Myanmar junta soldiers slaughtered more than 50 civilians during last week’s raid on a village in Rakhine State, where the regime is facing fierce attacks from the Arakan Army (AA), according to the latest information from the ethnic armed group and survivors.
The AA said in a statement released on Sunday that it had a list of 53 victims, including two teenagers and five women.
Over 100 junta soldiers entered Byian Phyu Village in Rakhine State’s capital, Sittwe, at noon on Wednesday, forcing residents into a communal area in the center of the village, where scores of them were killed, said a woman who survived.
“We were told to gather in the center of the village. Men were separated from women. They were told to blindfold themselves with their shirts and sit in the sun. Then [the soldiers] started questioning the male villagers. If [the men] had a tattoo on their back, neck or arms, [the soldiers] stabbed the tattoos with knives. They were asked whether they were AA or not. Villagers did not have time to answer. They were shot dead immediately,” the woman told The Irrawaddy.
Junta troops blockaded the village after arresting all the villagers, including children. They were denied food and water and forced to sleep on the ground on Wednesday night, survivors said.
“We were not allowed to eat or drink. We had to sleep in the sand on the ground on the night of May 29. I cried and begged them to let me go back home and bring some food for my children, but they wouldn’t allow it,” the woman survivor told The Irrawaddy.
The women and children were allowed to cook and eat some food the following day after tearfully begging for permission to do so. On Friday, the women were taken to a field in downtown Sittwe, where they were dropped off and told to go anywhere they liked, but not to return to their village.
The surviving male villagers were kept in custody. Junta troops burnt the bodies of the slain men in the village market and took some young men to a battalion in Sittwe, according to residents.
“Some were killed in front of their families. Some [villagers] were able to identify the corpses they saw. The junta troops are still in our village,” a male resident of Byian Phyu told The Irrawaddy.
Junta soldiers also reportedly raped and killed as many as three young women in Byian Phyu. Survivors confirmed that junta soldiers took them out of the crowd allegedly to check their phones, but the three never came back.
“We also heard that three young women were raped, and two of them were killed. One of them is still missing,” AA information officer U Khaing Thukha confirmed to The Irrawaddy.
Khaing Thukha said the AA’s rival ethnic armed group in Rakhine, the Arakan Liberation Party (ALP), was also involved in the massacre in Byian Phyu.
The AA would take action to punish each and every junta soldier and ALP member involved in the massacre and rapes, and those who ordered such war crimes, it said in Sunday’s statement.
Byian Phyu is a large village with over 1,000 households. Junta troops are still deployed in the village, barring residents including the elderly and the sick from leaving.
