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Agence France-Presse

At least 6,700 Rohingya Muslims were killed in the first month of a Myanmar army crackdown on rebels in Rakhine state that began in late August, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said on Thursday.
The figure is the highest estimated death toll yet of violence that erupted on August 25 and triggered a massive refugee crisis, with more than 620,000 Rohingya fleeing Myanmar for Bangladesh over a three-month period.
The UN and US have described the military operation as “ethnic cleansing” of the Muslim minority, but have not released specific death tolls.
Watch: What’s driving Myanmar’s Rohingya crisis?


“At least 6,700 Rohingya, in the most conservative estimations, are estimated to have been killed, including at least 730 children below the age of five,” MSF said on Thursday.
The group’s findings come from six surveys of more than 11,426 people in Rohingya refugee camps and cover the first month after the crisis erupted.
“We met and spoke with survivors of violence in Myanmar, who are now sheltering in overcrowded and unsanitary camps in Bangladesh,” said the group’s medical director Sidney Wong.
At least 6,700 Rohingya, in the most conservative estimations, are estimated to have been killed
Medecins Sans Frontieres
“What we uncovered was staggering, both in terms of the numbers of people who reported a family member died as a result of violence, and the horrific ways in which they said they were killed or severely injured.”
Rohingya refugees have told consistent stories of security forces and ethnic Rakhine Buddhist mobs driving them out of their homes with bullets, rape and arson that reduced hundreds of villages to ash.
Earlier this month the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said the military-led crackdown appeared to include “elements of genocide”. The MSF survey puts a number to the horrors.
Gunshot wounds were the cause of death in 69 per cent of the cases, according to the survey. Another 9 per cent were reported burned alive inside houses, while 5 per cent died from fatal beatings. For children under five, nearly 60 per cent died after being shot, the survey found.
MSF said the peak in deaths coincided with the launch of “clearance operations” by the army and local militias in late August, and showed “that Rohingya have been targeted”.
Myanmar’s government did not respond to a request for comment. But it has consistently denied abuses in Rakhine and puts the official death toll at 400 people – including 376 Rohingya “terrorists”, according to the army.
Authorities have also blocked a UN fact-finding mission from accessing the conflict zone in northern Rakhine state.
Watch: Rohingya rape survivors share harrowing stories


The investigators visited refugee camps in Bangladesh in late October and said – based on interviews – that the total number of deaths was not known but “may turn out to be extremely high”.
The Rohingya are not recognised as an ethnic group in mainly Buddhist Myanmar and have been subject to systematic persecution for decades.
Bangladesh and Myanmar signed a repatriation agreement in late November saying that Rohingya refugees could start to return home in two months, but international aid groups have threatened to boycott working with the government if new camps are set up in northern Rakhine State.
More than 120,000 Rohingya already live in closed-off settlements in the central part of the state since intercommunal violence erupted in 2012.


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Rohingya Muslims

‘Staggering violence’: 6,700 Rohingya were killed in the first month of Myanmar crackdown, Medecins Sans Frontieres says

Rohingya refugees line up for a food supply distribution at the Kutupalong refugee camp near Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh. Photo: Reuters

Here’s the one man in Myanmar who can end Rohingya misery

Myanmar Senior General Min Aung Hlaing inspects troops. Photo: EPA

Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. Photo: AFP

epaselect epa05291371 Senior General Min Aung Hlaing (R)and Myanmar Foreign Minister and State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi (L) arrive to Naypyitaw International Airport in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, 06 May 2016. Myanmar president U Htin Kyaw, his wife Daw Su Su Lwin and Myanmar Foreign Minister and State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi and Minister of Information Dr Pe Myint left from Naypyidaw International Airport to Laos for the first time in a goodwill visit as Myanmar's new government. EPA/HEIN HTET

In this Thursday, Sept. 7, 2017, file photo, smoke rises from a burned house in Gawdu Zara village, northern Rakhine state, Myanmar. Journalists saw new fires burning Thursday in the Myanmar village that had been abandoned by Rohingya Muslims, and where pages from Islamic texts were seen ripped and left on the ground. (AP Photo, File)

epaselect epa06202499 Rohingya Refugees carry an old man towards the shore of Naf river as people arrive by boats, in Teknaf, Bangladesh, 13 September 2017. Many of the Rohingya fleeing the violence in Myanmar had travelled by boat to find refuge in neighbouring Bangladesh. According to United Nations more than 300 thousand Rohingya refugees have fled Myanmar from violence over the last few weeks, most trying to cross the border and reach Bangladesh. International organizations have reported claims of human rights violations and summary executions allegedly carried out by the Myanmar army. EPA-EFE/ABIR ABDULLAH

‘I worry about HIV every day’: Rohingya women prostituted for US$2 in Bangladesh’s overcrowded refugee camps

Rena, 18, sits in a mud hut with doors and windows closed as she tells her story of working as a prostitute in Kutupalong, Bangladesh. Photo: Thomson Reuters Foundation

Rohingya Muslims, who crossed over from Myanmar into Bangladesh, arrive in a truck after the government moved them to newly allocated refugee camp areas, near Kutupalong, Bangladesh, Sunday, Oct. 22, 2017. More than 580,000 refugees have arrived in Bangladesh since Aug. 25, when Myanmar security forces began a scorched-earth campaign against Rohingya villages. Myanmar's government has said it was responding to attacks by Muslim insurgents, but the United Nations and others have said the response was disproportionate. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)

Rohingya Muslim children, who crossed over from Myanmar into Bangladesh, fly kite on a hillock inside a Kutupalong refugee camp, Bangladesh, Sunday, Oct. 22, 2017. More than 580,000 refugees have arrived in Bangladesh since Aug. 25, when Myanmar security forces began a scorched-earth campaign against Rohingya villages. Myanmar's government has said it was responding to attacks by Muslim insurgents, but the United Nations and others have said the response was disproportionate. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)

No promised land: stateless Rohingya live in fear, amid appalling conditions in refugee camps

Myanmar Rohingya refugees look on in a refugee camp in Teknaf, in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar. Photo: AFP

Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) personel stand watch in a common transit point for the illegal entry of Myanmar Rohingya refugees on the banks of the Naf River, near Teknaf in southern Cox's Bazar district, on November 24, 2016. Dhaka has called on Myanmar to take "urgent measures" to protect its Rohingya minority after thousands crossed into Bangladesh in just a few days, some saying the military was burning villages and raping young girls. / AFP PHOTO / MUNIR UZ ZAMAN

Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) personnel petrol in the Naf river to stop the illegal entry of Myanmar Rohingya refugees, near Teknaf in southern Cox's Bazar district, on November 25, 2016. Thousands of Rohingya have fled the army lockdown in Rakhine to Bangladesh, bringing with them horrifying stories of gang rape, torture and murder at the hands of Myanmar's military. / AFP PHOTO / MUNIR UZ ZAMAN

Myanmar Rohingya migrant Nur Begum reacts after the death of her six-year-old son Alam in a refugee camp in Teknaf, in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar district, on November 26, 2016. Alam's short life ended on November 26 in a dark, tattered tent in Bangladesh, the Rohingya child's skeletal body succumbing to illness contracted while fleeing Myanmar where his stateless people are under attack. He was six-months-old. Alam died hours after arriving at makeshift refugee camp close to Teknaf, the gateway to Cox's Bazar, a poor, densely populated coastal area already home to more than 230,000 Rohingya refugees. / AFP PHOTO / MUNIR UZ ZAMAN

Rohingya refugees sit as they wait to enter the Kutupalang Refugee Camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, November 21, 2016. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain

Rohingya Muslim perform ablution before prayer at the unregistered Rohingya Refugee Camp Leda in Teknaf near Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, November 22, 2016. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain

A Myanmar Rohingya refugee carries the body of six-month-old Alam for his burial in a refugee camp in Teknaf, in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar district, on November 26, 2016. Alam's short life ended on November 26 in a dark, tattered tent in Bangladesh, the Rohingya child's skeletal body succumbing to illness contracted while fleeing Myanmar where his stateless people are under attack. He was six-months-old. Alam died hours after arriving at makeshift refugee camp close to Teknaf, the gateway to Cox's Bazar, a poor, densely populated coastal area already home to more than 230,000 Rohingya refugees. / AFP PHOTO / MUNIR UZ ZAMAN

‘There are kidnappers here, so be careful’: traffickers preying on Rohingya children in Bangladesh camps

Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh's Ukhia district. . Photo: AFP

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Myanmar’s government has consistently denied abuses in Rakhine and puts the official death toll at 400 people – including 376 Rohingya ‘terrorists’


Myanmar

‘Staggering violence’: 6,700 Rohingya were killed in the first month of Myanmar crackdown, Medecins Sans Frontieres says

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Myanmar’s government has consistently denied abuses in Rakhine and puts the official death toll at 400 people – including 376 Rohingya ‘terrorists’

Myanmar’s government has consistently denied abuses in Rakhine and puts the official death toll at 400 people – including 376 Rohingya ‘terrorists’