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
- 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
- Over 67 killed by airstrikes in Arakan State since Sunday; ICRC requests humanitarian access during visit to Naypyidaw
- Myanmar junta airstrikes kill dozens, including prisoners, rebels say
Renewed fighting drives 50,000 people from homes in northern Myanmar
/in NewsAn aid worker says that at least 15 residents near Lashio have been killed from artillery fire since July 3.
Some 50,000 people have fled their homes over the last five days amid renewed fighting around Lashio, the capital of northern Shan state, residents and relief workers told Radio Free Asia.
At least 15 civilians have been killed since July 3, when forces allied with the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDA, began an offensive in the township around Lashio, which is home to the military junta’s Northeastern Military Command’s headquarters.
Battles have since taken place in Nam Tong, Man Hawng, Nam Ma Baw Da and Nawng Mun villages.
Most of the deaths happened in one area of Lashio township that was struck by artillery fire during the first day of fighting, an aid worker who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons told Radio Free Asia. Several other residential areas have since been hit by artillery attacks.
“The artillery fire occurs frequently until now,” the aid worker said. “The residents have fled their homes in these areas.”
A heavy artillery shell that was dropped on another neighborhood on Sunday injured three Buddhist novices and two civilians, he said.
Residents of Lashio township have been heading south toward the city of Taunggyi, the capital of Shan state that is about 340 km (210 miles) away, one resident told RFA. Others aimed to look for shelter in the Mandalay region or in the commercial capital of Yangon, he said.
Lashio sits at the junction of a highway that connects mainland Myanmar to the Chinese border to the north.
Fighting between Lashio-based junta soldiers and insurgents resumedon June 25 after the collapse of a ceasefire brokered by Chinese officials in a series of meetings that began in January.
The Ta’ang National Liberation Army, an ally of the MNDAA, announced the capture of 26 junta camps in the days following the end of the ceasefire.
The TNLA and other resistance forces in Mandalay have been attacking junta outposts in four townships in northern Shan state and Mandalay region.
RFA tried to contact MNDAA spokesperson Li Kya Win and the junta’s spokesperson for Shan state, Khun Thein Maung, for more details on the fighting, but neither of them answered the phone.
RFA News
Human Rights Situation weekly update (June 22 to 30, 2024)
/in HR SituationHuman Rights Violations took place in States and Regions from June 22 to 30, 2024
Military Junta Troop launched airstrikes and dropped bombs in Sagaing Region, Mandalay Region, Tanintharyi Region, Rakhine State, and Shan State from June 22nd to 30th. When the Military Junta used drones and dropped bombs in Sagaing Region, Bago Region, and Shan State, a group of civilians died. The political prisoners from Insein Prison, Yangon Region, were relocated to Kyiaksagaw Prison, Bago Region. After the Military was forced to sell the rice at a set price, they arrested the rice merchants and factory owners within a week.
Over 80 civilians died, and almost 60 were injured by the Military’s heavy and light artillery attacks within a week. A civilian was injured by the landmine of the Military Junta Troop.
Infogram
Fleeing fighting in Rakhine, Rohingya pay to be smuggled to Bangladesh
/in NewsAuthorities, recently arrived refugees say clashes between Myanmar junta, rebels drove them across the border.
Rohingya are being brought into southeastern Bangladesh by smugglers as fighting between ethnic rebel groups and junta-aligned forces worsens next-door in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, said officials and border crossers interviewed by BenarNews.
Smugglers are targeting members of the stateless Rohingya Muslim minority who are trying to flee clashes between Myanmar’s junta and the Arakan Army, one of the most prominent militias, according to interviews with authorities and Rohingya who recently arrived at a refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar district.
Police said they had tightened security at the border, but conceded that more people had been crossing over from Myanmar in recent weeks.
“As the sound of explosions continued on the Myanmar side, I learned that a part of the Rohingyas are staying in different places on the bank of the Naf river on Myanmar’s side,” Teknaf Municipality Panel Mayor Mujibur Rahman told BenarNews.
Mohammad Yusuf, a Rohingya who recently traveled to Bangladesh from the Buthidaung area of Rakhine, said he stayed in the mountains for 40 days where he survived by eating leaves.
“There were 13 members of my family. But suddenly one day, a bomb exploded in my village, and then everyone ran away to save their lives. It is not known where the rest have gone,” he told BenarNews. “We, two brothers together, walked for three days in the hilly area and swam across the river. We were accompanied by seven other people from other villages on the journey.”
While Yusuf’s group traveled to Bangladesh, he said others worked with brokers to go to Indonesia or Malaysia.
“Families who have money are mainly trying to send young people [away from Myanmar] as youths become targets of both the Arakan Army and Myanmar military,” he said.
Authorities said smugglers – known as “brokers” locally – are active on both sides of the Naf, which marks the border between southeastern Bangladesh and northwestern Myanmar.
The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, said over 70,000 Rohingya were trapped in Rakhine as fighting rages.
Community leaders said brokers were collecting money from Rohingya to leave Myanmar, but did not release any details about recent crossings.
Mohammad Amir Zafar, who commands an Armed Police Battalion (APBn) in Bangladesh, said Rohingya who have been forced from their homes are willing to pay to get across the border.
“The brokers who are involved in this work will be brought to justice,” he told BenarNews.
Along with the APBn, members of the Bangladesh Coast Guard and Border Guard Bangladesh are stationed near the border to prevent infiltration.
Route to safety
Many Rohingya walked from their homes in Rakhine state to the Naf river, where brokers sat in boats waiting to collect fees to carry them across the river.
Mohammad Saje, who entered Bangladesh on June 28 ago and took shelter at a camp with a relative, said he and 12 others crossed the river during heavy rain.
“My home is at Buthidaung. Everything has been destroyed in the war there. My father was killed by a mortar shell attack,” he told BenarNews, adding that the Arakan Army entered his village and ordered everyone leave within an hour.
“After that, we left the area with some food. Sixty youths were caught by the Arakan Army – I don’t know what happened to them, adding, “I saw with my own eyes the scene of the killing of many young men on the way.”
Arriving near the river in Maungdaw, he and others took shelter for three days before paying 400,000 kyat (U.S. $190) each for a ride across the river.
Refugee camps in and around Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, seen as safe locations, are home to about 1 million Rohingya, including over 740,000 who have fled from Myanmar since a military crackdown in August 2017.
Not all who flee from Myanmar are safe. On June 22, a Rohingya identified as Md. Anwar lost a leg in a land-mine explosion along the border as he tried to cross over from the Myanmar side.
On Tuesday, a Rohingya was killed in a mine blast near the border after crossing into Bangladesh, officials said.
Cox’s Bazar police station officer-in-charge Saiful Islam said the man, identified as Mohammad Ayash and who was between the ages of 22 and 25, undertook the border crossing during heavy rain.
“He was brought to Cox’s Bazar Sadar Hospital with injuries around 3 p.m. But the duty doctor said that he died before he was brought to the hospital,” Saiful Islam said.
RFA News
No return home: Those who no chance to go back home from behind bars
/in NewsOver the past three years of this Spring Revolution, activists and civilians across the country have been arbitrarily arrested by junta in relation to the revolution, on a widespread and systematics scale. The junta has been detaining individuals in police station, interrogation centers, and prison under their control, torturing them physically, mentally, and sexually in various brutal ways.
The junta continues and conduct interrogation using brutal measures with no consideration for human dignity and without taking accountability for the subsequent injuries and deaths. From February 2021 to June 2024, a total of (1,853) people were kill after being arrested and detained under various circumstances across the country.
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP)
UN SECURITY COUNCIL MUST TAKE IMMEDIATE INTERVENTION TO COORDINATE PROTECTION OF ROHINGYA AND OTHER ETHNIC MINORITIES IN MYANMAR
/in Member statements, Press Releases and Statements, ResourcesTo: Members of the UN Security Council
Copy: Members of the UN Human Rights Council
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar
27 June 2024
Re: UN Security Council must take immediate intervention to coordinate protection of Rohingya and other ethnic minorities in Myanmar
Your Excellencies,
We, 89 Myanmar, regional, and international civil society organizations, strongly urge the UN Security Council (UNSC) to immediately convene an emergency meeting and coordinate an intervention to halt surging violence and atrocities, and protect Rohingya and other ethnic minorities in Rakhine State and across Myanmar. We call on the UNSC to urgently adopt a binding resolution with targeted economic sanctions, an arms and aviation fuel embargo against the junta, and a referral of the crisis in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court (ICC) or a creation of a criminal tribunal.
In recent months, the Myanmar military junta’s war of terror against Myanmar people and its fighting with the Arakan Army (AA) have resulted in horrendous human rights violations and international crimes in Rakhine State. Across the country civilian populations from Rohingya, Rakhine, Kaman, Chin, Mro, and other ethnic communities are suffering the constant reality of the junta’s war crimes and crimes against humanity, including airstrikes, artillery shelling, and massacres, with no end in sight. As the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights reported to the Human Rights Council on 18 June, “The military has lost control over a considerable amount of territory, so it is resorting to increasingly extreme measures.”
Reports indicate that, on 17 May, Rohingya homes have been targeted, looted, and torched, and four Rohingya civilians were beheaded by AA troops in Buthidaung Township, Rakhine State. Over 200,000 Rohingya civilians in Buthidaung Township—home to Rohingya survivors from 2017 genocide—have been forcbily displaced in consequence of the AA’s arson attacks, abductions, enforced disappearance, and other serious human rights abuses, as well as its intense fighting with the military junta. Amidst reports of blocked roads and extortion by AA soldiers, Rohingya have been displaced in open fields with no access to medicine, clean water, and adequate food. Many have lost direct contact with their families due to telecommunication blackouts imposed by the junta, and some have had their phones taken away by AA soldiers, leaving their families in the dark about their fates.
Atrocities against the Rakhine ethnic group by the Myanmar military junta are also pervasive. On 29 May, the junta brutally tortured and massacred at least 76 men, with knives, gunfire and beatings, and burned most of their bodies to destroy the evidence, during a raid of Byine Phyu Village, Sittwe Township, Rakhine State. Junta soldiers abducted hundreds of villagers, and held women and children captive, denying them food and water and raping them. Over 80 homes and a monastery were burned down. On 4 June, the junta launched a coordinated ground, air, and naval attack on Singaung Village in Thandwe Township, Rakhine State, killing dozens of people. Extreme violence and atrocities are set to continue in Rakhine State as the junta and the AA ordered civilians to evacuate their villages before latest clashes between them.
Since February, the junta has further systematically arrested, abducted, and enlisted by force ethnic youth from Rakhine State and refugee camps in Bangladesh to serve as frontline fighters, human shields, human minesweepers, and porters—including forcing them on frontlines to die. Hundreds of Rakhine youth have been arrested, held incommunicado, and forced to join the Myanmar military. Alongside them, thousands of Rohingya in villages and internment camps in Rakhine State have reportedly been forcibly enlisted or persuaded with offers of potential freedom of movement, money, rice, or national ID cards, to “fight for [their] faith”, or threatened with a humanitarian aid block. On the Bangladesh border, vulnerable Rohingya refugees have been kidnapped from camps and forced into the Myanmar military to fight the AA. Abductions were perpetrated by Rohingya militia groups—the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, the Rohingya Solidarity Organization, and the Arakan Rohingya Army—groups reportedly partnering with the junta and denounced by Rohingya civil society and activists as unrepresentative of their community. Rohingya youth are being relentlessly forcibly recruited by the Myanmar military, the perpetrators of genocide against them.
In particular, the junta’s instigation of anti-AA protests and coercion of Rohingya recruits to participate in burning down Rakhine homes compound the plight of the Rohingya community. The acute vulnerability of the Rohingya continues to be systematically exploited by the Myanmar military and other armed groups to exacerbate inter-ethnic and religious conflict between the Rakhine and Rohingya communities, two major ethnic minorities in Rakhine State.
In addition, during times of heightened tension, hate speech against the Rohingya—including the use of terms such as “Bengali terrorists” and “Muslim terrorists”—and the portrayal of all Rohingya as collaborators of the junta have been rampant in statements by organizations, media, and individuals. Such sweeping descriptions of an entire ethnic group and their most predominant religion exacerbate ethno-religious conflict, and escalate public hatred against a severely persecuted ethnic minority of Myanmar.
Excellencies, the international community bears responsibility for the continuation of mass atrocities—massacres, torture, airstrikes, artillery shelling, sexual violence and other gross international crimes—against the Rohingya and other ethnic minorities by the military junta, the main perpetrator, in Rakhine State and across Myanmar. After nearly one and a half years since the UNSC’s adoption of Resolution 2669, the junta has continued to massacre civilians. In the first four months of 2024 alone, the junta committed 46 massacres, killing 369 people. Furthermore, despite the UN Human Rights Council’s resolution calling on all states to refrain from the export, sale, or transfer of aviation fuel to Myanmar, UN Member States continue to supply the junta with aviation fuel, enabling them to carry out more airstrikes and other aerial attacks across Myanmar, exacerbating immense human suffering and mass displacement during the grave humanitarian crisis.
To uphold its mandate for international peace and security, the UNSC must convene an emergency meeting and coordinate an immediate intervention to protect civilians and stop the horrific violence against the Rohingya and ethnic minorities in Rakhine State and across Myanmar. Once again, we call on the UNSC to urgently adopt a new resolution under Chapter VII of the UN Charter that imposes targeted economic sanctions and a comprehensive arms embargo against the junta, including a complete ban on all sales, transfers, and diversions of aviation fuel to Myanmar. This resolution must also refer the crisis in Myanmar to the ICC or create a criminal tribunal on Myanmar without delay.
Rohingya, Rakhine, and other ethnic minorities in Rakhine State and across Myanmar will continue to suffer unless and until ongoing crimes are halted by the UNSC’s immediate intervention.
For more information, please contact:
Signed by 89 civil society organizations, including eight organizations that have chosen not to disclose their names due to the junta’s continued violence in Myanmar.
Download PDF in English I Burmese
In rare backtrack, junta says it will investigate senior monk’s shooting death
/in NewsThe military first blamed Sayadaw Bhaddanta Munindabhivamsa’s death on anti-junta rebels
Myanmar’s military junta announced Friday that it would investigate the shooting death of a senior Buddhist monk, just one day after junta-controlled media denied responsibility.
Sayadaw Bhaddanta Munindabhivamsa, the abbot of Win Neinmitayon Monastery in the Bago region, was shot dead Wednesday in his car as it left an airport in the central Mandalay region.
Television broadcaster MRTV announced initially that the abbot’s car was caught in a firefight between junta troops and guerillas from the rebel People’s Defense Forces, a grassroots militia formed by citizens opposed to military rule.
But another monk who was in the car with him said the attack on the car was carried out by junta soldiers.
On Friday, the junta’s chief minister for the Bago region visited the monks of the Win Neinmitayon Monastery and admitted that the military had published incorrect information.
The junta later announced that it would re-examine the incident and respond accordingly.
Related Story
Senior Myanmar monk shot dead by junta soldiers, colleague says
Dhammaduta Buddhist University and the Patriotic Myanmar Monks Union in Yangon released a statement Thursday expressing their condolences over the death of Sayadaw Bhaddanta Munindabhivamsa.
The Samgha Samagga, a monk’s association in Mandalay, also released a statement condemning the shooting, labeling the incident as terrorism.
At the time of his death, Sayadaw Bhaddanta Munindabhivamsa was 77 years old and had been a monk for 57 years. He also held many advanced Buddhist literature degrees.
RFA News