Attachments
Executive Summary
In August 2017, Myanmar security forces advanced upon the village of Zammunia (Pwint Hpyu Chaung), located in Maungdaw, Rakhine State. Prior to that, in October-November 2016, 150-250 assailants from the Myanmar military and Border Guard Police (BGP), as well as Rakhine civilians, besieged Zammunia from their deployment stations at the village school and mosque. They killed and injured the Rohingya with gunfire. Security forces unlawfully arrested villagers, burned down their homes, and looted their property. The military raped Rohingya women.
In the terror after such mass-scale violence and killing, Zammunia villagers escaped to Bangladesh, where they now live in temporary tents inside sprawling 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 during the time period of 2012-2016, Rohingya experienced multiple and successive forms of religious discrimination and persecution. This included prohibitions on giving religious sermons, on holding religious events, and on performing azan (making calls to prayer). They were forbidden to gather in groups of five or more people, which abrogated religious fellowship. Nor could they freely use their mosque for prayer or provide Islamic education to their children at the madrasa. Security forces physically beat, arrested, and extorted money from those found in prayer or religious practice.