That's excellent. Thank you, sir.
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for this opportunity, and thank you for taking the time to focus on the very urgent situation in Rakhine State.
I work with a human rights organization called Fortify Rights. I've been based in Southeast Asia since 2005, working in Myanmar as well as Rakhine State. We're a non-governmental, non-profit human rights organization registered in the United States and Geneva. We are based entirely in Southeast Asia. Today I would like to share with you some information that we've been collecting with regard to the very serious—as you're well aware—human rights violations taking place in Rakhine State.
As I'm sure you have been following, hundreds of thousands have been displaced since August 25. I spent 10 days on the border. As soon as the attacks on August 25 happened, I was on my way to Bangladesh, where I managed to spend a period of about 10 days. We were conducting an in-depth investigation into the allegations of the violations as they were occurring.
To give you a brief rundown of what we know had happened, and what we've confirmed since August 25, as well as before then, there were of course the militant attacks on the 30 police outposts and one army outpost on August 25. Militants armed with sticks and knives attacked these stations. They killed 12 state security officials, which of course unleashed a ferocious response from the Myanmar military, the Myanmar police force, as well as mobs of civilians, armed mostly with swords and some other weapons as well.
We collected in-depth testimony from eyewitnesses and survivors from 31 different villages in the three townships of northern Rakhine State. That's Maungdaw, Buthidaung, and Rathedaung. We interviewed Rohingya men and women, aid workers, people who are currently trapped in villages, as well as a few fighters fighting with the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, also known as al-Yaqin. We documented a variety of killings. Myanmar army soldiers shot and killed men, women, and children of all ages, administered fatal knife wounds, and burned victims alive.
I would like to quickly illustrate three examples since August 25, one from each of the townships of northern Rakhine State. Three massacres have taken place.
One occurred on August 27. Around 10 a.m. Myanmar army soldiers arrived in Maung Nu village in Buthidaung township. Some residents fled immediately, but a large number gathered at what is essentially the largest home in the village. It's a two-storey home owned by a prominent Rohingya family. The residents in this village thought perhaps they would be safe in this home. Each room of the house, which is relatively large, was filled with huddled masses of residents. According to survivors, women and girls were downstairs, and men and boys were upstairs.
The Myanmar army surrounded this home, entered it, corralled women and young girls and took them to the house next door. One eyewitness watched as soldiers dragged the men and boys out of the house, including children as young as 12. Some of the soldiers tied their hands behind their backs. They tore veils off the women, tied them over the eyes of the men and boys, and proceeded to violently interrogate them.
Soldiers started beating the men and boys, screaming at them, and threatening them. After a period of time the detainees were made to lie face down on the ground, and Myanmar army soldiers started executing them. Soldiers shot them and in some cases used knives to inflict fatal wounds to necks. One woman, with whom we spent a period of time, witnessed soldiers shoot dead her father-in-law who was a local mullah, her brother-in-law, and his two sons who were aged 16 and 18.
The killing in this particular village on that particular day lasted for a period of about two hours. The victims ranged in age from 90 to 12. Myanmar army soldiers in some cases wrapped bodies in tarps, dumped them in a military vehicle, and drove toward the local battalion, referred to locally as the Pale Taung battalion. It's Battalion 564 of the Myanmar army.
In other villages in northern Rakhine State—and I want to stress these are just snapshots—soldiers didn't bother to wrap bodies and take them away. They burned them.