A VISUAL THAT SHOWS JUST HOW MANY ROHINGYA VILLAGES HAVE BEEN BURNED
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| FILE PHOTO: A Rohingya refugee family eats as they sit inside their semi constructed shelter at Kutupalong refugee camp near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh October 24, 2017. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi |
In the four months since the Myanmar military began a crackdown after
Rohingya militants attacked an army base and police posts on Aug. 25, around
655,000 members of the stateless Muslim minority have fled the western state of
Rakhine and crossed into neighboring Bangladesh.
A Reuters graphic makes use of data from the U.N. Operational Satellite
Applications Programme (UNOSAT) to show hundreds of villages in Rakhine state
that were once inhabited by the Rohingya, but have now been burned down.
A total of 354 villages have either been completely or partially
destroyed, Human Rights Watch said on Dec. 18.
The data, which was gathered from Aug. 25, the day of the Rohingya
militant attack, to Nov. 25, shows burned settlements in an area stretching 110
km (68 miles) from the green hills of Rakhine’s northern tip to beaches near
the state’s capital Sittwe in the south.
Top officials in the United Nations and United States have described
the Myanmar military’s crackdown as ethnic cleansing.
Myanmar has denied human rights abuses, saying its military is engaged
in legitimate counter-insurgency operations. The military exonerated itself of
all accusations of atrocities in an internal investigation, which published its
findings on Nov. 13. Myanmar’s civilian government has said that the burnings
were carried out by Rohingya militants and the Rohingya themselves.
Myanmar’s military did not respond to Reuters’ questions about its role
in the alleged atrocities against the Rohingya described in this graphic.
SOURCE : REUTERS
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