Myanmar

(Burma)

Unraveling Myanmar: Diversity, History, and Current Challenges

Myanmar, or better known as Burma, is a Southeast Asian nation with a vast landscape encompassing towering mountains, sprawling plains, and a lengthy coastline. With its remarkable cultural and ethnic multiplicity, Myanmar boasts a melting pot of ethnicities, including the Bamar, Shan, Karen, Rakhine, and various others. This diversity, while a defining feature of the country, has also unfortunately led to internal strife and turmoil at certain times.

The rich history of Myanmar involves ancient civilizations and kingdoms. The British colonised Myanmar in the 19th century, and the country attained independence in 1948. Despite strides towards autonomy, the nation has been plagued by military control and political turmoil. In recent years, Myanmar has faced severe backlash and global scrutiny for its treatment of the Rohingya Muslim minority. The Rohingya continue to suffer from mistreatment and violence, resulting in an alarming humanitarian crisis and widespread displacement.

Myanmar's recent history has been impacted by a multifaceted mix of political, social, and economic influences. Despite some progress, obstacles like conflicts based on ethnicity, concerns about human rights, and instability in politics persist and deeply affect the direction of the nation.

Airstrikes by military

On January 7th, 2024, in the Tamu Township of the Ka Nan Village, Sangai Region, Myanmar, two airstrikes occurred between 10:30 and 10:50, as reported by various sources. Two A-5 fighter jets deployed four explosive ordnances targeting an elementary school, a church, and residential structures.

Damage

Approximately ten residences have been damaged, along with two two-story schools and a Christian church. Furthermore, fifteen large craters have emerged as a result of the bombings, five of which are notably deep.

Denial

The attack was carried out by the military. Though the junta has denied the attacks. The military council released information regarding it’s forces activities, saying “It is learnt that there was no flight this morning, and the information that the military bombed the village was misinformation.”

Death toll

The incident resulted in the loss of 17 civilians, including 9 children. 20 individuals were severely injured, some undergoing multiple amputations. The bodies have been buried in a mass grave.

Our progress

After thorough analysis of witness testimonies, we successfully identified one of the destroyed sites and pinpointed three potential attack locations. However, the bodies of the victims remain unaccounted for at this time. Our team researching on Myanmar is currently in the progress of locating the mass grave and assessing reported damage to the surrounding terrain.

Barsalogho, Burkina Faso

Case Number

20241102KE

Case Date of Filing

02/10/2024

Case Researcher(s)

Kennan McAndrews

Summary

For generations, Myanmar has been plagued with ethnic and religious conflicts. The Rohingya, a Muslim minority, have faced discrimination for many years and have been denied citizenship since 1982, making the more than one million Rohingya that lived in Myanmar prior to 2017 the largest stateless population in the world. In August 2017, following attacks by a Rohingya militant group calling itself the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) that killed more than 70 people, the military of Myanmar cracked down on Rohingya villages. This crackdown caused hundreds of thousands of Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh amid reports of indiscriminate killings, torture, and sexual violence. Since the attacks in 2017, the ethnic violence, which is concentrated in the Rakhine state, has been called “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing” by the UN Human Rights Commissioner. Currently, Project Khthon is working to compile a comprehensive list of mass graves in Myanmar (Burma), utilizing Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) and Satellite Intelligence (SATINT) imagery to locate the areas where mass graves have been constructed since the year 2017. Early research has revealed some of the unique factors that pose challenges to locating mass graves in Myanmar. Many gravesites are constructed by hand, sometimes by victims. Because there is no mass construction, these graves are more difficult to view with satellite data. Additionally, in the case of some larger-scale killings, bodies are left to decompose in remote areas with very minimal excavation in the area. The military of Myanmar has, in several cases, attempted to cover its tracks by bulldozing gravesites and even using the areas of these gravesites for construction. Paradoxically, these attempts to hide gravesites can make the location of gravesites more obvious, because they require larger-scale construction efforts in the area of these graves.

Case Location

Rakhine state is the most western state in Myanmar, with a population of three million. It is also one of the poorest areas of the country, with a pre-COVID poverty rate of about 80 percent. Since 2017, around one million Rohingya have been forced to flee Rakhine, mainly to Bangladesh. An additional 140,000 have been forced into concentration camps in the state. Both people living in these camps and Rohingya settlements face restrictions on movement and limited access to healthcare, education, and other essential services.

Casualties

Because of the military’s efforts to cover up their crimes, it is difficult to know how many people have died in Myanmar. In August of 2023, Refugees International estimated that at least 30,000 Rohingya had been killed and more than one million forced to flee Myanmar. A 2018 report by Time Magazine reported that up to 43,700 parents of displaced children were missing and feared dead. Of the about 600,000 Rohingyas remaining in Myanmar, 140,000 are trapped in internal displacement concentration camps.

Suspected or Known Aggressors

Following several attacks by ARSA (Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army), the military of Myanmar engaged in a campaign of ethnic cleansing targeted at Rohingya Muslims living in Myanmar. Attacks on Rohingya populations were frequently supported by locals who turned on their neighbors as the violence began. The perpetrators of these attacks are supported by the government of Myanmar, which has covered up the ethnic cleansing.

Case Number

20241101KE

Case Date of Filing

01/10/2024

Suspected/Known Time of Incident

Local Time and Date: 27/08/2017 12:00 (GMT+6:30)

Case Researcher(s)

Kennan McAndrews

Summary

In August 2017, soldiers and Buddhist community members attacked Rohingya villagers in the town of Gu Dar Pyin. Refugees from the village who fled from Bangladesh reported 100s of casualties while the military reported 19 “terrorist” fatalities whom they said were “carefully buried” (Al Jazeera). As of February 2018, community leaders compiled a list of 75 known casualties, but some estimates put the number of casualties at up to 400. Through interviews with victims and witnesses who had fled to Bangladesh, The Associated Press established that the victims of the attack were buried in several mass graves. Of the graves’ location, the AP reported. “Almost every villager interviewed by the AP saw three large mass graves at Gu Dar Pyin’s northern entrance, near the main road, where witnesses say soldiers herded and killed most of the Rohingya. A handful of witnesses confirmed two other big graves near a hillside cemetery, not too far away from a school where more than 100 soldiers were stationed after the massacre. Villagers also saw other, smaller graves scattered around the village,” (AP News). Notably, the bodies were burned with acid, which is the first known case of this practice in Myanmar (AP News).

Case Location

Gu Dar Pyin.

Latitude/Longitude (WGS84): Approximate Town Coordinates:

20°45'19.9"N 92°32'40.1"E

Town/Region/Country:

Gu Dar Pyin, Rakhine, Myanmar (Burma)

Individual Incident Locations:

Mass Grave Site 1, 2, and 3-

MG-1-

A post to X that allegedly shows the coordinates of the mass grave https://x.com/nslwin/status/1199207549729460229?s=12
Post allegedly showing the disfiguration of victims with acid (this post is graphic and not necessary to understanding the location of the mass grave, but the treatment of the bodies) https://x.com/nslwin/status/959062968649551873?s=12

MG-2-

“"There were so many bodies in so many different places," said Mohammad Lalmia, 20, a farmer whose family owned a pond that became the largest of the mass graves.” (SBS News)

This mention of a grave near a pond likely refers to one of the five mass graves reported by other news sources. There are no ponds near the school or hilltop gravesite, but there are several in other locations in Gy Dar Pyin. After considering several locations and various bodies of water of varied sizes, a small pond near the Northern entrance to the town appears the most likely candidate because of its proximity to the Northern entrance, proximity to another reported mass grave, and smaller size compared to other labelled and notable bodies of water in the village.

The North entrance of the town, with the location mentioned in the X post and the pond marked.

MG-4 and MG-5-

Gu Dar Pyin School: 20°45'25.46"N 92°32'39.52"E

Hilltop: 20°45'12.11"N 92°32'34.45"E (elevation 39 feet)

The mass graves are nearby these locations, but satellite data is not clear enough to show excavation in the area.

Primary locations mentioned by eyewitnesses relating to graves four and five.

Casualties

Total Suspected/Known Number of Casualties:

19-400 (19 reported by military)

Injured:

unknown- reported injuries to children as young as three

Fatalities in Incident:

75-400 (19 reported by military)

Fatalities in Grave:

unknown

Further Casualty Information:

Age Range: children to elderly adults

Genders: Males and Females

Ethnicity/ies: Rohingya

Casualty Evidence Below:

“Buddhist villagers then moved through Gu Dar Pyin in a sort of mopping-up operation, using knives to cut the throats of the injured, survivors said, and working with soldiers to throw small children and the elderly into the fires.” (CBS News)

“Community leaders in the refugee camps have compiled a list of 75 dead so far, and villagers estimate the toll could be as high as 400, based on testimony from relatives and the bodies they’ve seen in the graves and strewn about the area. A large number of the survivors carry scars from bullet wounds, including a 3-year-old boy and his grandmother.” (AP News)

Suspected or Known Aggressors

Group/Tribe/Militia/Organisation:

Myanmar military and local Buddhist villagers

Suspected/Known Quantity of Participants:

unknown

Aggressor Evidence Below:

After an investigation that interviewed numerous survivors, AP News used eyewitness reports to confirm that both soldiers and Buddhist villagers from the surrounding area participated in the crimes.

Case Number

20241101KE

Case Date of Filing

01/10/2024

Suspected/Known Time of Incident

Local Time and Date: 27/09/2017 12:00 (GMT+6:30)

Case Researcher(s)

Kennan McAndrews

Summary

From September 1st through 2nd, 2017, 10 male Rohingya Muslim villagers in the Rakhine state of Myanmar were detained and killed in the town of Inn Din. Reuters reported that the army’s 33rd Light Infantry Division and the paramilitary 8th Security Police Battalion mobilized villagers in the town to kill, burn, and loot local Rohingya Muslims. Allegedly, an order to “clear” the village had been passed down the chain of command preceding the deaths of the Muslim villagers. Before their deaths, numerous villagers were forced to dig their grave. The villagers were then shot with assault rifles multiple times, with survivors being killed with machetes and buried alive. According to local reports, the grave was on the site of a local Buddhist monastery- presumably chosen to disrespect the Muslim victims. No reports indicate that the bodies were removed from this grave after they were buried, but it should be considered a possibility, given that the location of the burial was at a religious site different from the religion of the victims. The government later admitted to the massacre and the Washington Post later used satellite data to catalog the village burning.

Case Location

Inn Din (possibly at a local monastery)

Latitude/Longitude (WGS84):

20.513837987324223 , 92.57857571915214

Town/Region/Country:

Inn Din, Rakhine State, Myanmar (Burma)

Individual Incident Locations:

This is where the precise locations of each (known or potential) Incident are e.g.

Monastery Location: 20.513837987324223 , 92.57857571915214

Case Location Evidence Below:

Amnesty International reports that the burial site of the 10 captured Rohingya villagers was outside the village of Inn Din
According to an X account by Ro Nay San Lwin, the victims were buried at a Buddhist monastery.
Reuters published several images of the prisoners prior to their execution.
In 2018, The Washington Post used imagery from DigitalGlobe to show the locations of the burnings in Inn Din.
Google Maps located Inn Den Monastery အင်းဒင် ဘုန်းတော်ကြီးကျောင်း at (20.513837987324223, 92.57857571915214)

Images of Inn Din from the Washington Post-

the blue buildings on the bottom left of the detailed Washington Post image are consistent with those about 50 meters southeast of the monastery. Based on reports from Reuters and the Washington Post about the burning of the Muslim areas of Inn Din, we can extrapolate that this monastery is located very close to the Rohingya settlements. Additionally, the monastery is surrounded by fields, which is consistent with the pictures of the prisoners.