Myanmar: Crimes Against Humanity Terrorize and Drive Rohingya Out
More than 530,000 Rohingya men, women and children have fled northern Rakhine State in terror in a matter of weeks amid the Myanmar security forces' targeted campaign of widespread and systematic murder, rape and burning, Amnesty International said today in its most detailed analysis yet of the ongoing crisis.
WASHINGTON
More than 530,000 Rohingya men, women and children have fled northern Rakhine State in terror in a matter of weeks amid the Myanmar security forces' targeted campaign of widespread and systematic murder, rape and burning, Amnesty International said today in its most detailed analysis yet of the ongoing crisis.
'My World Is Finished': Rohingya Targeted in Crimes against Humanity in Myanmar describes how Myanmar's security forces are carrying out a systematic, organized and ruthless campaign of violence against the Rohingya population as a whole in northern Rakhine State, after a Rohingya armed group attacked around 30 security posts on 25 August.
Dozens of eyewitnesses to the worst violence consistently implicated specific units, including the Myanmar Army's Western Command, the 33rd Light Infantry Division, and the Border Guard Police.
"In this orchestrated campaign, Myanmar's security forces have brutally meted out revenge on the entire Rohingya population of northern Rakhine State, in an apparent attempt to permanently drive them out of the country. These atrocities continue to fuel the region's worst refugee crisis in decades," said Tirana Hassan, Crisis Response Director at Amnesty International.
"Exposing these heinous crimes is the first step on the long road to justice. Those responsible must be held to account; Myanmar's military can't simply sweep serious violations under the carpet by announcing another sham internal investigation. The Commander-in-Chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, must take immediate action to stop his troops from committing atrocities."
Crimes against humanity
Witness accounts, satellite imagery and data, and photo and video evidence gathered by Amnesty International all point to the same conclusion: hundreds of thousands of Rohingya women, men, and children have been the victims of a widespread and systematic attack, amounting to crimes against humanity.
The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court lists 11 types of acts which, when knowingly committed during such an attack, constitute crimes against humanity. Amnesty International has consistently documented at least six of these amid the current wave of violence in northern Rakhine State: murder, deportation and forcible displacement, torture, rape and other sexual violence, persecution, and other inhumane acts such as denying food and other life-saving provisions.
This conclusion is based on testimonies from more than 120 Rohingya men and women who have fled to Bangladesh in recent weeks, as well as 30 interviews with medical professionals, aid workers, journalists and Bangladeshi officials.
Amnesty International's experts corroborated many witness accounts of the Myanmar security forces' crimes by analysing satellite imagery and data, as well as verifying photographs and video footage taken inside Rakhine State. The organization has also requested access to Rakhine State to investigate abuses on the ground, including by members of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), the Rohingya armed group. Amnesty International continues to call for unfettered access to the UN Fact-Finding Mission and other independent observers.
Murder and massacres
In the hours and days following the ARSA attacks on 25 August, the Myanmar security forces, sometimes joined by local vigilantes, surrounded Rohingya villages throughout the northern part of Rakhine State. As Rohingya women, men, and children fled their homes, the soldiers and police officers often opened fire, killing or seriously injuring at least hundreds of people.
Survivors described running to nearby hills and rice fields, where they hid until the forces left. The elderly and people with disabilities were often unable to flee, and burned to death in their homes after the military set them alight.
This pattern was replicated in dozens of villages across Maungdaw, Rathedaung, and Buthidaung townships. But the security forces, and in particular the Myanmar military, appear to have unleashed their most lethal response in specific villages near where ARSA carried out its attacks.
Amnesty International documented events in five such villages where at least a dozen people were killed: Chein Kar Li, Koe Tan Kauk, and Chut Pyin, all in Rathedaung Township; and Inn Din and Min Gyi, in Maungdaw Township. In Chut Pyin and Min Gyi, the death toll was particularly high, with at least scores of Rohingya women, men, and children killed by Myanmar security forces.
Amnesty International interviewed 17 survivors of the massacre in Chut Pyin, six of whom had gunshot wounds. Almost all had lost at least one family member, with some losing many. They consistently described the Myanmar military, joined by Border Guard Police and local vigilantes, surrounding Chut Pyin, opening fire on those fleeing, and then systematically burning Rohingya houses and buildings.
Fatima, 12, told Amnesty International that she was at home with her parents, eight siblings, and grandmother when they saw fire rising from another part of their village. As the family ran out of their house, she said men in uniform opened fire on them from behind. She saw both her father and 10-year-old sister get shot, then Fatima was also hit in the back of her right leg, just above the knee.
"I fell down, but my neighbour grabbed me and carried me," she recalled. After a week on the run, she finally received treatment in Bangladesh. Her mother and older brother were also killed in Chut Pyin.
Amnesty International sent photographs of Fatima's wound to a forensic medical expert, who said it was consistent with a bullet wound that "would have entered the thigh from behind." Medical professionals in Bangladesh described treating many wounds that appeared to have been caused by gunshots fired from behind -matching consistent witness testimony that the military fired on Rohingya as they tried to run away.
In Chein Kar Li and Koe Tan Kauk, two neighbouring villages, Amnesty International documented the same pattern of attack by the Myanmar military.
Sona Mia, 77, said he was at home in Koe Tan Kauk when Myanmar soldiers surrounded the village and opened fire on 27 August. His 20-year-old daughter, Rayna Khatun, had a disability that left her unable to walk or speak. One of his sons put her on his shoulders, and the family slowly made its way toward the hill on the village's edge. As they heard the shooting get closer and closer, they decided they had to leave Rayna in a Rohingya house that had been abandoned.
"We didn't think we'd be able to make it," Sona Mia recalled. "I told her to sit there, we'd come back... After arriving on the hill, we spotted the house where we left her. It was a bit away, but we could see. The soldiers were burning [houses], and eventually we saw that house, it was burned too."
After the military left the village in the late afternoon, Sona Mia's sons went down and found Rayna Khatun's burnt body among the torched house. They dug a grave at the edge of that house's courtyard, and buried her there.
Rape and other sexual violence
Amnesty International interviewed seven Rohingya survivors of sexual violence committed by the Myanmar security forces. Of those, four women and a 15-year-old girl had been raped, each in a separate group with between two and five other women and girls who were also raped. The rapes occurred in two villages that the organization investigated: Min Gyi in Maungdaw Township and Kyun Pauk in Buthidaung Township.
As previously documented by Human Rights Watch and The Guardian, after entering Min Gyi (known locally as Tula Toli) on the morning of 30 August, Myanmar soldiers pursued Rohingya villagers who fled down to the riverbank and then separated the men and older boys from the women and younger children.
After opening fire on and executing at least scores of men and older boys, as well as some women and younger children, the soldiers took women in groups to nearby houses where they raped them, before setting fire to those houses and other Rohingya parts of the village.
S.K., 30, told Amnesty International that after watching the executions, she and many other women and younger children were taken to a ditch, where they were forced to stand in knee-deep water:
"They took the women in groups to different houses. ...There were five of us [women], taken by four soldiers [in military uniform]. They took our money, our possessions, and then they beat us with a wooden stick. My children were with me. They hit them too. Shafi, my two-year-old son, he was hit hard with a wooden stick. One hit, and he was dead... Three of my children were killed. Mohamed Osman (10) [and] Mohamed Saddiq (five) too. Other women [in the house] also had children [with them] that were killed.
"All of the women were stripped naked...They had very strong wooden sticks. They first hit us in the head, to make us weak. Then they hit us [in the vagina] with the wooden sticks. Then they raped us. A different soldier for each [woman]."
After raping women and girls, the soldiers set fire to the houses, killing many of the victims inside.
Deliberate, organized village burnings
On 3 October, the UN Operational Satellite Applications Programme (UNOSAT) reported that it had identified 20.7 square kilometres of buildings destroyed by fire in Maungdaw and Buthidaung Townships since 25 August. Even that likely underestimated the overall scale of destruction and burning, as dense cloud cover affected what the satellites were able to detect.
Amnesty International's own review of fire data from remote satellite sensing indicates at least 156 large fires in northern Rakhine State since 25 August, also likely to be an underestimate. In the previous five years, no fires were detected during the same period, which is also the monsoon season, strongly indicating that the burning has been intentional.
Before and after satellite images strikingly illustrate what witnesses also consistently told Amnesty International - that the Myanmar security forces only burned Rohingya villages or areas. For example, satellite images of Inn Din and Min Gyi show large swathes of structures razed by fire virtually side by side with areas that were left untouched. Distinct features of the untouched areas, combined with accounts from Rohingya residents as to where they and other ethnic communities lived in those villages, indicate that only Rohingya areas were razed.
Amnesty International has noted a similar pattern in at least a dozen more villages where Rohingya lived in close proximity to people from other ethnicities.
"Given their ongoing denials, Myanmar's authorities may have thought they would literally get away with murder on a massive scale. But modern technology, coupled with rigorous human rights research, have tipped the scales against them," said Tirana Hassan.
"It is time for the international community to move beyond public outcry and take action to end the campaign of violence that has driven more than half the Rohingya population out of Myanmar. Through cutting off military cooperation, imposing arms embargoes and targeted sanctions on individuals responsible for abuses, a clear message must be sent that the military's crimes against humanity in Rakhine State will not be tolerated.
"The international community must ensure that the ethnic cleansing campaign does not achieve its unlawful, reprehensible goal. To do so, the international community must combine encouraging and supporting Bangladesh in providing adequate conditions and safe asylum to Rohingya refugees, with ensuring that Myanmar respects their human right to return safely, voluntarily and with dignity to their country and insisting that it ends, once and for all, the systematic discrimination against the Rohingya and other root causes of the current crisis."
Amnesty International is a worldwide movement of people who campaign for internationally recognized human rights for all. Our supporters are outraged by human rights abuses but inspired by hope for a better world - so we work to improve human rights through campaigning and international solidarity. We have more than 2.2 million members and subscribers in more than 150 countries and regions and we coordinate this support to act for justice on a wide range of issues.
"Why don't you pry carrot cake out of my cold, dead hands and give us back Medicaid coverage for millions instead," replied Democratic Sen. Mark Warner.
U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz appeared on Fox Business on Monday, where he presented a carrot cake to celebrate Medicaid's 60th birthday and brushed aside concerns about the millions of Americans likely to lose their healthcare coverage under recently passed Republican legislation—by telling people to not eat carrot cake.
Oz—the multimillionaire erstwhile celebrity surgeon, purveyor of "miracle" cures, and failed U.S. Senate candidate—gave Fox Business host Stuart Varney what he called a "MAHA Medi-cake" before proceeding to extol the virtues of Medicaid, the program launched during then-President Lyndon B. Johnson's "Great Society" agenda that provides health insurance to more than 70 million lower-income Americans.
Medicaid "was a promise to the American people to take care of you if you are having problems financially or if you were having an issue because you're older and needed healthcare," Oz said. "And it changed the country in a good way for many reasons."
"But we're all in it together, Stuart," he added, "which means we'll be there for you, the American people, when you need help with Medicaid and Medicare, but you've got to stay healthy as well. Be healthy, do the most you can do to really live up to the potential, your God-given potential to live a full and healthy life, you know, don't eat carrot cake, eat real food."
17 million people are going to lose their health insurance because of the Trump administration.Dr. Oz's advice is “don’t eat carrot cake.”
Social media users roundly ridiculed Oz's remarks, with criticism centered around the estimated 17 million people who will be left uninsured under the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed by President Donald Trump earlier this month. The legislation contains the largest Medicaid cuts in history.
"Why don't you pry carrot cake out of my cold, dead hands and give us back Medicaid coverage for millions instead," Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) wrote on Bluesky.
Another Bluesky user wrote, "Carrot cake didn't give me cancer, dumbass."
Yet another said, "Um... your boss eats McDonald's every chance he gets and you are judging people eating carrot cake," a reference to Trump's legendary fondness for Big Macs, Filet-O-Fish sandwiches, and vanilla shakes.
Still another quipped, "First he came for my crudites, now my carrot cake."
"Carrot cake didn't give me cancer, dumbass."
Over on X, one account with over 130,000 followers said: "What an insensitive prick as he brings a piece of carrot cake to Stu Varney during the interview. Republicans seem so gleeful to be hurting Americans. This is why millionaires and billionaires should never be in Congress or the [White House]."
The Occupy Democrats X account also weighed in, posting, "It's not enough for them to take away our healthcare, Republicans want to blame us for getting sick."
"The idea that avoiding carrot cake in favor of healthier foods will somehow render Americans immune to health problems is insulting in the extreme," Occupy Democrats continued. "Rather than 'let them eat cake,' he's telling us 'do not eat cake,' but the sentiment is every bit as out of touch as Marie Antoinette's apocryphal quote."
"MAHA stands for 'Make America Healthy Again,' an Orwellian phrase deployed by an administration that is actively making Americans sicker by stripping away their healthcare," the account added. "This is what Republicans really think of the American people. They ram through policies making our lives worse in countless ways, then they laugh at us and spit in our faces. There has never been a more gleefully spiteful political movement."
The U.S. government on Monday awarded a $200 million contract to Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company, despite the tech billionaire's ongoing spat with President Donald Trump and his AI chatbot's recent praise for Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
The Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office announced contract awards to Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, and Musk's xAI "to accelerate Department of Defense (DOD) adoption of advanced AI capabilities to address critical national security challenges."
Last week, xAI garnered sweeping condemnation after Grok, the chatbot built into Musk's social media platform X—formerly known as Twitter—started spewing antisemitic content and calling itself "MechaHitler."
Meanwhile, Musk and Trump have been at odds since shortly after the richest man on Earth left the president's administration, in which he was the de facto leader of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. Musk's involvement in the administration generated widespread concern, both because of DOGE's efforts to gut the federal government and because his various companies get so much money from federal contracts.
In a Monday statement about "Grok for Government," xAI not only confirmed the new DOD contract but also said that its products will be "available to purchase via the General Services Administration (GSA) schedule. This allows every federal government department, agency, or office, to access xAI's frontier AI products."
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The Trump administration's new money for Musk drew intense criticism on various platforms, including X—where Congresswoman Becca Balint (D-Vt.) wrote that "despite the social media wars, the Trump-Elon corruption machine is alive and well."
Kat Abughazaleh, a progressive Democrat running in Illinois' 9th Congressional District, said: "Stop entertaining this man. Stop giving him money. It's really that simple."
Abughazaleh also pointed to her past with Musk—she was laid off from the nonprofit watchdog Media Matters for America as it faced financial strain from legal battles, including what the billionaire described as a "thermonuclear lawsuit."
"Elon Musk cost me my job, deposed me for being too mean to him online, and now he's responsible for tens of thousands of job losses while getting hundreds of millions of our tax dollars," she noted. "I'm running for Congress to stop men like him."
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Nina Turner, a former progressive congressional candidate from Ohio, noted that "the Pentagon, which has failed seven straight audits, just gave $200,000,000 of our tax dollars to Elon Musk to use xAI. Meanwhile, funding for food banks [was] cut in the name of 'efficiency.'"
"What we saw was New Yorkers' hunger for a new kind of politics," said Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani of the primary race. "I understand that it is difficult for the former governor to come to terms with that."
Speaking at an event with a major local musicians union Monday after receiving its endorsement in the New York City mayoral race, Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani offered his perspective on why former Gov. Andrew Cuomo had just announced the launch of an independent bid for mayor nearly three weeks after a stunning loss to his progressive rival.
"I think he's struggling to come to terms with what Tuesday meant," said Mamdani, referring to the June 24 Democratic primary. "We spent an entire campaign being told that it was inevitable for Andrew Cuomo to become the next mayor. And he believed that himself. And what we saw was New Yorkers' hunger for a new kind of politics... I understand that it is difficult for the former governor to come to terms with that because it is a repudiation of the kind of politics that he has practiced."
Progressives on Monday said Cuomo, who was forced to resign from office in 2021 after an investigation found he had sexually harassed at least 11 women, was showing disregard for the clear results of last month's election, in which Mamdani shocked the Democratic establishment by winning the most votes of any primary candidate in New York City's history. The democratic socialist won the election by nearly 13 percentage points in the final round of ranked choice voting.
Numerous critics, including one of Cuomo's accusers, alluded to his history of sexual misconduct in their responses to his announcement.
"True to form, Andrew Cuomo once again refuses to accept that no means no," said New York state Assemblymember Phara Souffrant Forrest (D-57).
On the social media platform X, Cuomo posted a video announcing his independent run—which Mamdani took as an opportunity to post his own campaign donation link, immediately garnering far more engagement from social media users than Cuomo's announcement did.
— (@)
Cuomo said in the video that "the fight to save our city isn't over," and warned that Mamdani offers "slick slogans but no solutions" even as he appeared to copy the democratic socialist's recent campaign videos, which have shown Mamdani engaging with New Yorkers eager to shake his hand.
Some posited that Cuomo was likely "miserable" about having to participate in the type of retail politics Mamdani has excelled in, alluding to a quote from one of the candidate's most vocal backers after he lost the primary.
"All of us have a blind spot," former Gov. David Paterson told The New York Times. "His blind spot is that he doesn't really connect particularly well with, just, people."
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Mamdani also poked fun at Cuomo for "making man-on-the-street videos with a guy in Carhartt" and joked that the former governor is likely to pander to New York City's Arab population.
"By next week, he'll be sipping adeni chai and eating khaliat al nahl," he said.
The Times reported that Cuomo launched his campaign after making a deal with Mamdani's other challengers, including Republican Curtis Sliwa and independent candidates Mayor Eric Adams and attorney Jim Walden. Cuomo has said he will drop out of the race if he not the front-running challenger by early September, and will encourage the other candidates to do the same.
As Nia Prater wrote at New York magazine on Monday, the strategy "appears to be acknowledging an unavoidable reality of the race: that having multiple candidates vying for the same bloc of moderate and conservative voters will likely favor Mamdani's candidacy."
In a recent Data for Progress poll, Mamdani was shown to have the support of 40% of respondents, with Cuomo in second at 24%. Adams had 15%, while Sliwa had 14% and Walden was in last place with 1%.
"In addition, the poll found that Democratic voters preferred Mamdani by 52% compared to 32% for Cuomo and 8% for Adams," reported Prater. "Voters also appeared to have low opinions of both Cuomo and Adams. Seventy percent of respondents said they had an unfavorable opinion of Adams compared to 29% favorable, while 59% viewed Cuomo unfavorably compared to 39% who said they had a favorable opinion of the former governor."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who endorsed Mamdani in the primary, said the poll was a good sign for the progressive candidate.
"But don't kid yourself," he said. "The billionaires will spend endlessly to defeat him. This is an election of national significance. Either we develop a strong progressive working-class movement, or we end up with oligarchy and authoritarianism."
Along with ridiculing Cuomo's attempt to wrest control of the nation's largest city from a candidate who has focused his campaign on making life more affordable for working families, Mamdani's campaign also condemned Cuomo for taking millions of dollars in donations from Republican billionaires and supporters of President Donald Trump.
"While Andrew Cuomo and Eric Adams are tripping over themselves to cut backroom deals with billionaires and Republicans, Zohran Mamdani is focused on making this city more affordable for New Yorkers," campaign spokesperson Jeffrey Lerner told the Times. "That's the choice this November."