Attachments
Executive Summary
On August 25, 2017, security forces from the Myanmar military Battalion 535, police, and Rakhine civilians attacked the village of Inn Din, located in Maungdaw, Rakhine State.
The 400-700 assailants besieged the village in the morning and sprayed gunfire at Rohingya villagers as they fled for their lives. Security forces shot indiscriminate and reckless gunfire and physically beat the Rohingya, ultimately killing and injuring many Rohingya villagers. 89% of victim-survivors interviewed had lost direct family members, defined as spouses, children, parents, siblings, and aunts. Many were forced to abandon the dead bodies in order to preserve their own lives.
Security forces set fire to 700-800 homes in the village and looted property. The arson began in the early morning between 7:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. on August 31, 2017. Based on an initial survey, the total number of Inn Din villagers killed on these two days amounts to 147.
In the terror after such mass-scale violence and killing, Inn Din villagers escaped to Bangladesh, where they now live in temporary tents inside precarious refugee camps.
Yet the systematic destruction of the Rohingya people began far earlier than August 2017. Starting from decades earlier, the government confiscated land from Rohingya villagers and allocated it to Rakhine people. In October 2016, security forces made the Rohingya unfence their homesteads, cut down their trees, and turn over all knives and daggers.
And during the time period of 2012-2016, Rohingya experienced various forms of religious discrimination and persecution. They were forbidden to freely practice their religion, with those caught in prayer charged with exorbitant forced fines or arrested. Holding religious events