The charges come just days after Myanmar's army denied all allegations of rape and killings by security forces. Separately, actress and activist Angelina Jolie condemned sexual violence inflicted on Rohingya women.
Image: Reuters/H. McKay
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New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Thursday accused Myanmar security forces of committing widespread rape against women and girls as part of a campaign of ethnic cleansing in the country's Rakhine state.
"Rape has been a prominent and devastating feature of the Burmese military's campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya," said Skye Wheeler, women's rights emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch and author of the report. "The Burmese military's barbaric acts of violence have left countless women and girls brutally harmed and traumatized."
The HRW report echoed an accusation by Pramila Patten, the UN special envoy on sexual violence in conflict, who said earlier this week that sexual violence was "being commanded, orchestrated and perpetrated by the Armed Forces of Myanmar."
"Rape is an act and a weapon of genocide," she said.
More than 600,000 Rohingya people have fled to bordering Bangladesh to seek protection after an insurgent attack on security forces on August 25 sparked off a brutal military counteroffensive that the United Nations has denounced as a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing."
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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Mass rape
HRW spoke to 52 Rohingya women and girls who had fled to Bangladesh, including 29 rape survivors, many of whom endured the pain of walking with swollen and torn genitals while fleeing.
All but one of the rapes were gang rapes, HRW said. The rights group documented six cases of mass rape during which soldiers gathered Rohingya women and girls in groups and then raped them.
Hala Sadak, a 15-year-old from Hathi Para village in Maungdaw Township, recounted to HRW what was done to her. She said soldiers stripped her naked and then dragged her before about 10 men raped her.
HRW called on the United Nations Security Council to put a full arms embargo on Myanmar and individual sanctions against military leaders responsible for human rights violations, including sexual violence.
Angelina Jolie: This is rape and assault designed to torture, to terrorize, to force people to flee.Image: Imago/UPI Photo/H. Ruckemann
Jolie condemns sexual violence
Separately, actress and activist Angelina Jolie also condemned sexual violence inflicted on Rohingya women.
Jolie, who is a special envoy of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told a Bangladesh delegation in Vancouver that she planned to visit the Rohingya victims of sexual violence.
In an address to UN peacekeeping officials in the Canadian city, Jolie said almost every female Rohingya refugee in the makeshift camps in Bangladesh was a survivor or a witness to multiple instances of sexual assault, including rape.
"This is rape and assault designed to torture, to terrorize, to force people to flee and to humiliate them," Jolie said. "It has nothing to do with sex. It has everything to do with the abuse of power. It is criminal behavior."
