The use of rape by Myanmar’s armed forces has been sweeping and methodical, The Associated Press found in interviews with 29 Rohingya Muslim women and girls now in Bangladesh. They were interviewed separately, come from a variety of villages in Myanmar and now live spread across several refugee camps in Bangladesh. Yet their stories were hauntingly similar. The military has denied its soldiers raped any Rohingya women. Here are the accounts as told by some of them. They agreed to be identified in this story by their first initial only, out of fear the military will kill them or their families.
She is only 13: but R had already learned to fear the military men. Last year, she says, soldiers stabbed her father to death. One day in late August, 10 soldiers barged into R’s house. They snatched her two little brothers, tied them to a tree and beat them.
R tried to run out the front door, but the men caught her. They tethered her arms to two trees. They ripped off her earrings and bracelets, and stripped off her clothes.R screamed at them to stop. They spit at her. Then the first man began to rape her. The pain was excruciating. All 10 men forced themselves on her before she passed out.
Raped twice: F and her husband were asleep at home in June when seven soldiers charged into their bedroom. The men bound her husband with rope and gagged him with a scarf they ripped from F’s head. They yanked off F’s jewelry and stripped off her clothes. They threw her to the floor, where the first soldier began to rape her.
Her husband wriggled the gag from his mouth and screamed. One soldier shot him, and another slit his throat. After the assault, the men dumped F’s naked body outside her home and set it on fire. The neighbours rescued her. Two months later, she realized she was pregnant.
In September, her nightmare began again. F was asleep at a neighbour’s house when five soldiers broke down the door. The soldiers slashed the throat of the five-year-old boy. They stripped off the women’s clothes. Two men raped, and three men raped her friend.
Calculated tool: The AP found distinct patterns in their accounts, their assailants’ uniforms and the details of the rapes themselves. The testimonies bolster the UN’s contention that Myanmar’s armed forces are systematically using rape as a “calculated tool of terror” aimed at exterminating the Rohingyas.
