Myanmar blackout may be cover for gross human rights violations: U.N. investigator

REUTERS

Tom Miles

June 24, 2019  

GENEVA (Reuters) - Myanmar’s army may be committing gross human rights violations under cover of a mobile phone blackout in parts of Myanmar’s Rakhine and Chin states, U.N. special rapporteur Yanghee Lee said on Monday. 

 Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, Yanghee Lee gives her report to the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 11, 2019. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse 

Lee, an independent expert who reports to the U.N. Human Rights Council on human rights in Myanmar, said nine townships had been blacked out, with no media access and serious restrictions on humanitarian organizations.

“I fear for all civilians there,” Lee said in a statement.

Feelings of anxiety about future of IDPs

BNI  
Thursday, May 23, 2019

Development Media Group

Home is a familiar word to everyone. Home is very important for everyone. Even if it is a small hut, everyone loves their home, because home is where the heart is. However, more than 30,000 people from Buthidaung, Rathedaung, Ponnagyun, Kyauktaw and Mrauk-U townships cannot return home yet due to the ongoing skirmishes between the Tatmadaw and the Arakan Army (AA) and the exchange of gunfire in their villages .

Artillery kills 2 Muslim villagers in Myanmar's Rakhine

AA 

Kyaw Ye Lynn | YANGON

22.05.2019

Another person also injured when artillery shell hit home in Muslim-majority Alekyun village, says police officer 

A Muslim man and his 8-year old son was killed by artillery that villagers believed was fired by Myanmar military in the country’s Rakhine state.

Local police officer confirmed that an artillery shell hit a home in Muslim-majority Alekyun village in Kyauk Taw Township on Tuesday, killing two Muslim villagers and wounding another.

OHCHR expresses deep concern over Rakhine men and boys detained by Myanmar army

Dhaka Tribune
Tribune Desk
Published at May 10th, 2019

OHCHR spokesperson Rupert Colville Reuters

'We are deeply concerned about possibly 40 to 50 ethnic Rakhine boys and men who reportedly remain detained since April 30 in a school in Kyauk Tan village, Rathedaung township in northern Rakhine State'

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has expressed deep concern over around 40 to 50 ethnic Rakhine boys and men who have reportedly been detained in a school in northern Rakhine State since April 30.

AA member shot dead in Kyauktaw

ELEVEN

News

Published 11 May 2019

A member of Arakan Army (AA) who blew off a military column shouldering security duties along Yangon-Sittway Union Road was shot dead, the Office of the Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services reported on May 10.

On May 10 morning, an AA group carried out two remote-control mine attacks on the military column working at about 3,000 metres away from Kyauktaw, Rakhine State. While clearing mines in the area, security troops shot an AA member dead and seized a motorcycle, a grenade, two mobile phones and accessories for planting mines, according to the press release.

Army Shoots Motorcycle Driver Dead in N. Rakhine

The Irrawaddy
By Moe Myint
10 May 2019

The body of motorcycle ferry driver Ko Maung Maung Hla, who was found dead in a rural area of northern Rakhine State's Kyauktaw Township early on Friday morning.  / Kyaw Hla Myint / Facebook 

 
YANGON—A motorcycle ferry operator was shot dead while driving home to his village in northern Rakhine State’s Kyauktaw Township early Friday morning, according to local residents.

The victim was identified as Ko Maung Maung Hla, 36, from Phayar Paung village 4 miles south of downtown Kyauktaw. Village administrator U Aung Tin Win, who went to see the body at Kyauktaw General Hospital on Friday morning, told The Irrawaddy that Ko Maung Maung Hla worked as a ferry operator. He had a 9-year-old son with his wife, Daw Hla Win, who sells vegetables in a market.

Myanmar: Deaths in Army Custody Need Independent Inquiry

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

May 6, 2019

Killing of 6 Villagers in Rakhine State Should Be Fully, Credibly Investigated

 

Maj. Gen. Nyi Nyi Tun and Maj. Gen. Soe Naing Oo of the Myanmar military’s information team announce the Arakan Army’s classification as a terrorist organization at a press conference in Naypyidaw, January 18, 2019. © 2019 AP Photo 

(New York) – Myanmar authorities should independently investigate the killing of detainees held by the military in Rakhine State, Human Rights Watch said today. On May 2, 2019, army soldiers shot and killed at least six villagers from among several hundred who had been detained in Kyauk Tan, Rathedaung township, for suspected links to the Arakan Army, an ethnic Rakhine armed group.

Myanmar army says it killed six unarmed prisoners

B B C
03 May 2019

Myanmar's army has said it shot dead at least six people detained in a village school in Rakhine state.

A spokesman confirmed troops fired on unarmed detainees saying they had tried to grab the soldiers' weapons.

The detained were being questions for links to the rebels of the Arakan Army, who are ethnic Rakhine Buddhists.

Myanmar Army Rounds Up Hundreds of Rakhine Villagers For Questioning

RADIO FREE ASIA  
2019-05-01

Three people walk along a road during a government-organized visit for journalists in Buthidaung township close to a surge in fighting between the Arakan Army and government troops in western Myanmar's Rakhine state, Jan. 25, 2019.

Myanmar’s military has rounded up several hundred people in several villages in Rakhine state for questioning about their ties to the Arakan Army (AA), holding 275 men after releasing women, children, and the elderly, local sources told RFA’s Myanmar Service on Wednesday.

Myanmar Army Rounds Up Hundreds of Rakhine Villagers For Questioning.

RADIO FREE ASIA 
2019-05-01

Three people walk along a road are seen during a government-organized visit for journalists in Buthidaung townships close to the surge of fighting between ethnic armed rebel group of the Arakan Army and government troops in the restive Rakhine state, Jan. 25, 2019.

AFP

Myanmar’s military has rounded up several hundred people in several villages in Rakhine state for question on their ties to the Arakan Army (AA), holding 275 men after releasing women, children and the elderly, local sources told RFA’s Myanmar Service on Wednesday.

Chin Ethnics Urge Arakan Army to Free Villagers; AA Warns of Severe Fighting With Myanmar Army

RADIO FREE ASIA
2019-04-29

The Arakan Army insignia is seen on the uniform of a soldier in western Myanmar's Rakhine state in an undated photo.RFA 

 

An ethnic Chin group has called on the rebel Arakan Army (AA) to release 52 residents it abducted from Paletwa township in western Myanmar’s Chin state during a clash earlier this year with Myanmar forces that spilled over from armed conflict in adjacent Rakhine state, the head of the group said.

No peace byprayer, say defiant Rakhine rebels.

THE Star ONLINE 
Saturday, 20 Apr 2019

Panghsang (Myanmar): Rakh­ine rebels locked in a vicious fight with Myanmar’s army will not “get peace by praying”, its commander said as he vowed his forces will fight on despite being outnumbered and under aerial assault.

AA Kills 20 Soldiers in N. Rakhine’s Ancient Capital Mrauk-U.

The Irrawaddy
10 April 2019
By MOE MYINT 

Police and Army personnel jointly patrol along a main road in downtown Mrauk-U in March 2019. / Moe Myint / The Irrawaddy

YANGON—About 20 government soldiers were killed when the Arakan Army staged attacks on two Myanmar Army artillery bases on the outskirts of Mrauk-U in northern Rakhine State on Tuesday night, the armed ethnic group’s deputy chief claimed.

Brigadier-General Nyo Tun Aung said the AA attacked the No. 31 Police Regiment because troops from Light Infantry Division (LID) No. 22 were firing 105-mm howitzer shells almost daily from the base and another Army base in Lay Hnyin Taung about 8 km from downtown Mrauk-U.

UN: Recent Myanmar army attack may have killed dozens of Rohingya

today ng

ByAgencies
-April 9, 2019

 

The United Nations’ human rights office has said it fears that dozens of Rohingya civilians may have been killed in a military attack in Myanmar’s Rakhine state last week, despite official government tolls putting the number of dead at six.

UN: Attacks in Myanmar's Rakhine state could be 'war crimes'

Taiwan News  

By  Deutsche Welle

2019/04/06 15:02

The United Nations human rights agency on Friday condemned recent fighting between Myanmar's army and guerrillas of the Rakhine insurgent group known as the Arakan Army.

The spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ravina Shamdasani, said the agency had "credible reports of the killing of civilians, burning of houses, arbitrary arrests, abductions, indiscriminate fire in civilian areas and damage to cultural property."

Myanmar military defends Rohingya strike

9 NEWS
By AAP

Apr 5, 2019

Myanmar's military says six Rohingya Muslims killed and nine wounded in an aerial attack in the western state of Rakhine this week were affiliated with an armed rebel group.

The army-run Myawady newspaper said the villagers were "together with terrorists while the army was cracking down on the Arakan Army's terrorist activities" on Wednesday in the township of Buthidaung.

Myanmar army says six Rohingya killed in air strike were ‘with terrorists’

REUTERS
April 5, 2019

YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar’s military said on Friday six Rohingya Muslims killed and nine wounded in an aerial attack in the western state of Rakhine this week were affiliated with an armed rebel group.

The army-run Myawady newspaper said the villagers were “together with terrorists while the army was cracking down on the Arakan Army’s terrorist activities” on Wednesday in the township of Buthidaung.

Myanmar Army Helicopter Attack Kills at Least 10 Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State.

RADIO FREE ASIA
2019-04-04

A Myanmar border guard policeman stands near a group of Rohingya Muslims in front of their homes in a village in Buthidaung township, western Myanmar's Rakhine state, Jan. 25, 2019.

AFP

A helicopter attack by Myanmar’s army on Wednesday killed at least 10 Rohingya Muslims and injured more than a dozen others in violence-wracked Rakhine state, the latest civilian casualties in the armed conflict between government soldiers and the rebel Arakan Army (AA), local villagers told RFA’s Myanmar Service.

‘Helicopter attack kills five Rohingyas, wounds 13'

Dhaka Tribune
Thursday, Apr 04, 2019
Reuters, Yangon 

In this photograph taken on September 7, 2017, unidentified men carry knives and slingshots as they walk past a burning house in Gawdu Tharya village near Maungdaw in Rakhine state, in northern Myanmar AFP

The latest incident occurred in a valley in Buthidaung township, near a village that was home to Rohingya Muslim families

Villagers and a lawmaker in Myanmar’s troubled Rakhine state said on Thursday that a military helicopter attacked a group of Rohingya Muslims gathering bamboo, killing five and wounding 13, but a military spokesman declined to comment.

Myanmar army urges civilian tip-offs on Arakan Army in Rakhine

The Daily Star
Tuesday, "March 26, 2019"

 FILE PHOTO: A Myanmar soldier patrols in a boat at the Mayu river near Buthidaung in the north of Rakhine state, Myanmar September 13, 2017. REUTERS/Stringer

The Tatmadaw requested people to give tip-offs about Arakan Army (AA) to respective administrative organizations and security organizations if the AA entered their towns, wards and villages to avoid further bloodshed in Rakhine State, it announced on March 23.