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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.

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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.

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