6,700 Rohingya Muslims killed in attacks in Myanmar
14 Dec 2017 5:28 PM GMT
Bangkok: More than 6,700 Rohingya Muslims, including at least 730 children under the age of five, were killed between August and September after violence broke out in Myanmar's northern Rakhine state, according to Médecins Sans Frontières.
The figures released on Thursday by the humanitarian agency are believed to be a conservative estimate and far exceed Myanmar's official death toll of 400.
"The numbers of deaths are likely to be an underestimation, as we have not surveyed all refugee settlements in Bangladesh and because the surveys don't account for the families who never made it out of Myanmar," said Dr Sidney Wong, MSF's medical director.
The majority of the people killed (69%) were shot, while others were burned and beaten to death. "We heard reports of entire families who perished after they were locked inside their homes, while they were set alight," said Wong.
More than 640,000 Rohingya people have fled Rakhine since August. Soldiers, police and local militias burned hundreds of Rohingya villages to the ground, and they are also accused of gang-raping women and children, as well as slaughtering civilians indiscriminately.
Western countries have condemned the violence as ethnic cleansing, an allegation Myanmar strongly denies. Officials in the country have laid the blame on "extremist terrorists" belonging to a new Rohingya militant group. A Myanmar government spokesperson could not be immediately reached for comment.
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