Rohingya women escape Myamar military hell
by Sheuli Akter
Cox’s Bazar, June 19 (NsNewsWire) — Hassina who uses single name was just 20 years old when her village, Tula Toli in Myanmar’s western Rakhaine state was attacked by her country’s army personnel on a rampage of killing and arson.
The Rohingya woman managed to flee the initial attack only to be caught and forced to watch the slaughter, burning, and burial of her friends and neighbors.
Desperate to protect her infant daughter, Hassina tried to hide her under her shawl when a soldier noticed the baby, snatched her away and tossed her into the fire.
But her nightmare was far from over.
The soldiers tried to rape the village women who escaped the initial attack, killing Hassina’s mother-in-law for resisting, and beating Hassina and her sister-in-law unconscious.
When Hassina regained consciousness, she found herself inside a house.
It was on fire, and she had been left locked inside by the soldiers.
Her sister-in-law was alive, too.
They managed to escape the flames, but with serious burns.
Badly injured, they somehow made their way to a refugee camp in southeastern Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district from where Human Rights Watch have brought their untold suffering stories to the media across the world.
The stories Human Rights Watch have uncovered from war-ravaged Burma are really heartbreaking.
They burned her baby, beat her unconscious, and left her for dead, friend, said the international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights.
But Hassina’s not alone.
Such horrendous stories are being reverberated by thousands of women, many of whom still bear the physical bruises.
Scores of rape vicyims have already reportedly given birth to babies whose biological fathers are none other than Burmese military personnel.
About nine months since wave of violence forced thousands to flee, conditions for pregnant women remain dire, especially for survivors of sexual violence.
More than 16,000 Rohingya babies have been born in refugee camps and informal settlements in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh in the nine months since a spike in violence in Rakhine State, Myanmar forced thousands of families to flee their homes across the border, UNICEF said last month.
“Around 60 babies a day are taking their first breath in appalling conditions, away from home, to mothers who have survived displacement, violence, trauma and, at times, rape,” said Edouard Beigbeder, UNICEF Representative in Bangladesh.
“This is far from the best start in life.”As new waves of violence started in Rakhine State in August last year, there were widespread reports of rape and sexual violence against women and girls.
Women and children who are survivors of sexual violence are among the most vulnerable and marginalised of the more than 800,000 Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar, requiring specialised support and women and girls may not come forward due to the risk of stigmatisation and additional persecution.
“It is impossible to know the true number of babies who have been or will be born as a result of sexual violence,” added Mr Beigbeder. “But it is vital that each and every new and expectant mother and every new-born receive all the help and support they need.”
Of all babies born in the camps since September, only about 3,000 – or 1 in 5 – were delivered in health facilities, said Unicef.
According to Human Rights Watch, more than 650,000 Rohingya have fled to neighboring Bangladesh to escape mass killings, sexual violence, arson, and other abuses amounting to crimes against humanity since August 2017, when the military launched a large-scale ethnic cleansing campaign against the Rohingya Muslim population in Rakhine State.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Tuesday wars, other violence and persecution displaced 68.5 million people worldwide by the end of 2017.
The number of displaced people reached a new high in 2017 for the fifth year in a row, led by the crisis in Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), South Sudan’s war, and the flight into Bangladesh from Myanmar of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees, the UNHCR said in its annual Global Trend.