Mizzima-Apr 15
The Myanmar military has abducted and forcibly recruited more than 1,000 Rohingya Muslim men and boys from across Rakhine State since February 2024, according to Human Rights Watch. The junta is using a conscription law that only applies to Myanmar citizens, although the Rohingya have long been denied citizenship under the 1982 Citizenship Law. Rohingya described being picked up in nighttime raids, coerced with false promises of citizenship, and threatened with arrest, abduction, and beatings. The military has been sending Rohingya to abusive training for two weeks, then deploying them. Many have been sent to the front lines in the surging fighting between the junta and the Arakan Army armed group, which broke out in Rakhine State in November 2023, and a number have been killed and injured, according to Human Rights Watch. “It’s appalling to see Myanmar’s military, which has committed atrocities against the Rohingya for decades while denying them citizenship, now forcing them to fight on its behalf,” said Shayna Bauchner, Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. Human Rights Watch documented 11 cases of forced recruitment, drawing on interviews with 25 Rohingya from Sittwe, Maungdaw, Buthidaung, Pauktaw, and Kyauktaw townships in Rakhine State and in Bangladesh. “The Myanmar military’s forced recruitment of Rohingya men and boys is its latest exploitation of a community made vulnerable to abuse by design, over decades of oppression,” Bauchner said. “Concerned governments should be strengthening avenues to justice to hold junta leaders accountable for their abuses, past and present.” Read more at: https://eng.mizzima.com/2024/04/15/9022#google_vignette
