million ethnic Rohingya Muslims have lived in Myanmar for generations. They have been stripped of their citizenship, denied almost all rights and labeled stateless.
"The numbers of deaths are likely to be an underestimation as we have not surveyed all refugee settlements in Bangladesh and because the surveys don't account for the families who never made it out of Myanmar,” Wong said. "Currently people are still fleeing from Myanmar to Bangladesh and those who do manage to cross the border still report being subject to violence in recent weeks.”
