BRCA Press Release on Killing and Burning of Rohingya Villages in Kyauktaw

Killing and Burning of Rohingya Villages in Kyauktaw

We, BRCA (Burmese Rohingya Community in Australia) would like to express our deep and great concern over the ongoing and grave situation in Rakhine State. The latest news coming out from Rakhine is terrible and it is so obvious that the Rakhine state government plan is to drive out/clean the Rohingyas from Rakhine state completely. It seems the Rakhine extremists sponsored by state government temporarily stopped the killing and burning of the Rohingya villages because of the UN Special Rapporteur Tomás Ojea Quintana’s visit to Arakan state. As soon as the Rapporteur left yesterday, the Rakhine extremists started burning of Rohingya houses in Kyauktaw, Rakhine State today (05/08/2012).

We have received the information from our reliable sources in Kyauktaw that Rakhine extremists attacked first to one of Rohingya villages, Gupitaung village and burned the houses today (05/08/2012) at 12 pm (Burmese time). Total of 153 homes are burnt down and the whole village is completely destroyed. There is no further news or information received about the villagers. At 1 pm today (5/08/2012), they attacked another Rohingya village, Apoutwa village. There are total of 200 houses in that village and of these, 47 houses were previously burnt down. Today, they attacked the remaining houses and 35 houses are burnt down and 4 Rohingyas were killed. The Rakhine extremists also attacked to another Rohingya village called Shwe Hlaing village today (05/08/2012) and destroyed whole village and all 200 houses are burnt down. There is no news or information received about the villagers’ whereabouts.

Acoording to the ground source, the remaining villages in Kyauktaw are also in great danger and all villagers, regardless of age and gender, are in a high fear and panic that the people can be killed and their houses can be burnt down at any time at these dark hours. Thein Sein’s regime is not protecting Rohingya at all, and instead encouraging and supporting the Rakhine extremists to kill the Rohingyas and destroy Rohingya villages.

We strongly condemn the above atrocities and urge International communities to apply pressure on Thein Sein’s government to implement the following:

• To stop immediately the killing of the innocent Rohingyas and burning of Rohingya houses.

• To stop ethnic cleansing against the Rohingyas immediately and unconditionally.

• To restore law and order particularly in Rakhine State.

• The International media should go inside Arakan State and find the true account of the atrocities.