28 October 2016•Update: 29 October 2016
By Kyaw Ye Lynn
YANGON, Myanmar
A further 15 suspects -- including women and children -- have been arrested in Myanmar’s troubled Rakhine State in a crackdown that has seen growing reports of violations since the military launched operations after fatal attacks on police outposts.
The army-run Myawaddy newspaper reported Friday that troops captured 10 suspects -- accused of involvement in the Oct. 9 attacks on police station outposts -- in three villages Thursday, and a family of five during a patrol in a river near the Myanmar-Bangladesh border.
“The two boats tried to run away from patrol team in the Naf River. In the pursuit, the troops arrested five Bengalis,” it said, using a term for the stateless Rohingya Muslim minority that suggests they are interlopers from Bangladesh.
According to the report, two women and two children were among those arrested who were handed over to the No. 1 border guard controlling headquarters.
A Muslim religious leader in Maungdaw township -- one of two towns predominantly occupied by Rohingya where police outposts were raided -- told Anadolu Agency on Friday that troops had no reason to arrest the family.
“We know them. They are innocent civilians,” the Rohingya man said on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.
“They are there just for fishing or going to another village,” he said by phone.
Since the Oct. 9 attacks, at least 43 people -- including nine police, four soldiers and 29 suspected attackers (among them the two women) -- have been killed, or have died, in Maungdaw and Yathay Taung townships.
The attacks and the violent response -- which tightly restricted aid delivery and access to information -- have generated reports of widespread abuses against civilians.
On Thursday, a local media report said there were reports of dozens of Muslim women having been raped by soldiers in Maungdaw during area clearance operations.
Around 30 women are reported to have been raped by security forces in a single village Oct. 19, the Myanmar Times reported citing Chris Lewa, director of the Arakan Project, a Rohingya rights organization.
Lewa said five girls aged between 16 and 18 were raped in another village Oct. 25 and two women at another location Oct. 20, according to the report.
With police and soldiers continuing to hunt those responsible for the initial raids, many members of both the Rohingya and Rakhine communities have fled their homes in fear.
Rights groups and United Nations officials have highlighted the need to ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid as well as the difficulty of conducting a proper assessment of the situation with officials denying access citing security operations.
