TIL Desk/World/UN/ Myanmar troops gang-raped countless Rohingya women and girls during a military campaign that sent hundreds of thousands fleeing across the border to Bangladesh, Human Rights Watch said today.
The US-based rights group said in a report that the sexual violence, along with other atrocities committed by Myanmar security forces, amount to crimes against humanity. Based on interviews with rape survivors, aid organizations and Bangladeshi health officials, the report details cases of what it called mass rape where Rohingya women were rounded up and sexually assaulted by soldiers.
“Rape has been a prominent and devastating feature of the Burmese military’s campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya,” said Skye Wheeler, a researcher at Human Rights Watch and author of the report.
“The Burmese military’s barbaric acts of violence have left countless women and girls brutally harmed and traumatized.” Of the 29 rape survivors interviewed, all but one were gang-raped by two or more perpetrators. In eight cases, women and girls reported being raped by five or more soldiers.
