Myanmar junta, rebels accuse each other of deadly attack on Rohingya
BANGKOK—Myanmar’s military and a rebel group exchanged blame for a deadly drone attack that killed “dozens” of Rohingya trying to escape violence by fleeing to Bangladesh on Monday last week.
The dead included families with pregnant women and children, several witnesses said, describing survivors wandering between piles of bodies to identify dead and injured relatives.
It was the single deadliest known assault on civilians in Rakhine state during recent weeks of fighting between junta troops and rebels.
Myanmar’s junta and three of four witnesses said that the Arakan Army was responsible, allegations that the group denied.
The rebels blamed the military.
“According to our investigation, family members of terrorists tried to go to Bangladesh from Maungdaw and the junta dropped the bomb because they left without permission,” Arakan Army spokesperson Khine Thu Kha told Reuters, referring to Muslims who have joined Rohingya armed groups fighting the rebel army.
Reuters could not verify how many people had died in the attack or independently determine responsibility.
Piles of bodies
Witnesses said attack drones struck down families waiting to cross the border into Bangladesh.Videos posted to social media showed piles of bodies strewn across muddy ground, their suitcases and backpacks scattered around them. Three survivors said more than 200 had died while a witness to the aftermath said he had seen at least 70 bodies.
Reuters verified the location of the videos as just outside the coastal Myanmar town of Maungdaw. Reuters was not able to independently confirm the date the videos were filmed.
One witness, 35-year-old Mohammed Eleyas, said his pregnant wife and 2-year-old daughter were wounded in the attack and later died. He was standing with them on the shoreline when drones began attacking the crowds, Eleyas told Reuters from a refugee camp in Bangladesh.
“I heard the deafening sound of shelling multiple times,” he said. Eleyas said he lay on the ground to protect himself and when he got up, he saw his wife and daughter critically injured and many of his other relatives dead.
A second witness, Shamsuddin, 28, said he survived with his wife and newborn son. Also speaking from a refugee camp in Bangladesh, he said that after the attack many lay dead and ”some people were shouting out from the pain of their injuries.”
Mortal shell wounds
Boats carrying fleeing Rohingya, members of a mostly Muslim minority who face extreme persecution in Myanmar, also sank in the Naf River that separates the two countries on Monday, killing dozens more, according to two witnesses and Bangladesh media.
Medecins Sans Frontieres said the aid organization treated 39 people who had crossed from Myanmar into Bangladesh since Saturday. Injuries included mortar shell and gunshot wounds.
The United Nations High Commission for Refugees said it was “aware of the deaths of refugees from the capsize of two boats in the Bay of Bengal” and civilian deaths in Maungdaw but could not confirm the numbers or circumstances.
The Rohingya have been long persecuted in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, which has been in turmoil since the military seized power from a democratically elected government in 2021, and mass protests evolved into widespread armed struggle.
Rohingya have been leaving Rakhine for weeks as the Arakan Army, one of many armed groups fighting, has made sweeping gains in the north, home to a large population of Muslims. —REUTERS
