Nearly 90 killed in Myanmar’s Rakhine state

By Kyaw Ye Lynn

YANGON, Myanmar

A series of attacks on border posts in western Myanmar on Friday has left 89 people dead, the government said.

The early morning attacks on at least 30 posts on the Bangladesh frontier in Maungdaw district were claimed by a group called the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA).

A soldier, 10 police officers, an immigration official and 77 militants were killed in the attacks and 15 people were wounded, the Office of State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi said in a statement. Two militants were captured.

It said several bridges had been destroyed in the attacks and three police vehicles hit by landmines.

A Rakhine state official told Anadolu Agency that a night-time curfew had been imposed across Maungdaw district, replacing the partial curfew that had been in place for years.

The government said militants also tried to break into the base of the 552nd Light Infantry Battalion at around 3.00 a.m. local time (2030GMT).

“We have been taking our defensive actions against the Burmese marauding forces in more than 25 different places across the region,” ARSA said in a statement.

It said the attacks were in response to raids, killing and looting by soldiers deployed to Maungdaw earlier this month. Maungdaw lies alongside the Naf river separating Myanmar and Bangladesh in northern Rakhine. 

'Manufactured reality'

“When their atrocities against the innocent people have reached beyond the point of our tolerance and they were about to launch attacks on us, we have to eventually step up to defend the helpless people and ourselves,” the statement added.

The attacks came hours after a commission led by ex-UN chief Kofi Annan urged the government to end restrictions on Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine.

After a year-long inquiry, the commission called for “urgent and sustained action on a number of fronts to prevent violence, maintain peace, foster reconciliation and offer a sense of hope to the state’s hard-pressed population.”

The region has seen simmering tension between its Buddhist and Muslim populations since communal violence broke out in 2012.

A security clampdown launched in October last year in Maungdaw, where Rohingya form the majority, led to a UN report on human rights violations by security forces that indicated crimes against humanity.

The UN documented mass gang rape, killings, including of babies and children, brutal beatings and disappearances. Rohingya representatives have said approximately 400 people were slain during the operation.

Hla Kyaw, chairman of the European Rohingya Council, suggested the military had “manufactured this reality happening now in Rakhine state.”

He added: “According to the information we received, last night the security forces provoked ARSA members and their loved ones to an extent where they reacted to save their lives and to defend their loved ones from the military's assault.

“The army seizes that opportunity to justify mass killings, rape and arrest. [The] final goal is to destabilise the state, to prevent the UN fact-finding mission, not to implement the Rakhine commission’s recommendations and, most importantly, to further marginalise Rohingya.”