Myanmar authorities are building security force bases and bulldozing land where Rohingya villages were burned to the ground just months ago, according to international rights group Amnesty International on 12 March.
In its new report titled Remaking Rakhine State, Amnesty revealed through eyewitness testimony and expert analysis of satellite images how “flattening of Rohingya villages and new construction have intensified since January in areas where hundreds of thousands fled the military’s campaign of ethnic cleansing last year.
“New roads and structures are being built over burned Rohingya villages and land, making it even less likely for refugees to return to their homes.”
The rights body warned that militarization in Myanmar’s Rakhine State was continuing at an “alarming pace”.
Amnesty International’s Crisis Response Director Tirana Hassan said: “What we are seeing in Rakhine State is a land grab by the military on a dramatic scale. New bases are being erected to house the very same security forces that have committed crimes against humanity against Rohingya.
“This makes the voluntary, safe and dignified return of Rohingya refugees an even more distant prospect. Not only are their homes gone, but the new construction is entrenching the already dehumanising discrimination they have faced in Myanmar.”
New construction has intensified in Maungdaw area since January when the Myanmar military admitted to the massacre of 10 Rohingya men.
Amnesty International also documented recent examples of looting, deliberate burning and demolition of abandoned Rohingya homes and mosques across northern Rakhine State. “The authorities have demolished mosques and madrasas during operations to clear burnt villages,” Amnesty said in its report.
“During the violence [in August], they burnt down almost all the houses. Since January, they started to bulldoze the mosques, madrasas and big houses which were still intact,” a 52-year-old religious leader from Zin Paing Nyar village in northern Maungdaw Township, who took shelter in Bangladesh since early February, was quoted as saying in the report.
Amnesty said this raises serious concerns that authorities were destroying evidence of crimes against the Rohingya, which could hinder future investigations.