Putting 354 Burned Rohingya Villages in Perspective

Myanmar Systematically Destroyed the Physical Foundation of Rohingya Community, in substantial part.

1) 354 villages, 110 kilometer or 68 miles (that's an area stretching from the British Parliament to Oxford or even longer);

2) nearly 700,000 survived in Bangladesh, after having fled the genocidal terror by Myanmar in a span of 90 days (from 26 Aug till 31 Dec 2017);

3) besides, the estimated 80,000 already fled in the period between Oct 2015-Aug 2016);

4) this exodus follows the pattern of genocide-&-terror-flight -5 altogether - since 12 Feb 1978;

5) 6,700 Rohingya massacred in 31 days of the first month of 2017 killings by Myanmar, according to a very limited survey carried out by MSF or Doctors Without Borders;

6) out of the estimated 700,000 Rohingya survivors, about 300,000 are children of whom 20,000 lost their parents (that is, they are orphans);

7) in the first months, again the MSF's limited survey shows, about 750 killed were children under the age of 5;

8) unknown number of Rohingya women - surely by the thousands- raped and slaughtered by Myanmar Government troops;

9) but, even prior to the physical destruction of their villages and direct killings by Myanmar troops of their community members, the Rohingyas were living in conditioned designed as a matter of policy and strategy by Myanmar to destroy their biological foundations of life - their bodies as 150,000 Rohingyas had access to only 1 - ONE - doctor in the two combined urban areas of Maungdaw and Buthidaung, according to a Lancet review article on public health conditions of the Rohingyas, while 80,500 children under the age of 5 are made to suffer by Myanmar sub-Saharan like semi-famine (or "severe acute malnutrition" and "acute malnutrition", according to the World Food Program's limited survey);

10) none of this includes 120,000 Rohingyas that have been placed in camps since the two bouts of mass and organized violence against them in June and Oct 2012, the camps that could only be described as semi-concentration camps;

11) there may be about 500,000 Rohingyas left inside Myanmar in areas that are heavily monitored as "security grids" by Myanmar inter-agency securit units - mainly around Buthidaung and they will face future waves of genocidal terror, when - not if - Myanmar gov and Rakhine local decide to finish off their Joint Genocidal Project;

12) last but not last, there may be an upward of about 500,000 Rohingyas in total who have fled the previous waves of Myanmar genocidal attacks since 1978, who are scattered in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and to a far lesser extent in Australia, Scandinavia, Western Europe, USA and Canada.

If you fight to end this genocide - like I do, albeit to no avail - you would understand why I didn't have an appetite for joining those who popped champagne last night.

ZARNI

"A Reuters graphic makes use of data from the U.N. Operational Satellite Applications Programme (UNOSAT) to show hundreds of villages in Rakhine state that were once inhabited by the Rohingya, but have now been burned down.

A total of 354 villages have either been completely or partially destroyed, Human Rights Watch said on Dec. 18.

The data, which was gathered from Aug. 25, the day of the Rohingya militant attack, to Nov. 25, shows burned settlements in an area stretching 110 km (68 miles) from the green hills of Rakhine’s northern tip to beaches near the state’s capital Sittwe in the south."

Here is the full text of the Reuters story:

A visual that shows just how many Rohingya villages have been burned

By Reuters

January 1, 2018

In the four months since the Myanmar military began a crackdown after Rohingya militants attacked an army base and police posts on Aug. 25, around 655,000 members of the stateless Muslim minority have fled the western state of Rakhine and crossed into neighboring Bangladesh.

A Reuters graphic makes use of data from the U.N. Operational Satellite Applications Programme (UNOSAT) to show hundreds of villages in Rakhine state that were once inhabited by the Rohingya, but have now been burned down. 

A total of 354 villages have either been completely or partially destroyed, Human Rights Watch said on Dec. 18. 

The data, which was gathered from Aug. 25, the day of the Rohingya militant attack, to Nov. 25, shows burned settlements in an area stretching 110 km (68 miles) from the green hills of Rakhine’s northern tip to beaches near the state’s capital Sittwe in the south. 

See the interactive graphic here: tmsnrt.rs/2zGVUmt

Top officials in the United Nations and United States have described the Myanmar military’s crackdown as ethnic cleansing. 

Myanmar has denied human rights abuses, saying its military is engaged in legitimate counter-insurgency operations. The military exonerated itself of all accusations of atrocities in an internal investigation, which published its findings on Nov. 13. Myanmar’s civilian government has said that the burnings were carried out by Rohingya militants and the Rohingya themselves. 

Myanmar’s military did not respond to Reuters’ questions about its role in the alleged atrocities against the Rohingya described in this graphic. 

Reporting by Weiyi Cai, Simon Scarr and Simon Lewis; Writing by Karishma Singh; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Martin Howell