AP Investigation: Rape of Rohingya sweeping, methodical

Admin December 11, 2017March 2, 2018

By Associated Press December 11 at 1:20 AM

In this Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2017, photo, F, 22, who says she was raped by members of Myanmar’s armed forces in June and again in September, cries as she speaks to The Associated Press in her tent in Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh. The Associated Press has found that the rape of Rohingya women by Myanmar’s security forces has been sweeping and methodical. The AP interviewed 29 women and girls who say they were raped by Myanmar’s armed forces, and found distinct patterns in their accounts, their assailants’ uniforms and the details of the rapes themselves. The most common attack involved groups of soldiers storming into a house, beating any children inside and then beating and gang raping the women. (Wong Maye-E/Associated Press)

UKHIA, Bangladesh — An Associated Press investigation has found that the rape of Rohingya women by Myanmar’s security forces has been sweeping and methodical.

The AP interviewed 29 women and girls who said they were raped by Myanmar’s armed forces. The women were interviewed separately, come from a wide swath of villages in Myanmar and now live in various refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh.

The AP found distinct patterns in their accounts, their assailants’ uniforms and the details of the rapes themselves. The testimonies bolster the U.N.’s contention that Myanmar’s armed forces are systematically using rape as a “calculated tool of terror” aimed at exterminating the Rohingya people. They also belie the Myanmar military’s assertion that the rapes never happened.

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