By Ayesha Ulhaq
By Ayesha Ulhaq
The report, which was issued by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, stated that children and babies as young as eight months were amongst the hundreds of victims of the violent acts currently carried out by Myanmar’s security forces. Horrific testimonies have found that the number of Rohingya Muslims that have been murdered, raped and tortured has ultimately reached a new high.
Myanmar Security forces have increased their efforts to wipe out Muslims from the country’s border in a campaign of “area clearance operations.” On Friday, dozens of officers gathered together in Jammu city and threatened the minority to leave immediately or told them that they would be thrown out.
These operations have led to the brutal deaths of hundreds and it has also “led to an estimated 66,000 people fleeing into Bangladesh and 22,000 being internally displaced,” stated in the new U.N report.
Reported by Indian newspaper First Post, 35-year-old refugee Mohammad Johar held his four-year-old daughter close to him as he distressingly said, “Where will we go? It is not easy to find a place to live and make a living.”
According to a US News and World report, “In Myanmar, most Rohingyas have been stripped of citizenship, and face serious violations of human rights including restriction of freedom of movement, marriage restriction, exclusion from education and health care, enforced birth control, arbitrary taxation and forced labor.”
Following the release of the report, an investigation was carried out on the Bangladeshi border with Myanmar after the UN Human Rights Office team was previously denied access to the northern Rakhine State in Myanmar, the main area in which civilians were affected.
Many academic studies have labelled the persecution of the Rohingya Muslims a genocide. Myanmar’s government has repeatedly denied such claims.
