6,700 Rohingyas killed in Myanmar violence: charity

KUALA LUMPUR: At least 6,700 Rohingya Muslims, including many children, were killed in the first month of violence that erupted in Myanmar’s troubled Rakhine state in August, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said.

The medical charity said the first major survey on the scale of mortality was the “clearest indication yet of the widespread violence” that began on August 25, which has driven over 600,000 Rohingya across the border to Bangladesh. Based on interviews at refugee settlements in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar region, MSF estimated at least 6,700 Rohingya - including some 730 children below the age of five - were killed by violence between August 25 and September 24.The charity, also known as Doctors without Borders, said the figures were “the most conservative” estimates.

“We met and spoke with survivors of violence in Myanmar, who are now sheltering in overcrowded and unsanitary camps in Bangladesh,” MSF’s medical director Sidney Wong said.

“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. “Gunshots were the cause of death in most cases. Others were beaten or burned to death in their houses.

“We heard reports of entire families who perished after they were locked inside their homes, while they were set alight,” Wong said in a statement. Mainly Buddhist Myanmar denies atrocities against Rohingya, and said in September that nearly 400 people died in the fighting, mostly Rohingya insurgents.