Brutality of Myanmar Troops Towards Rohingya Continues Today in Buthidaung Township

RB News

January 4, 2017

Buthidaung, Arakan – Myanmar military and Border Guard Police entered into Maung Gyi Taung village tract in Buthidaung Township today under the pretext of searching for weapons and many villagers were beaten.

Today on January 4, 2017 at 2 am, soldiers from the Light Infantry Unit 564 and Border Guard Police based in Phong Daw Pyin village besieged Maung Gyi Taung hamlet of Maung Gyi Taung village tract. In the early morning, they announced by loud speaker that one person from each household must report to the school located in the hamlet.

At 4 am two brothers and a sister, Nouman, Arman and Kawsaira, whose father is Mohammed Ayub, were taken away by the troops to an unknown location and no one received any further news about them.

At 6 am some of the villagers reported to the school as ordered, but others didn’t out of fear of torture and some fled from the hamlet.

The villagers who went to the school were beaten by the soldiers and the Border Guard Police. One of those who was severely beaten was Ali Ahmed, the former chairman of the village. Another elderly man who was beaten was Mamed Ameen. Mamed’s son, Mamedullah, couldn’t bear to see

his father beaten so told the troops not to beat his father and so they beat him as well and then they arrested Mamedullah. Villagers say that both Ali Ahmed and Mamedullah were left in a critical condition following the beatings.

Later in the day, Aung San Suu Kyi’s state counsellor information committee posted to their Facebook page the news that they had detained four villagers from Maung Gyi Taung village who had recently attended military trainings. In addition, they stated that they had found 14 hand-made guns in Mamedullah’s betel nuts farm. The villagers of Maung Gyi Taung say that this is a made-up story by the government, that no one from their village has ever attended any military training and there were no guns.

On December 31, 2016, a video of Rohingya being tortured by Myanmar troops spread around the world through social media and the Myanmar presidential spokesman, Zaw Htay, gave the assurance that the government had given instructions to the armed forces to follow the rules of law and not to violate human rights. Yet despite this, a very similar incident to what was recorded in that video happened again today in Maung Gyi Taung.