ND Burma
ND-Burma formed in 2004 in order to provide a way for Burma human rights organizations to collaborate on the human rights documentation process. The 13 ND-Burma member organizations seek to collectively use the truth of what communities in Burma have endured to advocate for justice for victims. ND-Burma trains local organizations in human rights documentation; coordinates members’ input into a common database using Martus, a secure open-source software; and engages in joint-advocacy campaigns.
Recent Posts
- Junta targeting rebel-held areas in northern Myanmar with airstrikes and artillery
- Human Rights Situation weekly update (September 8 to 14, 2024)
- Myanmar National Organizing Committee for ACSC/APF ASEAN Civil Society Conference/ASEAN People’s Forum 2024
- Human Rights Situation weekly update (September 1 to 7, 2024)
- Red Cross chief calls for greater aid access after visit to Myanmar
Six students die in Yangon blast
/in NewsSome locals say the group may have been planting a mine for a resistance group.
Six Burmese high school students were killed in an explosion at around 5 p.m. on Saturday at a house in Yangon’s Kyimyindaing township.
They were aged between 16 and 17 and were all boycotting classes organized by the military council.
Five of them were identified as Aye Min Myat, Thae Naing Min, Kyaw Zaw Lin, Moe Hein Kyaw and Than Htike San. The other’s identity is not yet known.
A local, who did not wish to be named for safety reasons, said the blast happened near a drink shop on Pont Pyoe Yae street around 100 yards (91 meters) from the local police station.
“It was about 1,000 yards (914 meters) away from where I live and we could hear it clearly,” the local said.
“The children went to play football at around 4.30 p.m. There is a shop called Phyoe Wai where they gather to play. The shop sells Kaung Yae [a local alcohol] and cold drinks.”
“The parents were taken to see the bodies on Saturday and they are trying to get them back.”
Another local told RFA she had watched the children grow up.
“I don’t know if they were UG [underground] or not,” the local said.
“I saw their scattered bodies picked up and taken away in zipped bags. The families have not seen the children and nobody could go near the incident. The mine explosion even shook my home. Locals don’t know who planted the mine,” she told RFA.
Nearly 100 junta troops arrived after the blast in vehicles and boats. Another anonymous local said the troops took the bodies away for investigation. Locals said Phyoe Wai, the 22-year-old shop owner ran away.
Residents said the street was blocked until Saturday morning and some houses in Set San Ward were searched by troops.
On Saturday some residents from the ward were arrested, but the exact number is not yet known, a resident told RFA.
A recent blast in the area was caused by a bomb being tested in a school by members of the Pyu Saw Htee, a pro-government militia, but a leader of the local Dark Shadow anti-junta group, Chan Nyein Thu, said some of the young men who died in this blast may have been helping anti-government forces.
“I knew one of the young men in the group and in the past he had asked for mine-making materials so he seems to have been helping out. Some people said he was a Phu [a member of Pyu Saw Htee] when his picture appeared online. I posted it back on my account saying he is not Pyu, but UG,” he said.
“I have tested [a mine] and it accidentally exploded. If a mine explodes while being tested, only two things can happen, losing your life or being arrested,”, the Dark Shadow leader told RFA.
On April 27, junta troops arrested and shot at 14 young members of Dark Shadow in Kyimyindaing, killing one man.
Civil Disobedience Movement member, Capt. Lin Htet Aung said most anti-government protesters who make mines do not have adequate equipment.
“UG are hiding and carrying out their moves and have to set the mines in rooms,” he said. “If they have to plant a mine, the ammunition is inside and there are models of how to put it in a mine. But they only use materials available in their neighborhoods so there are accidental blasts and some mines can’t be touched when they are activated. Some mines also need to be deactivated. In other words, inadequate materials in production have become dangerous for them.”
RFA has not been able to verify whether any of the six youths was UG or whether they were planting a mine.
RFA News
UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY: WITHDRAW THE MANDATE OF THE UN SPECIAL ENVOY
/in Member statements, Press Releases and StatementsUN General Assembly: Withdraw the mandate of the UN Special Envoy
CSOs condemn the UN Special Envoy’s meeting with war criminal Min Aung Hlaing
We, the 864 undersigned organizations, call on the UN General Assembly to withdraw the mandate of the Special Envoy on Myanmar. We also call on the UN Secretary-General to show his serious commitment to resolving the devastating human rights and humanitarian crises in Myanmar by assuming a personal role on Myanmar and taking decisive action.
The first visit of the current UN Special Envoy (UNSE) to Myanmar, Noeleen Heyzer, which took place from 16 to 17 August 2022 was the latest evidence of the historical ineffectualness of the mandate over a decades-long approach that has continually failed. The UN must immediately end its business-as-usual approach towards Myanmar. The long history of the UN’s attempts at peace-brokering with Myanmar’s military through Special Envoys has never catalyzed into meaningful results, but has instead lent legitimacy to perpetrators of international atrocity crimes — and has permitted worsening human rights and humanitarian crises.
The current wait-and-see approach of the UNSE, and by extension the UN, towards the junta has not yielded results — as has been repeatedly proven for decades. On the contrary, these “visits” and “dialogues” have emboldened the military — and the current illegal junta — to continue to commit escalating atrocity crimes against the people. It also undermines the united struggle of the people of Myanmar, thereby violating the UN’s own ‘do no harm’ approach.
We call on the UN General Assembly (UNGA) and UN Member States to end the mandate of the UNSE at the upcoming session in September 2022. Additionally, the UNGA must formulate concrete actions which centered on accountability, and which reflect the will and demands of the people of Myanmar.
CSOs have previously rejected the current UNSE’s proposal of power-sharing settlements as a solution to the political, human rights and humanitarian crises inflicted on the whole country by the terrorist junta. We are dismayed that the UNSE failed to take into account key recommendations put forward by CSOs during their February and April 2022 meetings, which were reflective of Myanmar people’s aspirations for a genuine federal democracy free of the military.
During these meetings, CSOs also called for the UNSE’s mandate to be “transformed and updated to focus on accountability and transitional justice,” as its current formulation is vague and inadequate to address the present Myanmar crisis. The current UNSE’s mandate resulted from the 72nd session of the UNGA in 2017 to address the Rohingya crisis. Thus, it does not reflect the magnitude or complexity of the current crises. The UNSE has failed to acknowledge or act on this key recommendation, rendering the mandate ineffectual.
CSOs also emphasized their concerns that the UNSE’s proposed trips to Naypyidaw to meet with the junta’s leadership could be manipulated by the junta in its efforts to gain legitimacy from the international community. Such visits could give the appearance of recognition and acceptance by the UN and, by extension, the international community. We note that CSOs were not consulted prior to the UNSE’s recent trip.
As CSOs warned and expected, on 17 August the military junta showcased its meeting with the UNSE as an official meeting with the “current Myanmar government” with photos of the UNSE shaking hands with junta leader Min Aung Hlaing. The UN must now repair the considerable damage it incurred by allowing the UNSE to be exploited for junta propaganda.
We are also deeply disappointed to note the absence of a reference to the National Unity Government (NUG) – the legitimate government of Myanmar – in the UNSE’s statement after the meeting, despite pledging an inclusive process with all stakeholders to resolve the ongoing crisis. We are also alarmed by the timing of her meeting with the junta, which followed the extrajudicial executions of four political prisoners in July and the sentencing of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to six more years in prison merely two days before her visit. The UNSE’s visit not only suggests that the UN is prepared to let these crimes go unabated and unpunished, but that it will maintain its ‘wait-and-see’ approach, freeing the junta to continue its relentless terror campaign and atrocity crimes against the people of Myanmar.
The UNSE further failed to secure meetings with State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and other arbitrarily detained parliamentarians elected in the November 2020 general elections while in-country. At the same time, it is of grave concern that the UNSE has repeatedly failed to acknowledge the root cause of the current crisis: the military junta’s failed power grab and its horrific international crimes meted out in frustration since — acts that the UN itself has found to comprise of probable war crimes and crimes against humanity. We note that the failed coup attempt and the ongoing airstrikes and heavy military attacks against civilians, among other critical matters, were not mentioned in the UNSE’s statement. Given the UNSE’s engagement with CSOs, who provided updates on the ground situation and clear recommendations, these intentional omissions undermine the important work of other UN mandate holders including the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, each of whom has also referred to the NUG in their reporting.
We also note that the UNSE left out mention of the NUG in relation to humanitarian aid provision. We consider this intentional given that the humanitarian forum mentioned in the UNSE’s statement was proposed by the NUG together with some Ethnic Revolutionary Organizations (EROs). This exclusion was both unethical and an appeasement to the junta; furthermore, it breaches the humanitarian principle of impartiality.
The junta continues to weaponize humanitarian aid by blocking the delivery of humanitarian assistance and by attacking humanitarian actors. These acts amount to war crimes and violations of the Geneva Conventions. We again press that channeling humanitarian assistance through the junta will support their corrupt agenda, fuel the further weaponization of aid, and cause irreparable harm to the people of Myanmar. CSOs have urged the UNSE to push for effective aid delivery – taking a solidarity-based approach with the people – particularly through cross-border channels with local humanitarian groups. Such calls must be heeded.
The junta is a terrorist organization under Myanmar’s domestic law and by international definition. The UN must exercise its mandate provided by the UN Charter to protect the people of Myanmar from the junta’s escalating violence. It must also work directly with the NUG as the legitimate government, the National Unity Consultative Council, EROs and CSOs to meaningfully and immediately address and resolve the catastrophic crisis in Myanmar, while disengaging from the junta. As the people of Myanmar asked in protests staged during the UNSE’s visit: “How many dead bodies UN need to take action?”
We reiterate the call for justice and accountability. The military junta, responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, must be held criminally liable, not rewarded with recognition or engagement.
The UNGA must withdraw the mandate of the Special Envoy. In its place, the UN Secretary-General must take personal leadership on Myanmar for the sake of the people, and to repair the UN’s own reputation and standing. At the same time, the UN Security Council must refer the situation in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court or establish an ad hoc tribunal to secure accountability.
For more information, please contact:
Signed by 864 organizations, including 320 groups who have chosen not to disclose their names:
***We have received overwhelming support for the letter. Below are list of additional organizations that have signed-on to the letter after its sent
Burmese version.
Download PDF in English I Burmese.
As junta squeezes courts, Myanmar’s lawyers are forced to face their worst fears
/in NewsEven as they face threats to their own safety and freedom, some lawyers remain committed to representing political prisoners
Mei Aye, a lawyer who visits Yangon’s Insein Prison at least twice a week for court appearances, has a ritual that she follows on the days that she has to pass through the gates of Myanmar’s most notorious detention centre.
The first thing she does is tell someone she trusts about her unfinished business. And then she makes a point of saying goodbye to all her loved ones, mindful of the fact that she might not see them again for a very long time.
She says she does this as a way of dealing with the crippling anxiety she often feels about the perils of her job defending political prisoners. This is because she knows all too well how easily she, too, could end up behind bars.
“I have to do these things in case I don’t get to come home from work one day. I never know when I will be taken away to an interrogation centre,” she explains.
As a defence attorney with 10 years of experience, Mei Aye is no stranger to prisons, which she says hold no real terror for her. But interrogation centres are another matter—she has seen too many of her clients after they have emerged from them not to live in fear of what happens behind their closed doors.
Many are badly bruised or scarred, she says, and some even have open wounds that testify to the brutality of the regime’s techniques for extracting information.
“I’m not a doctor, so I can’t really say how serious their injuries were. But I could see that they had been really severely beaten. And I am afraid of having to face the same fate,” she says.
Currently working on 28 political cases, Mei Aye deals with clients facing charges that range from incitement to terrorism and possession of explosive devices. In the eyes of Myanmar’s military, that makes her an object of suspicion, too.
She says her anxiety lifts only after the court hearings have begun. But as soon as they end and she starts preparing to leave the prison, the feeling of dread returns. And it stays with her for at least the next two days, filling her mind with vivid images of what might await her.
“I keep seeing the same scene over and over again: soldiers kicking the door open, rushing in, and torturing me in my own home. I sometimes find myself wondering how many blows I would be able to take,” she says of her state of mind during these periods.
But there is nothing irrational about these fears. While there is no official count, members of Myanmar’s legal community say that at least 20 lawyers have been detained since last year’s coup to face charges related to those of their clients.
‘Worse than ever’
Since seizing power in February 2021, the military regime headed by Min Aung Hlaing has taken over all three branches of government—executive, legislative, and judicial. Under its rule, the independence of judges has ceased to exist.
In February, a year after the military takeover, the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) reported on the total collapse of Myanmar’s courts as instruments of justice. Among the issues it addressed were the treatment of lawyers—especially those representing political dissidents.
“Lawyers are often threatened in front of judges and are actually arrested in courtrooms for asking witnesses questions about torture and ill-treatment their clients have experienced or for requesting fair trials,” the report said.
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Lawyers join an anti-coup demonstration in Yangon on February 8, 2021 (Myanmar Now)
According to a retired judge who served under Myanmar’s previous military regimes, the situation now is worse than it has ever been. While the courts have never been free or fair under military rule, it was never normal in the past for lawyers and judges to face such persecution, he said.
One major constraint facing lawyers involved in political cases is that the charges against their clients are usually laid by members of the police force. This puts lawyers at risk of provoking people who have the power to arrest them.
“Lawyers can’t avoid questioning the plaintiffs, who are usually police in these cases, if they are going to defend their clients’ rights. The police don’t like that, so they often pressure and threaten to arrest those lawyers,” said the former judge.
Some of the lawyers now behind bars represented high-profile figures from the ousted National League for Democracy (NLD) government, as well as prominent dissidents.
This includes Ywet Nu Aung, a Mandalay-based lawyer who was arrested in April following a hearing for Dr. Zaw Myint Maung, the deposed chief minister of Mandalay Region. Now being held at Obo Prison, where she was first taken into custody, she faces a life sentence on terrorism charges.
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Ywet Nu Aung is seen in front of the Dakhina District Courthouse in Naypyitaw in 2019 (Myanmar Now)
In June, three more lawyers were arrested in Monywa, including Moe Zaw Tun, the defence attorney for Myint Naing, a member of the NLD’s central executive committee who served as Sagaing Region’s chief minister until his arrest just days after the military takeover. Moe Zaw Tun also represented Wai Moe Naing, a Monywa-based protest leader detained since last April after being hit during a protest by a vehicle driven by regime forces.
Tin Win Aung, another lawyer who defended Wai Moe Naing, was arrested at Obo Prison on June 29 along with two other Mandalay-based lawyers. During his interrogation, he suffered multiple injuries, including a broken arm, according to sources close to the victim.
No one else to turn to
With so many reports of lawyers being locked up, it is little wonder that some avoid prison courts altogether, while others have gone into hiding. And this has had the desired effect of further isolating critics of the regime.
“They think they can hold onto authority if they can cut off all support for protesters who have become political prisoners,” said Mei Aye.
It is for this reason alone that Mei Aye refuses to stop her work, which she knows perfectly well is not likely to achieve any meaningful justice as long as the junta remains in power.
Since moving to Yangon in 2018, she has worked as a legal advisor for various organisations and offered her services free of charge to individuals arrested for political offences. Many of her clients have had no one else to turn to.
Mei Aye vividly recalls one case in particular. She said she received a call at around 11pm one night several months after the coup. At the other end was a panic-stricken woman whose first words were, “Please help my son. He’s been taken by the military.”
At the time, there was a 10pm curfew in place, and the woman knew that if she left her home to seek help, she would also be arrested. So she called Mei Aye, who had posted her telephone number on social media, and described what had happened just moments earlier.
“She didn’t know what else to do. She had just witnessed her son being beaten and dragged away. Lawyers don’t usually get emotional in front of clients, but I cried. I couldn’t stop my tears, because we both felt the same helplessness,” she said.
The next morning, the woman called again. She asked Mei Aye to come to the South Okkalapa police station, where her son was being held along with seven other youths.
When she reached the police station, Mei Aye saw a group of exhausted-looking mothers who had been forced to stand for hours as they repeatedly asked the officers on duty for permission to see their detained children.
In the end, their persistent requests were denied, and even Mei Aye was not allowed to see the prisoners she had agreed to represent. However, she was told that she could send them food and clothing, which made their mothers immensely happy, as it indicated that, if nothing else, their sons were still alive.
Another reason lawyers have been in the crosshairs of the regime is that they have often served as the only means for prisoners to communicate with the outside world.
This is why Khin Maung Zaw, the lawyer who leads the legal team defending a number of Myanmar’s ousted civilian leaders, including President Win Myint and State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, has been ordered not to speak to the media.
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Lawyer Khin Maung Zaw (Myanmar Now)
Even lawyers who are not under gag orders know that they are at risk if they convey messages from their clients, as they can also be charged with “incitement through spreading false news” if they disclose information about the treatment of prisoners or any other information the regime wants to conceal.
Verdicts ‘from above’
Since the coup, most political cases have been tried in “special courts” set up inside prisons. These makeshift “courtrooms” typically consist of curtained-off spaces in large halls or other prison buildings, usually about 10”x10” in area and with little more than a table and two or three chairs for furniture.
With thousands of trials to conduct against its opponents, the regime has also reduced the role of the people involved in its legal proceedings to the bare basics. Lawyers are allowed to attend hearings only to maintain the pretence of due process.
Judges play an even more perfunctory part in the junta’s sham justice system. They never intervene when prison officials or intelligence officers eavesdrop on conversations between lawyers and their clients, and they invariably pass judgments that are predetermined and “directed from above.”
Lawyers say that judges simply read out verdicts that arrive in sealed envelopes, eliminating the need to actually adjudicate in cases that rarely have any merit to begin with.
“Some judges like living under a dictatorship. They can just do as they please. They no longer feel any need to examine cases,” said one lawyer who has taken part in several post-coup trials.
The treatment of prisoners is also routinely ignored by judges. According to Mei Aye, many of her clients have appeared at hearings covered in cuts and bruises after brutal interrogation sessions, but judges simply turned a blind eye to this obvious evidence of abuse.
“I would submit a request for the judge to acknowledge and record the injuries of the defendants inflicted by the authorities, but they would never respond to those requests. Some judges even told me to stop bringing it up,” she said.
But as bad as Myanmar’s ordinary courts have become, they are still not as arbitrary or oppressive as the military tribunals that handle cases in areas that have been placed under martial law.
These tribunals have been empowered to preside over cases involving alleged violations of 23 separate provisions of the Penal Code. The proceedings are heavily guarded by junta troops, but the accused lack even the most basic legal protections. All cases are handled by military lawyers and military judges, who decide on the fate of defendants who are denied any say in their own defence.
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An anti-coup protest is seen in Yangon on February 8, 2021 (Myanmar Now)
It is under such circumstances that a total of 119 dissidents have been sentenced to death over the past year, including 42 in absentia. Among them were 88 Generation leader Ko Jimmy, former MP Phyo Zeyar Thaw, and anti-coup activists Aung Thura Zaw and Hla Myo Aung, who last month became the first prisoners to be executed in Myanmar in more than three decades.
To boycott or not
Given the regime’s total control over the justice system, some believe that lawyers should simply refuse to have anything to do with it.
“They should boycott a system that lies to the international community and oppresses civilians,” said Kyi Myint, a legal expert who is also a well-known political analyst.
Others, however, argue that not much should be expected of lawyers and others who work in the country’s courts, as they have long operated in a climate of fear that has effectively stripped them of any ability to act independently.
“The person who is most responsible for addressing this situation is the one at the top. As long as he continues to submit to the rulers’ will, this problem will not go away,” said the retired judge who spoke to Myanmar Now about the worsening position of legal practitioners under the current regime, referring to chief justice Tun Tun Oo, who also served under the ousted civilian administration.
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An anti-coup protest is seen in Yangon on February 8, 2021 (Myanmar Now)
For Mei Aye, however, fear has not been the determining factor in her career, as much as it has affected her life. What matters most, she said, is how she can best serve her clients—and through them, her country.
With regard to the latter, she said that she supports the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), which she sees as a highly effective means of denying the junta legitimacy and any real hold on power. But she hasn’t joined the movement herself, she said, because she feels that in her case, it would be taking the easy way out.
As a lawyer who mostly handles pro bono cases for political prisoners, she would personally not have much to lose by giving up her job, unlike many others who have joined the CDM. The real losers, she said, would be those in need of any support they can get after sacrificing their own freedom for the future of Myanmar.
“I don’t take on cases because I have any faith in this country’s judiciary. I do it because I need to check on my clients and keep a record of what is being done to them,” she said.
Myanmar Now News
UN human rights chief advises Rohingya to wait for repatriation
/in NewsRefugees who met with Michelle Bachelet in southeastern Bangladesh said she told them Myanmar was unstable.
UPDATED at 7:50 p.m. EDT on 8-16-22
U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet advised Rohingya to wait for repatriation because the present situation in Myanmar’s Rakhine state is not stable, according to refugees who met with her at camps in southeastern Bangladesh on Tuesday.
Bachelet spent the day holding separate talks with Rohingya leaders, women, youth and religious representatives in camps along the border with Myanmar, as part of the first-ever visit to Bangladesh by a United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Bachelet will be finishing her job in that role when her term expires on Aug. 31.
Reporters were not allowed into Bachelet’s meetings with the Rohingya.
Amena Khatun, one of nine Rohingya women who participated in one of the meetings, said they discussed gender-based violence.
“The High Commissioner asked us why we came here. In reply, we said we came here to save our lives from torture. We want to return to our homeland if we can have citizenship,” Khatun told BenarNews.
Kamrun Nesa, another participant in the women’s meeting, said she and others called for compensation for a crackdown by Myanmar’s military against Rohingya Muslims that forced nearly 750,000 members of the stateless minority group to flee across the border and seek shelter, starting in August 2017.
The sprawling Rohingya camps and settlements in Cox’s Bazar house about 1 million refugees from Rakhine state.
“Expressing my will to return to my Rakhine home, I said to the High Commissioner that I took shelter in Bangladesh five times [while] fleeing from Myanmar. Bangladesh has given us shelter on its land, but we are living here as prisoners,” Nesa told BenarNews, referring to a Bangladeshi government policy that prohibits Rohingya from venturing outside the confines of the camps.
“In reply, Bachelet said the situation in Rakhine is not stable now, so until the situation is normal, sending us there will not be wise,” she said, adding Bachelet told her that the United Nations would have a role in supervising repatriation.
Bachelet did not immediately release a statement after her four-hour visit to Cox’s Bazar district.
Since she landed in Dhaka on Sunday morning, she has met with the country’s foreign, law, home, and education ministers, and is scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday before holding a press conference to mark the end of her visit.
Jamil, who participated in the meeting with religious leaders in Cox’s Bazar, told BenarNews that the high commissioner asked them about stopping violence and other unethical activities in the camps.
“We replied to her that religious leaders were always advising people to keep away from bad activities,” he said.
His group also raised concerns about repatriation.
Jamil said he and others called for repatriation under Responsibility to Protect – known as R2P – an “international norm that seeks to ensure that the international community never again fails to halt the mass atrocity crimes of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.”
The concept emerged in response to mass atrocities in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, according to the Global Center for the Responsibility to Protect.
“She asked us to wait for everything,” Jamil said.
Access to education
Other Rohingya expressed worries about a lack of access to education for their children.
Hafez Khurshid, who attended the meeting of religious leaders, said law and order efforts would improve if access to education for all Rohingya boys and girls was ensured.
He said 10- to 12-year-olds do not have access to education inside the camps.
“We demanded at least religious education for them,” he said.
The future is dark for young people because of the lack of learning programs, according to Abdul Aziz, a Rohingya youth leader.
“I asked her [Bachelet] to take steps to start arranging education for Rohingya refugees under the Myanmar curriculum,” he said.
Shah Rezwan Hayat, Bangladesh’s commissioner for refugee relief and repatriation, said his delegation and U.N. officials discussed relief efforts for Rohingya along with repatriation. He did not release details about the discussions.
Low trust in junta
On Aug. 10, the Myanmar military junta in Rakhine state announced on social media that it would accept Rohingya refugees back to Bangladesh, and the state’s attorney general Hla Thein told RFA that authorities had a list of 500,000 Rohingya refugees and was set to begin accepting them back at a rate of 150 per day next month.
Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh accused the junta of acting in bad faith as it faces a trial for crimes against humanity at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
“We have questions as to whether they are doing it in good faith,” said Khin Maung, Director of the Rohingya Youth Association.
“They are doing this to deceive the international community,” he told RFA.
Ali Jaina, a Rohingya refugee from the Baluhali refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, he is ready to return if he is given full rights, including citizenship, a return to his orginal home, and compensation for lost property.
“If these conditions are met, we are ready to return. With their (current) policy, there is no reason for us to return.”
Bangladeshi Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen told BenarNews that Dhaka has not heard from Myanmar about the refugees for several months.
“I don’t know what they mean about 500,000 Rohingyas. I do not understand what they are talking about with the number, when we had already shared the names of 840,000 Rohingyas,” the minister said.
Nur Khan Liton, a prominent human rights defender, said trusting Myanmar’s claim is tough as they breached agreements several times earlier.
Although most Rohingyas want to return to their home as soon as possible with dignity, there is a high risk of sending them to Rakhine at this time when several armed groups are active there.
“You cannot put any life in danger, even while they are already vulnerable,” he said.
RFA News
KNU says more than 150,000 displaced in its territory
/in NewsFigures released by the group suggest that Myanmar’s post-coup humanitarian crisis is rapidly escalating
Recent military operations in Mon State and Bago Region have displaced more than 150,000 people, according to a statement released by the Karen National Union (KNU) on Sunday.
Heavy shelling by regime forces in Mon State’s Thaton District and Bago Region’s Nyaunglebin Township, which are under the control of KNU brigades 1 and 3, respectively, has forced a total of 154,866 civilians in these areas to flee their homes, the statement claimed.
If correct, these numbers represent a dramatic escalation of the humanitarian crisis in eastern Myanmar and other parts of the country that have seen strong resistance to last year’s coup.
According to figures released by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on July 31, the military takeover and its aftermath have produced more than 866,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) nationwide.
Combined with the number of people displaced by pre-coup conflicts, this brings the current number of IDPs in the country to more than 1.2m, according to OCHA’s estimates.
In its statement, the KNU said that there were also large numbers of IDPs in its territory in Karen (Kayin) State, especially in Mutraw (Hpapun) District and Myawaddy Township.
However, exact figures were not available, it added.
According to the Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG), the military has also been obstructing efforts to assist IDPs by preventing groups and individuals from transporting supplies to people in need.
“It’s a huge human rights violation to prevent civilians from receiving humanitarian aid. So many of the IDPs’ basic rights are being violated and they have no security at all,” said KHRG spokesperson Saw Nandar Htoo.
Local humanitarian aid organisations say that basic necessities such as food and shelter are in short supply.
It was unclear how many civilian casualties there have been from the junta’s indiscriminate shelling, but last Wednesday, there was one confirmed death in Htoe Wah Sike, a village in Nyaunglebin Township.
The victim, a 52-year-old woman named San Oo, suffered multiple injuries after a shell landed on her home, sources said. She died at the hospital later the same day.
The regime has also carried out numerous airstrikes against the KNU and its allies in the area, resulting in civilian deaths and mass displacement, local sources have reported.
Myanmar Now New
‘The smell of rotten flesh was everywhere’ – Several civilians killed in junta assault on Sagaing village
/in NewsEighteen people are found dead after a prolonged Myanmar army assault on a Yinmabin Township village involving airstrikes, a ground offensive and days of occupation
Content warning: This report contains a graphic image of human remains
The remains of 18 people, including the body of a 10-year-old girl, were found in a village in Myanmar’s heartland this week following three days of occupation by the military, according to locals and members of resistance groups active in the area.
In one of the most violent and prolonged assaults by the junta’s forces in recent days, regime troops besieged the village of Yin Paung Taing in southern Sagaing Region’s Yinmabin Township on Thursday afternoon. The attack started with the launch of airstrikes from three Mi-35 fighter jets and continued as some 60 soldiers were dropped from three helicopters to carry out a ground offensive, stationing themselves in a village monastery until Sunday morning, residents told Myanmar Now.
Locals and resistance fighters who returned to Yin Paung Taing after the troops had left initially found the bodies of 12 slain civilians, all of whom they were able to identify. As the search for casualties continued on Monday, six more people were found dead, and at the time of reporting, their identities were not confirmed.
Nine of the first 12 bodies had wounds that appeared to have been caused by light and heavy weaponry, according to a 40-year-old man who was involved in the search for his neighbours.
A burned house smoulders following the military’s three-day raid on Yin Paung Taing (Myanmar Now)
Among the victims were two children: 10-year-old Khine Khine Win and 17-year-old Thaw Bhone Naing. There were also five men between the ages of 24 and 73, and two women, aged 45 and 52. Six of the 18 people who were killed—including Khine Khine Win—had suffered burns.
Two other elderly women, both aged 85, are believed to have died of starvation as they hid in the village during the raid.
A 67-year-old man also died from respiratory issues while fleeing the junta attack, the local man who spoke to Myanmar Now said.
By the time that many of the bodies were found, they had decomposed to the point where they could not be moved and had to be cremated on-site.
“They must have been dead since August 11, so it was impossible to pick up their bodies,” the man recalled. “Even cows, dogs and horses were shot by artillery. The whole village was torn down.”
“The village felt like a cemetery and the smell of rotten flesh was everywhere,” he said.
The body of a villager killed in the military attack on Yin Paung Taing (Myanmar Now)
Ambush from above
Yin Paung Taing, which has a population of nearly 3,000, is located 10 miles south of the town of Yinmabin. The three fighter jets which launched the airstrikes on the village came from Monywa, a city around 35 miles east of Yin Paung Taing across the Chindwin River, and where the junta’s Northwestern Military Command is located.
On the day of the assault, a market fair had been taking place in the village, drawing crowds and making it difficult for those present to immediately flee the air attacks, according to one man who managed to flee to safety.
“One helicopter dropped off soldiers at the entrance of the village and the other two hovered around the village and relentlessly fired from the left and the right. Some people escaped. Some didn’t,” he said.
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A map showing the location of Yin Paung Taing in southern Sagaing Region
The man recalled that the military aircraft appeared soon after around 80 resistance fighters travelling from neighbouring Chin State had stopped at the village to rest on the afternoon of August 11. He speculated that the Myanmar army had received intel regarding the guerrilla force’s movements and that its members had likely been the target of the attack.
“The jets hovered around the place where members of that group were having lunch and they opened fire on that area, so I think someone must have informed the military that they would be here,” he explained.
He told Myanmar Now that he narrowly escaped the air assault on Thursday afternoon with his wife, teenage daughter and young son. He described how he carried the boy—a toddler—in one arm and held his wife’s hand with the other as they ran upon hearing the sound of incoming jets.
“I held up my son tightly and covered him with my body so that he would not get shot,” he said, adding that the family had no time to gather any belongings.
He left his son and wife under a tree outside the village and returned to locate his daughter and bring her to safety.
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An animal killed in the Yin Paung Taing village raid (Myanmar Now)
Those who remained trapped in Yin Paung Taing during the raid were among the community’s most vulnerable residents, including the sick and elderly, many of whom were injured in the siege and held hostage by the military.
Bala, a member of the Yinmabin-based Young Ranger Force, said that fighters from at least 10 local resistance groups—including his—tried to rescue as many civilians as possible, but were overwhelmed by the number of wounded.
“Some of the people were hit by the fragments of walls and windows that had been blasted apart by the shells dropped from the jets,” he explained. “Some had their legs broken and some were even hit right in the head with the shells. We were able to rescue some of them but we had to leave some behind out of desperation.”
He said that the members of the resistance coalition managed to guide the Chin fighters to safety before the junta troops airlifted into Yin Paung Taing had set up posts and began firing artillery into the surrounding area.
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Vehicles destroyed in the military attack on Yin Paung Taing (Myanmar Now)
On the following day, August 12, the local defence forces attacked the occupying military column, which responded with airstrikes. Resistance fighters turned their fire to the junta aircrafts hovering over the area.
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When the Myanmar army soldiers left Yin Paung Taing at around 6am on Sunday, they released the women and elderly residents who they had held captive, but took 24 men with them as hostages.
As the troops—accompanied by some 70 pro-junta militia members—headed west, a fighter jet fired at villages in their path to “clear” the area in preparation for the military column’s departure, according to members of local defence forces. Hundreds of residents reportedly fled from the communities of Pu Htoe Thar and Mon Thwin, both located along the road travelled by the junta forces.
By Tuesday, the column had arrived in the village of Chin Pyit, less than 10 miles from Yin Paung Taing and located in neighbouring Pale Township. There they torched multiple homes, according to locals.
At the time of reporting, it was not known if the hostages from Yin Paung Taing were still alive.
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A map showing township border between Yinmabin and Pale, an area that includes Yin Paung Taing and Chin Pyit
Displaced residents largely returned to Yin Paung Taing on Monday, noting that the destruction of the village was extensive, and included severe damage to the Buddhist community hall.
At least 15 motorcycles and one truck, as well as two vehicle repair garages, were also destroyed.
Yin Paung Taing was first raided in September of last year in an attack that left one civilian dead and seven beaten and tortured, according to the 40-year-old resident who recounted the most recent assault to Myanmar Now.
The military has carried out frequent aerial attacks on multiple Sagaing Region resistance strongholds, including the townships of Ayadaw, Depayin, Myinmu and Ye-U.
Bala, from the Young Ranger Force, explained that although resistance groups have often been able to fend off ground offensives by the Myanmar army, they continue to struggle when confronted with air power.
“We are not afraid to face them on the ground but we still have to flee when they launch airstrikes,” he said. “The jets flew so low while shooting at us. At least if we had anti-aircraft weapons we could fire back.”
Myanmar Now News