Mizzima
Since January 2024, the junta and the Arakan Army (AA) have steadily increased targeted attacks on and hate speech against Rohingya in Rakhine (Arakan) State, according to a statement by ALTSEAN-Burma and the Rohingya Maiyafuinor Collaborative Network (RMCN).
It said that in May, the risks faced by Rohingya both in Cox’s Bazar camps and in Rakhine State reached their highest levels since conflict restarted in Rakhine, in Nov 2023.
According to the statement, this escalation has taken place against a background of the junta’s persistent surveillance, arbitrary detention, and restrictions on mobility of Rohingya throughout Rakhine which have already left hundreds of thousands of Rohingya extremely vulnerable and disproportionately impacted the safety of women and girls.
As fighting spread to the population centers of the majority-Rohingya Maungdaw District in May, Rohingya civilians throughout the state faced mass expulsion, forced conscription, murder, abduction, village torching, and a growing risk of starvation.
Those in Bangladesh camps were also targeted with extrajudicial killings and abduction by armed groups, with abductees reportedly taken to Myanmar.
The significant impact of junta repression on Rohingya women and girls means that they will likely bear the brunt of the recent wave of atrocity crimes, according to the statement.
HRW reported, during January-February 2024, clashes between the AA and junta in Rohingya-majority areas of northern Arakan State and forced recruitment of Rohingya left them “trapped between both sides of the conflict”. During this period, the junta and AA often either fought from positions in villages that put Rohingya civilians at immediate risk or directly shelled Rohingya and killed and injured hundreds of Rohingya civilians.
Rohingya CSOs stressed that these attacks were already in violation of the International Court of Justice’s order for all parties to “take all measures within [their] power to prevent the commission of genocidal acts”.
Since then, the amount of physical attacks and anti-Rohingya hate speech in Arakan State has only grown further. Since February, the junta has forcibly conscripted thousands more Rohingya civilians trapped in IDP camps throughout Arakan State and drove many to their deaths at frontline battles, according to the statement.
Meanwhile, reports of AA attacks on Rohingya civilians increased in frequency during April, with UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk noting on 19 April that the Rohingya were at particular risk from attacks from “two armed factions with a track record of killing them”.
In response to these reports AA leaders doubled down on anti-Rohingya hate speech and the junta pushed divide and rule as the AA and junta increased physical attacks on Rohingya. Both parties also played significant roles in spreading anti-Rohingya hate speech, according to ALTSEAN-Burma and RMCN.
Throughout the first half of 2024, the junta forced Rohingya to join several anti-AA protests, and forced Rohingya to participate in arson attacks in an effort to stoke hatred between Rakhine and Rohingya communities.
Meanwhile, the AA has increasingly promoted narratives that legitimized attacks on Rohingya and rejected Rohingya indigeneity. According to ALTSEAN-Burma and RMCN, the AA leadership employs language rejects the Rohingya as belonging in Rakhine State. On 1 May, the AA released a statement that equated the use of the term genocide with making “false. accusations” that damaged the “credibility of those seeking justice and peaceful coexistence.”
Throughout March and April, the AA and its leadership had repeatedly rejected claims AA troops had abused Rohingya; claimed that highlighting Rohingya suffering was tantamount to “ignoring other non-Muslim groups’ suffering”; called for Rohingya to be referred to by the derogatory term “Bengali”; and circulated articles which made unsubstantiated claims that Islamic terror groups were holding over 1600 Hindus and 120 Buddhists hostage.
In a written statement published on 29 May by the New Humanitarian, the United League of Arakan (ULA), the AA’s political wing, refuted that the AA would deny Rohingya citizenship but stated that the use of the term ‘Rohingya’ was part of a “political movement [to destroy] the integrity of our ancestral history”. As the OHCHR stated, the AA’s statements risked enabling the same hate narratives that drove genocidal violence in 2012 and 2017.
